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United States41661 Posts
On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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.
In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power.
1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election.
2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won.
Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech.
Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
...
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
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They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
...
Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories.
So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason.
So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all?
People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step.
All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president
Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back.
Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power".
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Trump's theory was/is almost certainly wrong. There was no constitutional/state law mechanism for sending a new slate of electors. By the time Jan 6 happened all the deadlines had passed. Even before then it was highly dubious. And the GOP caucus leaders in each relevant state said as much as well, from memory the appetite for even trying was basically non existent among those majorities. There may have been bluster but not a single state body actually took any action.
All Pence not certifying would have done is delay the inevitable.
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United States41661 Posts
Had state legislatures said that they believed Trump won, and a lot of Republican state legislators will proudly stand up and declare that belief today, who was going to enforce the Biden succession? The rules depend on a general respect for them, they're not equipped with their own enforcement mechanism.
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The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence.
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United States24502 Posts
The constitutional legality of Trump's theory doesn't really matter since the election was stolen. Trump actually won it, so the important thing is that Trump gets to stay in the White House for the 2021-2025 term. Any patriotic method to block Biden from taking the White House is justified and creates the necessary opportunity to fix the paperwork so that Trump is the new president. There may have been some administrative shortcuts to resolve the issue, but the ends justify the means. Trump won, and so Trump became a second-term president.
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United States41661 Posts
On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence.
Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/
Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public.
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On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public.
Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. This is the core problem for what you are saying, you are positing hypotheticals for a time already passed.
As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024. And the whole party has not been replaced, in Georgia in particular both Kemp and Raffensperger won their primaries and then elections. Legislators have learned that lip service is more important to Trump than results
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United States41661 Posts
On March 30 2024 11:09 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public. Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024.
Are you at very least on board with the idea that Trump had a specific plan to overturn the election by attacking the capitol and pushing it back to the state legislatures? The plan that he explained during the speech inciting the attack on the capitol. That plan. Because getting consensus on that, which is literally something Trump himself explained, feels like it would be progress.
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On March 30 2024 11:13 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 11:09 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public. Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024. Are you at very least on board with the idea that Trump had a specific plan to overturn the election by attacking the capitol and pushing it back to the state legislatures? The plan that he explained during the speech inciting the attack on the capitol. That plan. Because getting consensus on that, which is literally something Trump himself explained, feels like it would be progress.
I think he wanted to generate political pressure on Congress to do a thing that wouldn't come to fruition even if they wanted it. I don't think he intended violence but he was too much of a coward and vain man to stop it when he should have.
Edit: if he should have been impeached for anything it should have been for something akin to dereliction of duty. Not the articles that emerged from the House later
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United States41661 Posts
On March 30 2024 11:15 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 11:13 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 11:09 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public. Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024. Are you at very least on board with the idea that Trump had a specific plan to overturn the election by attacking the capitol and pushing it back to the state legislatures? The plan that he explained during the speech inciting the attack on the capitol. That plan. Because getting consensus on that, which is literally something Trump himself explained, feels like it would be progress. I think he wanted to generate political pressure on Congress to do a thing that wouldn't come to fruition even if they wanted it. I don't think he intended violence but he was too much of a coward and vain man to stop it when he should have. Edit: if he should have been impeached for anything it should have been for something akin to dereliction of duty. Not the articles that emerged from the House later
So when he said that the plan was “President Pence has to send it back to the states to recertify and we become president” which is, incidentally, the same plan that was uncovered in the emails and memos by the prosecution in Georgia your understanding of that plan is that he wanted to put political pressure on Congress?
Why do you think the words he used so clearly describe something other than what they say?
