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On March 30 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 02:55 Fleetfeet wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? I don't get what your point is. They didn't succeed in anything so it wasn't a threat? Holding a knife to a congressperson's throat should be an american right? Trump is so stupid that the counter-coup would be easy anyways? Look BJ is just a centrist concerned about principles and the rule of law, which is why he’ll downplay Jan 6th while frequently railing against riots associated with the BLM movement.
I get what you are saying but undoubtedly the BLM riots had more impact on the average American's life, either through direct effects on those who had their businesses destroyed or through the changes in policy they produced.
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On March 30 2024 03:41 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:On March 30 2024 02:55 Fleetfeet wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? I don't get what your point is. They didn't succeed in anything so it wasn't a threat? Holding a knife to a congressperson's throat should be an american right? Trump is so stupid that the counter-coup would be easy anyways? Look BJ is just a centrist concerned about principles and the rule of law, which is why he’ll downplay Jan 6th while frequently railing against riots associated with the BLM movement. I get what you are saying but undoubtedly the BLM riots had more impact on the average American's life, either through direct effects on those who had their businesses destroyed or through the changes in policy they produced.
Come on, this is asinine. You’re comparing a movement of millions of Americans staging public protests about racial injustice to one of a few thousand partisans trying to intimidate Congress into throwing out results of a democratic election. And your main point of comparison is “well, you know, the former probably had a greater overall impact on the average American.”
Sure, I agree! If nothing else, they’re more likely to have *participated* in the former, or know someone who has! Can you think of any other points of contrast?
It is my belief that public demonstrations on political issues are fundamentally a legitimate democratic exercise, while an effort to overturn a legitimate election, especially by threatening violence on elected officials, is not. Do we share this belief? I would have assumed so but at the moment it seems worth confirming explicitly!
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As far as Jan 6th goes, for me, the pertinent question to ask is…
“If Capitol police did not disperse the riot, what would have happened?”
It seems the answer to that would be quite a few dead politicians, including Mike Pence, and the remaining ones either strongarmed into electing Trump or openly courting the masses. There likely would then be Trump declaring a state of emergency, some sort of military response that involves killing some of the rioters, and then either Trump claiming a legitimate re-election or remaining electors (majority Rs) proclaiming the electing process needs to be postponed until the killed politicians get replacements selected in a series of special elections. Either way, Trump remains in power for longer than he’s supposed to, with a plethora of consequences not limited to but including: normalizing politically motivated violence in the US, undermined global trust in Western-style liberal-capitalist democracies, undermined global trust in US institutions (including the dollar), and upending centuries-old precedents of US government procedures. (Haha as I’m rereading this I’m thinking “man this checks all of GH’s boxes =P).
So anyone who is downplaying the severity of Jan 6th in my mind either A) believes different consequences would occur, or B) doesn’t think these consequences are a bad thing (or thinks they’re a good thing). If A, that person has some explaining to do to convince me my listed consequences aren’t accurate, and if B then I would conclude that person does not care about the US.
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United States24628 Posts
Just a point of clarification... it wasn't just the "Capitol police [dispersing] the riot"... it was actually a single officer's quick thinking that prevented, at least the first step of, the outcome you described. The charging rioters were steps from an unsecured door leading to congress, and an officer tricked the mob into traveling the wrong direction long enough for the door to get barred. If you haven't seen it, check the video out.
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On March 30 2024 01:52 Sadist wrote:
Hes guilty of attempting a coup for the fake elector plot. That WAS organized. Jan 6th is obviously a plot as well but he can play the riot got out of hand card. The fake electors were 100% pre meditated. All of them should be in jail.
I agree with this. It seems to me that what is really important and frightening flies under the radar. If Trump gets a second term, it's going to be seen as a mandate to cheat in the election and it's going to be that much harder for people to do the right thing.