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On March 30 2024 11:31 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 11:15 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 11:13 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 11:09 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public. Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024. Are you at very least on board with the idea that Trump had a specific plan to overturn the election by attacking the capitol and pushing it back to the state legislatures? The plan that he explained during the speech inciting the attack on the capitol. That plan. Because getting consensus on that, which is literally something Trump himself explained, feels like it would be progress. I think he wanted to generate political pressure on Congress to do a thing that wouldn't come to fruition even if they wanted it. I don't think he intended violence but he was too much of a coward and vain man to stop it when he should have. Edit: if he should have been impeached for anything it should have been for something akin to dereliction of duty. Not the articles that emerged from the House later So when he said that the plan was “President Pence has to send it back to the states to recertify and we become president” which is, incidentally, the same plan that was uncovered in the emails and memos by the prosecution in Georgia your understanding of that plan is that he wanted to put political pressure on Congress? Why do you think the words he used so clearly describe something other than what they say?
well ok in my hurry i left Pence out of the list, but as I laid out before his plan was to have the states get new electors. but that wasn't going to work. I'm not sure what you are unclear on, he wanted Congress/Pence to not certify the results and thought that would send it back to the states, which it wouldn't. What i said in that post is I don't think he was trying to incite a mob to attack Congress, but I also think he could have stopped it (and should have stopped it) but didn't.
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On March 30 2024 09:20 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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. In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power. 1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election. 2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won. Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech. Show nested quote +Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
...
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
...
They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
...
Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason. So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all? People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step. Show nested quote +All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back. Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power".
You’re failing to mention that the idea Pence could reject the electors is based on a dubious legal theory that even the creator called a controversial long shot that would likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Your post treats it as a foregone conclusion that it would have worked if Pence just played along. If this were a similarly dubious plot for Trump to redirect funding to build his border wall it would have been laughed out of the room but because this is useful in implicating Trump it’s become a “clear path” for Trump to stay in power.
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United States41661 Posts
On March 30 2024 14:51 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 09:20 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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. In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power. 1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election. 2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won. Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
...
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
...
They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
...
Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason. So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all? People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back. Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power". You’re failing to mention that the idea Pence could reject the electors is based on a dubious legal theory that even the creator called a controversial long shot that would likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Your post treats it as a foregone conclusion that it would have worked if Pence just played along. If this were a similarly dubious plot for Trump to redirect funding to build his border wall it would have been laughed out of the room but because this is useful in implicating Trump it’s become a “clear path” for Trump to stay in power.
The Supreme Court has no enforcement mechanism.
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On March 30 2024 14:51 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 09:20 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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. In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power. 1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election. 2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won. Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
...
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
...
They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
...
Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason. So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all? People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back. Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power". You’re failing to mention that the idea Pence could reject the electors is based on a dubious legal theory that even the creator called a controversial long shot that would likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Your post treats it as a foregone conclusion that it would have worked if Pence just played along. If this were a similarly dubious plot for Trump to redirect funding to build his border wall it would have been laughed out of the room but because this is useful in implicating Trump it’s become a “clear path” for Trump to stay in power.
Okay, so because his clear and well-documented plan to stage a coup was dumb and doomed to fail from the start, that makes it not-an-attempted-coup?
That's like claiming a bunch of dumbfucks making plans to rob a bank that involves the manager opening the vault, but then executing it when the manager isn't in the bank, makes it not-a-bank-robbery. That isn't how life works: just because you're stupid and incompetent doesn't mean you can't be held accountable for your (attempted) crimes.
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It's hard to imagine they're actually arguing in good faith.
|
On March 30 2024 17:16 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 14:51 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 09:20 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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. In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power. 1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election. 2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won. Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
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And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
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They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
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Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason. So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all? People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back. Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power". You’re failing to mention that the idea Pence could reject the electors is based on a dubious legal theory that even the creator called a controversial long shot that would likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Your post treats it as a foregone conclusion that it would have worked if Pence just played along. If this were a similarly dubious plot for Trump to redirect funding to build his border wall it would have been laughed out of the room but because this is useful in implicating Trump it’s become a “clear path” for Trump to stay in power. Okay, so because his clear and well-documented plan to stage a coup was dumb and doomed to fail from the start, that makes it not-an-attempted-coup?
That's the conclusion you've decided to draw from reading my posts. I have no issue acknowledging that Trump would do almost anything, legal or illegal, to steal an election. I don't know if his schemes constitute a coup d'etat in the traditional sense but I'm fine with calling them that colloquially.
I just also agree with Introvert that it wasn't as on a knife edge as people are making it sound.
We might even agree here once you take away the position you've foisted on me.