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Norway28597 Posts
I'm fine with the opinion that 'lots of the people who participated in jan 6th didn't know that they were participating in a coup' type or reasoning. I'm not sure it's correct but I'm also fine with 'it was such an idiotic attempt it had no chance of succeeding'. (This has kinda been my own opinion, but again, not sure it's correct).
But no matter how you slice it Trump is guilty of a coup attempt. (and yes, not just because of jan 6th in isolation, but also because of jan 6th.) There's no defending him through any of this, even if you want to maintain belief in american institutions/democracy/forgive a bunch of the jan 6 rioters because they were frauded/idiots.
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United States42249 Posts
On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate?
The plan was to punt it back to the state legislatures. The election wouldn’t be given to Trump by the mob, the electors would be prevented from giving it to Biden. The Republican controlled state legislatures would then declare that with all the voter fraud they felt like Trump won.
They took minutes in their plan. It’s documented.
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On March 30 2024 03:41 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 03:24 Gorsameth wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? it would obviously be illegitimate. And? Who is going to enforce that? And we're back to hoping the army 'does the right thing' and that their oath to the constitution out way their possibly loyalty to Trump. An issue the rest of the first and second world doesn't have to consider. But America apparently does. Um, yeah. If the army wanted to support an illegitimate government they wouldn't need permission from the shaman guy and his army of neckbeards. I don't understand this line of reasoning. The rebellion was squashed and the full weight of the justice system is coming down on them. How am I supposed to respond to "oh yeah but what if that didn't happen." What if the capitol police joined the mob too and started blasting all the congress people. What then, BJ?!? Are you just going to hope they do the right thing and not murder people?!
Respectfully, I find it hard to believe you’re this stupid, and I don’t, so I’ll try and explain it to you. The reason people care about hypotheticals like this is because engaging with these hypotheticals leads to insights on why we should (or should not) put in effort to prevent similar events from occurring again. As many others have pointed out, there are no assurances that this won’t happen again, and if it does there’s certainly no assurances that the Capitol police will be able to handle the situation as well as last time. The divide between parties has expanded not shrunk, and to my knowledge the Capitol police unit has not been strengthened in a meaningful way to better deter future incidents. Finally, the perpetrators have become martyrs for a sizable group of people in the country and people in positions of power (e.g. Trump) regularly validate their actions.
The above leads me to believe it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that this would happen again, which again affirms the value of engaging with the hypothetical. You can continue shoving your fingers in your ears and shouting “nah nah I’m not listening” I guess, but if you want to convince people and change minds you’d be better off telling us what you think the consequences of a future insurrection riot would be and why you apparently don’t think that’s a big deal.
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United States42249 Posts
To those doubting that there was a conspiracy or who may be unaware, Christopher Miller, the non approved Acting Defense Secretary (after Mark Esper resigned over disagreements with Trump), issued this memo on Jan 4 2021 that explicitly barred the DC National Guard from being deployed in response to a protest. It also forbade them from assisting the capitol police and other law enforcement.
![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Christopher_Miller_memo_of_Jan_4_2021.jpg)
It’s an astonishing document.
The head of the DC National Guard, Major General William Walker, testified that it was that memo that prevented him from deploying the guard in defence of the capitol.
Guard officials located with Major General Walker at the Armory all say he seriously contemplated aloud the possibility of breaking with the chain of command,” according to the report. “‘Should we just deploy now and resign tomorrow?’ [an officer] recalled Major General Walker bluntly putting it.”
Walker told the committee he “would have done just that,” had acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy not sent out two memos just days earlier.
For a spontaneous mob attack that was probably antifa anyway there sure was a lot of preparation by Trump’s team.
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Honestly, that's more preparation than I thought they were capable of.
Where are the minutes you referred to?
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So apparently their justification for doing that was that they had been slamed in the media a couple of months earlier for putting in the National Guard against rioters. I can't tell how reasonable that defense is.
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On March 30 2024 07:04 Elroi wrote:
So apparently their justification for doing that was that they had been slamed in the media a couple of months earlier for putting in the National Guard against rioters. I can't tell how reasonable that defense is.
Yeah I found a Snopes article (a very dem friendly website) saying it and the actions outlined in another memo were at the request of DC officials.
Rewind a few days, and, according to the Department of Defense, D.C. officials requested that the district's Metropolitan Police department — not a federal agency — lead security efforts during the pro-Trump events, which were widely marketed as gatherings of Trump supporters to try to send a message to Congress to halt a ceremonial vote affirming Biden's win.
A Jan. 5 document signed by McCarthy and obtained by Snopes (displayed below) showed the Pentagon ultimately fulfilled that request, saying that its troops would provide support for the district police department or Capitol Hill Police, should they need it. Some 340 Guard members were planning to control crowds at metro stations and enforce street closures during the events, and a "Quick Reaction Force" comprised of 40 Guard officers was standing by, no matter what.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/national-guard-capitol-riot/
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On March 30 2024 04:17 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 03:41 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:On March 30 2024 02:55 Fleetfeet wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? I don't get what your point is. They didn't succeed in anything so it wasn't a threat? Holding a knife to a congressperson's throat should be an american right? Trump is so stupid that the counter-coup would be easy anyways? Look BJ is just a centrist concerned about principles and the rule of law, which is why he’ll downplay Jan 6th while frequently railing against riots associated with the BLM movement. I get what you are saying but undoubtedly the BLM riots had more impact on the average American's life, either through direct effects on those who had their businesses destroyed or through the changes in policy they produced. Come on, this is asinine. You’re comparing a movement of millions of Americans staging public protests about racial injustice to one of a few thousand partisans trying to intimidate Congress into throwing out results of a democratic election. And your main point of comparison is “well, you know, the former probably had a greater overall impact on the average American.” Sure, I agree! If nothing else, they’re more likely to have *participated* in the former, or know someone who has! Can you think of any other points of contrast? It is my belief that public demonstrations on political issues are fundamentally a legitimate democratic exercise, while an effort to overturn a legitimate election, especially by threatening violence on elected officials, is not. Do we share this belief? I would have assumed so but at the moment it seems worth confirming explicitly!
We were talking about riots, nor protests. I'm talking about people who lit stuff in fire, for example. Def more impact than Jan 6
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United States42249 Posts
On March 30 2024 06:56 Belisarius wrote:
Honestly, that's more preparation than I thought they were capable of.
Where are the minutes you referred to?
Just five days after Election Day in 2020, a conservative lawyer named Kenneth Chesebro emailed a former judge who was working for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, James R. Troupis, pitching an idea for how to overturn the results.
Through litigation, Mr. Chesebro said, the Trump campaign could allege “various systemic abuses” and, with court proceedings pending, encourage legislatures to appoint “alternative” pro-Trump electors that could be certified instead of the Biden electors chosen by the voters.
“At minimum, with such a cloud of confusion, no votes from WI (and perhaps also MI and PA) should be counted, perhaps enough to throw the election to the House,” Mr. Chesebro wrote to Mr. Troupis, referring to the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Mr. Troupis quickly brought Mr. Chesebro into the Trump legal team, directed him to lay out the plans in a series of memos now central to the indictment of Donald J. Trump and a month later — with the help of Reince Priebus, the former White House chief of staff — secured a meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House.
The email is the earliest known evidence of Mr. Chesebro’s involvement in what would become known as the false elector plot. It was released Monday along with a trove of more than 1,400 pages of text messages and emails belonging to Mr. Troupis and Mr. Chesebro as they settled a lawsuit against them filed in Wisconsin.
Taken together, the documents show in new detail how the Trump campaign’s litigation strategy was not designed to win in court as much as it was designed to give cover for their political efforts. And they underscore the central role that Mr. Troupis — previously a little-known figure in the effort to overturn the election — played in furthering the plans.