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On March 30 2024 18:42 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 17:16 Acrofales wrote:On March 30 2024 14:51 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 09:20 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 08:01 BlackJack wrote:On March 30 2024 04:51 Ryzel wrote: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. In your reality is the view that Trump won 2020 not a mainstream one among Republican state level representatives in Georgia and Arizona. In our reality we have a clear path to Trump staying in power. 1. Pence fails to certify the electors. According to Pence he was only actually talked into certifying them by Dan fucking Quayle. Also the Secret Service attempted to remove Pence before certification took place. Also an explicitly stated goal of Trump's mob that he specifically called upon them to do was to get him to certify the election. 2. The Republican controlled state legislatures give Trump the electoral college votes won by Biden. That's wholly plausible given how many state representatives openly say the election was stolen by Biden and that Trump won. Anyway, here's some excerpts from Trump's Jan 6 speech. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
And I actually, I just spoke to Mike. I said: "Mike, that doesn't take courage. What takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage." And then we're stuck with a president who lost the election by a lot and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen.
...
And Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
...
They want to recertify their votes. They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
(Audience chants: "Send it back.")
...
Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories. So it's really not clear that the mob Trump raised at that rally was an explicit attempt to send the elections back to the states beyond the literal chants of "send it back" that he led the mob in. And it's really not clear that it was an order and a threat against Mike Pence beyond "we're not going to let that happen" and "I'm going to be very disappointed in you", and of course, the fact that the mob started chanting "hang Mike Pence" for some reason. So which part of the seizure of power do you think was so unlikely. Mike Pence failing to certify or the Republican State officials buying into the Trump election narrative? The part that barely failed because of Dan Quayle and the Secret Service or the part that didn't fail at all? People go "well I don't see how we get from Trump's mob to him staying in power" as if he didn't fucking lay it out for them step by step. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president Direct quote from Donald Trump on Jan 6 to his mob before sending them to make Pence send it back. Trump explained his plan to his followers but now people, who can literally watch the video in which Trump explains his plan which he specifically states is a plan to seize power, say "I don't think there was an actual plan to seize power". You’re failing to mention that the idea Pence could reject the electors is based on a dubious legal theory that even the creator called a controversial long shot that would likely be rejected by the Supreme Court. Your post treats it as a foregone conclusion that it would have worked if Pence just played along. If this were a similarly dubious plot for Trump to redirect funding to build his border wall it would have been laughed out of the room but because this is useful in implicating Trump it’s become a “clear path” for Trump to stay in power. Okay, so because his clear and well-documented plan to stage a coup was dumb and doomed to fail from the start, that makes it not-an-attempted-coup? That's the conclusion you've decided to draw from reading my posts. I have no issue acknowledging that Trump would do almost anything, legal or illegal, to steal an election. I don't know if his schemes constitute a coup d'etat in the traditional sense but I'm fine with calling them that colloquially. I just also agree with Introvert that it wasn't as on a knife edge as people are making it sound. We might even agree here once you take away the position you've foisted on me.
Fair enough, you aren't Introvert. You jumped in to lend your voice to his point that Trump's plan was dumb and doomed to failure, and therefore shouldn't be considered insurrection. I guess you only agreed on the bit that Trump's plan was dumb. We can find common ground then that yes, Trump's plan was dumb, but it was still an attempt to steal an election?
Note: I'm not entirely sure Trump's plan was dumb. It was definitely untested, but Erdogan has been getting away with a long list of untested legal and political shenanigans to stay in power. Those things work as long as enough other people are willing to play along with it. In Trump's case it would have depended quite heavily on the Supreme Court. The same Supreme Court that he appointed 3 of the 9 members of. Do I think they would have rolled with it? Do I think the army would have stood by and let their commander-in-chief be someone whose only claim to the presidency was to discard the election results and then rely on cronyism to have it be validated? And there's a bunch of other things that would have to go heavily Trump's way for it to become a reality. So no, at the end of the day, someone critical to the house of cards would put their foot down and say "this is not okay". But the damage caused in the meantime, both nationally to trust in elections, institutions, and government, and internationally to the stability of the dollar and tacit support for every single tin pot dictator's "legitimate" rise to power, would be insurmountable. It may already be just by the mere existence of the plan.