The messages also detail how Mr. Chesebro worked to get the false-electors documents into the hands of members of Congress, and how Mr. Chesebro — who has since pleaded guilty in Georgia to a felony conspiracy charge related to the scheme — celebrated the crowd that was gathering in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, before a violent mob stormed the Capitol.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/us/politics/chesebro-troupis-jan-6-messages.html
After they lost the election they followed an explicit and documented strategy of disrupting the certification of the electors and the transfer of power in order to toss it to the Republican controlled state legislatures. They wrote the plan down. 1,400 memos, emails, and text messages including the “At minimum, with such a cloud of confusion, no votes from WI (and perhaps also MI and PA) should be counted, perhaps enough to throw the election to the House,”
encourage legislatures to appoint “alternative” pro-Trump electors that could be certified instead of the Biden electors chosen by the voters. above.
The idea that they didn’t plan to storm the capitol and physically prevent the certification of the Biden victory is undermined by the literal plan to do it.
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lighting a car on fire is a bigger impact then a mob charging for Congress shouting "hang Mike Pence", who were determined enough to require the use of deadly force to stop.
And some wonder why we don't stay quite about the attempts to paint them as martyrs and political prisoners.
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On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 03:41 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 03:24 Gorsameth wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? it would obviously be illegitimate. And? Who is going to enforce that? And we're back to hoping the army 'does the right thing' and that their oath to the constitution out way their possibly loyalty to Trump. An issue the rest of the first and second world doesn't have to consider. But America apparently does. Um, yeah. If the army wanted to support an illegitimate government they wouldn't need permission from the shaman guy and his army of neckbeards. I don't understand this line of reasoning. The rebellion was squashed and the full weight of the justice system is coming down on them. How am I supposed to respond to "oh yeah but what if that didn't happen." What if the capitol police joined the mob too and started blasting all the congress people. What then, BJ?!? Are you just going to hope they do the right thing and not murder people?! Respectfully, I find it hard to believe you’re this stupid, and I don’t, so I’ll try and explain it to you. The reason people care about hypotheticals like this is because engaging with these hypotheticals leads to insights on why we should (or should not) put in effort to prevent similar events from occurring again. As many others have pointed out, there are no assurances that this won’t happen again, and if it does there’s certainly no assurances that the Capitol police will be able to handle the situation as well as last time. The divide between parties has expanded not shrunk, and to my knowledge the Capitol police unit has not been strengthened in a meaningful way to better deter future incidents. Finally, the perpetrators have become martyrs for a sizable group of people in the country and people in positions of power (e.g. Trump) regularly validate their actions. The above leads me to believe it is absolutely within the realm of possibility that this would happen again, which again affirms the value of engaging with the hypothetical. You can continue shoving your fingers in your ears and shouting “nah nah I’m not listening” I guess, but if you want to convince people and change minds you’d be better off telling us what you think the consequences of a future insurrection riot would be and why you apparently don’t think that’s a big deal.
I have no problem with hypotheticals like "can this happen again" or "how can we better prepared for this." I take issue when hypotheticals that weren't even close to happening are pretended to be plausible or likely just to push the argument that the Jan 6 mob nearly succeeded.
The problem with the line of reasoning many people are employing in this thread is that we saw that the further the mob got the more disgusted average Americans became, not just at the mob but also directly at Trump. The two are inversely related. The idea that if the mob just got a little further Trump would have found the support he needs to stay in power is the opposite conclusion that should be drawn.
In fact one of the biggest criticisms of Trump on Jan 6th is that everyone around him was pleading with him to get on television and call down the mob to end the insanity. Not even his closest advisers and family were on board with this and yet people want to pretend that Trump would have found the support from someone (electors, the courts, the army) to continue as a dictator.