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On March 30 2024 13:30 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On March 30 2024 11:31 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 11:15 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 11:13 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 11:09 Introvert wrote:On March 30 2024 10:58 KwarK wrote:On March 30 2024 10:13 Introvert wrote:
The first part is saying that they didn't have a way to respect it or disrespect it either way, and certainly not by the time of the riot. And again I don't recall much fervor for that path among the legislatures themselves. Listen, if we keep adding more and more things that didn't happen then yes, we can have a systemic collapse. But it was not nearly as knife's edge as you are saying, and thank goodness for that! The law as it existed then, and I think as ha been reinforced now, only provides for certain changes in very limited circumstances, and again by Jan 6 even those would have closed. Any state that attempted to send a second slate would have run into issues at every turn, within their own bodies, conflict eith executive officials, Congress, and the courts. At best I suppose Congress could have rejected a slate, but that wouldn't replace them iirc, and certainly not past safe harbor. But that would have had nothing to do with Pence. Okay, let's assume that in 2021 Trump would have run into issues with Republican officials choosing country over party and being unwilling to overthrow democracy in his name. Sure, a lot of them at the time and since have absolutely endorsed his election fraud theories and said that the election was stolen from him, but let's assume a world in which they weren't traitors. What we would expect to see in the following four years is that endorsement of the stolen election theory would become a requirement for Trump's support as a Republican candidate. Anyone unwilling to get on board with the theory would be treated as disloyal and would be targeted by Trump. Over time the Republican officials in the states would be replaced with individuals who could be counted on to support Trump when the time came in 2025. https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/republican-nominees-in-40-states-think-the-2020-election-was-stolen-heres-why-that-matters/Now the reality is that the Republican party in 2021 was already compromised. 139 out of 221 sitting Republican Congressmen voted against accepting the election results on Jan 7 2021. They're already mostly traitors. But if we set that to one side and pretend that they're not, Trump is actively reshaping the party to consist only of traitors. If your assumption is that the officials would have stopped them then you need to take a look at the officials and what they're saying in public. Actually what we would expect to see if they believed Trump's theory, or at least been open to it politically, would be for them to, you know, do it. which they did not. As for the future, i believe the reformed electoral count act deals with any problems that may have remained. But of course we were talking about 2020 not 2024. Are you at very least on board with the idea that Trump had a specific plan to overturn the election by attacking the capitol and pushing it back to the state legislatures? The plan that he explained during the speech inciting the attack on the capitol. That plan. Because getting consensus on that, which is literally something Trump himself explained, feels like it would be progress. I think he wanted to generate political pressure on Congress to do a thing that wouldn't come to fruition even if they wanted it. I don't think he intended violence but he was too much of a coward and vain man to stop it when he should have. Edit: if he should have been impeached for anything it should have been for something akin to dereliction of duty. Not the articles that emerged from the House later So when he said that the plan was “President Pence has to send it back to the states to recertify and we become president” which is, incidentally, the same plan that was uncovered in the emails and memos by the prosecution in Georgia your understanding of that plan is that he wanted to put political pressure on Congress? Why do you think the words he used so clearly describe something other than what they say? well ok in my hurry i left Pence out of the list, but as I laid out before his plan was to have the states get new electors. but that wasn't going to work. I'm not sure what you are unclear on, he wanted Congress/Pence to not certify the results and thought that would send it back to the states, which it wouldn't. What i said in that post is I don't think he was trying to incite a mob to attack Congress, but I also think he could have stopped it (and should have stopped it) but didn't. But the states already had new electors ready and waiting. The paperwork was already filled out and signed with a list of electors for Trump, there are investigations and cases running against them for falsifying federal documents.
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Northern Ireland23324 Posts
On March 30 2024 21:41 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Trump is now condoning the kidnapping of Joe Biden, "recirculating a clip of a pickup truck in Long Island decorated with thin blue line flags and a decal of what appears to be a bound and kidnapped Biden on the tailgate, creating the illusion that the president is trapped inside." https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-shares-violent-image-biden-224824107.html
Very surprising, uncharacteristic lack of class from Mr Trump there
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EPT