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On March 30 2024 07:45 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 04:17 ChristianS wrote:On March 30 2024 03:41 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 03:29 WombaT wrote:On March 30 2024 02:55 Fleetfeet wrote:On March 30 2024 02:16 BlackJack wrote:On March 29 2024 22:16 Belisarius wrote:
It's absolutely true that these goons were not some elite soviet takeover squad. They were idiots without a plan, no question. But the really important thing is that they didn't need a plan to be a genuine threat.
Democracy is a very fragile, low-entropy state. It depends on a lot of powerful people actively and consistently working against their own short term interests, in service to a fairly nebulous long-term shared goal. It doesn't take much at all to disrupt that.
To me, all the darkest timelines involve:
1. Trump switching from bitter, impotent old man to open insurrectionist once he realises there is an opportunity.
2. The R's in Congress being willing to certify for him and declare some kind of state of emergency
3. The military and the other organs of power failing to immediately resist this, and allowing power to crystallize.
Personally 1 and 2 seem very plausible. Trump would have no scruples at all about taking the crown if he thought he could. And you would absolutely be able to find some rump 30% congress willing to hand him that crown if you got in the chamber and killed and dispersed enough Ds and old-guard Rs. The mob was openly trying to do this of its own accord.
So, really, the survival of the whole edifice depended on the on-site law enforcement blocking or regaining control before Trump decided to take the mask off and stand them down. If that had failed, multiple organs of government would have had to turn against the newly congress-certified commander in chief, which would have basically constituted a counter-coup in itself. Maybe we could have trusted this to happen, but boy it's terrifying to be so close to testing that out.
All up, all it might have taken was a bit of extra entropy. These idiots were almost the crowbar that opened the gap to a world where enough powerful people saw their short- and long-term interests aligning for autocracy. The crowbar doesn't have to be smart, it just has to open the door. Sure we were just shades away from the Shaman guy swearing in Trump as Supreme leader while flanked by Boebert and MTG. Which would have taken heroic levels of “counter-coup” to undo. You honestly believe that if terrorists put a knife to congresspeople’s throats and demand they vote a certain way that whatever they voted for would be legitimate? I don't get what your point is. They didn't succeed in anything so it wasn't a threat? Holding a knife to a congressperson's throat should be an american right? Trump is so stupid that the counter-coup would be easy anyways? Look BJ is just a centrist concerned about principles and the rule of law, which is why he’ll downplay Jan 6th while frequently railing against riots associated with the BLM movement. I get what you are saying but undoubtedly the BLM riots had more impact on the average American's life, either through direct effects on those who had their businesses destroyed or through the changes in policy they produced. Come on, this is asinine. You’re comparing a movement of millions of Americans staging public protests about racial injustice to one of a few thousand partisans trying to intimidate Congress into throwing out results of a democratic election. And your main point of comparison is “well, you know, the former probably had a greater overall impact on the average American.” Sure, I agree! If nothing else, they’re more likely to have *participated* in the former, or know someone who has! Can you think of any other points of contrast? It is my belief that public demonstrations on political issues are fundamentally a legitimate democratic exercise, while an effort to overturn a legitimate election, especially by threatening violence on elected officials, is not. Do we share this belief? I would have assumed so but at the moment it seems worth confirming explicitly! We were talking about riots, nor protests. I'm talking about people who lit stuff in fire, for example. Def more impact than Jan 6
While BLM protests have - on very rare occasions - led to some people rioting and causing property damage, saying that those riots have (or don't have) as much of an "impact" compared to the January 6th coup attempt is very different from focusing on the rationale and motivation for the BLM rioters vs. the Jan 6th insurrectionists. The BLM rioters rioted because respectfully and silently protesting wasn't fixing the systemic discrimination they'd been facing; the January 6th insurrectionists tried to overthrow the government because they bought in to Trump's stochastic terrorism and fascism and treason and election denial.
The January 6th riot also resulted in property damage and death, and its objective was to undermine democracy, as opposed to advocate for civil rights. It's not like the insurrectionists were peaceful, whereas most BLM protesters did not participate in any violence.
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