Breaking 1-06-21: MAGA terrorist attack on Capitol

This is what I hate about self proclaimed centrists. You believe political ideology has some magical properties akin to the laws of physics where there most be an equal but opposite position (equal in the sense of extremeness).

Criticizing gerrymandering or our electoral college is a critique of the systems we have currently. They aren't fake news. They are opinions of a system. You can disagree with said opinions. However what they aren't are alternate reality claims that millions of votes are fake.

Look dude, I actually have some respect for you. You seem reasonable for the most part but it seems like you are gaslighting when you try to equate criticizing the electoral college and gerrymandering to a claim that states that millions of votes are literally fake. Seriously... You can't be serious.

 

That argument is like saying because you think wealth inequality exists, you don't believe in the concept of money anymore.

 

Anti-Trump protests in DC were far more violent both in summer 2020 and for his inauguration.

Only difference is in the former, Capitol Police didn't let the protesters trespass.

 

You're skipping over the "Putin rigged the election for his asset Trump" narrative that persisted for years

 

1. I actually did mention it hence me copy/pasting and then quoting myself over a comment you just replied to which either means you just don't read what I type and just have canned responses regardless of the content you responded to or you have literacy issues.

2. Elaborate what you mean by "rigged"? As in Putin changed the vote count where the vote counts were fraudulent?

 

You are much more cordial than I am. I will say this, there’s just no way that someone who spends 90% of his time criticizing and gaslighting Democrats and then 9% of the rest of his time claiming to be a Centrist… is actually going to go to the polls and say “you know… I’m going to vote for Joe Biden today because he’s better for the country than Donald Trump.”

He is smart enough though to know that if he posts like Commodore or Daschuda with full throated endorsements of right wing fascism that he would be ridiculed and nobody would debate him. That’s why he has to spend so much time trying to convince everyone he’s some sort of special rare arbiter of truth and justice.

It would be great if there were people like him who really were making an effort to be independent but if you cannot be honest about where we are in our nations history, it says a lot. I mean Dick and Liz Cheney are literally standing side by side with Democrats at this moment but “the centrist” SpaceGhost can’t even be where they are on this issue.

When you are to the right of Dick Cheney… you ain’t no Centrist.

 

I have supported making our elections even more secure so that it would be impossible or nearly impossible for anyone to even imagine they were fraudulent. So I am in favor of reducing that number. I don't think Trump has the power that you are attributing to him though. Some percentage of people that vote for the losing candidate believe the election was rigged. Always. Democrats in huge numbers believed the 2016 election was rigged and denied Trump won. Then Republicans in even bigger numbers denied Biden won. Hillary Clinton was denying the outcome of the 2016 election four years later: Hillary Clinton Maintains 2016 Election ‘Was Not On the Level’: ‘We Still Don’t Know What Really Happened’ (yahoo.com).

I have said from the very beginning that they were rioters and should be punished according to what they did. I just didn't and don't agree with the narrative that there was any danger of them: 1) keeping Trump in office, 2) killing any members of Congress, or 3) hanging Mike Pence. I refuse to call it a coup, an insurrection, or treason. It was a riot. It fits the definition of a riot, so that's what I call it. I also don't agree with people exaggerating the conduct of individuals. If you want to call refusing to exaggerate what happened defending, I guess you can do that. I don't believe I have defended the rioters. As for the rhetoric of Trump, I don't see it as a big deal. He says the election was stolen. Clinton said her election was stolen. Gore said the election was stolen. I see more inflammatory rhetoric constantly.

 

I'd put all my money on you changing that attitude if those hundreds were wearing black turbans instead of MAGA hats and carrying ISIS flags instead of Trump flags as they beat down officers, broke through barricades, scaled the walls of the Capitol, broke through windows and did everything those so called Patriots did.

 

I'm repeating myself now. It's annoying.


Hillary Clinton conceded the night of the election. Neither her, her supporters, the people who voted for her, people who hate Trump etc believe the actual election results were fraudulent. They don't believe that millions of votes are fake or missing. Nothing about their rhetoric threatens the constitutional rights of Americans. Nothing about believing that many Americans were brainwashed by a targeted campaign from a foreign power with social media to leaking private correspondences leads to wanting to literally dump votes out like the Trump campaign and millions of Americans who support him want to do for mostly minority urban communities such as Fulton County where the vast majority vote Democrat. They aren't claiming millions of votes from rural white America are literally fake votes. That isn't a thing. You can't overturn an election because you think millions are brainwashed into voting for the "wrong" candidate. That isn't the end state of the rhetoric and claims by the Democrats which by the way is shared by our institutions like our intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement (that Russia was involved in the DNC server hack and social media misinformation).

There is a difference between making a claim that your opponent won on suspicious terms from a foreign power's help in terms having their private messages hacked and leaked by said foreign power to help said opponent and claiming that our vote counts are fake news and trying to claim that millions of votes from legal citizens are fraudulent and therefore should be dumped.

 

Thankfully it has been a year since the riot and now the left will stfu. It wasnt on par with 9-11 or Pearl Harbor. Hopefully the capitol is more secure and cant be breached like that again. Especially by unarmed goons.

 

What fundamental changes have been made that would prevent a sitting President from behaving this badly again?

Not one ****ing thing.

 

The prez didnt order these people. We can lock this building down and not let people breach the perimeter. Similar to what I can do to my property.

 

so long as trump keeps lying about the election being stolen, nobody is shutting up about the insurrection and Jan 6. It only stops when trump and his minions shut up.

 

There is a difference, but what's the moral distinction?

 

you won’t wont get an honest or meaningful response. Just a bunch of weak minded false equivalence that nobody with a brain or a modicum of intellectual honesty would buy. But it’s what they have to do in order to reconcile Jan 6 with their political beliefs.

 

No… he ordered the VP and all the Republicans in Congress, and state officials to literally overturn the election results without violence.

On the rioters it’s been reported by people in the next room that he was watching the mob on TV “letting it play out” and praising them saying “see THEY are fighting for me.”

What Trump did was terrible and a coup attempt either way. It will be attempted again with or more likely without violence by using similar methods that were used in 1876. We’d be pretty foolish to think last Jan is it. We can move on when guardrails are put in place to never again allow a president the ability to pressure states to send alternate electors and try and game the system to allow partisans in the house to pick the president rather than the people.

I mean do you need to see the literally White House PowerPoint again that says exactly that this is what the gameplan was??

 

This thread really reveals where people stand.

@Astrodome @Commodore @StupidMoniker - why don’t you just come out and say what we all know. You are either trumpers, trump tolerant, hard core conservative, and/or can’t stand the liberals, you don’t really give a crap about Jan 6, trumps actions, and you aren’t about to acknowledge anything about Jan 6 or the Big Lie that gives Dems the high ground. It doesn’t matter that Jan 6 was specifically about stopping the certification. It doesn’t matter that hundreds of police officers were injured in that mob that wanted to stop the certification. No, let’s just call it the same as other riots, other protests. Let’s just say that Hilary also believed her election was illegitimate, so that’s the exact same as trump. Let’s pretend that people here are too stupid to see the difference. Honestly, It’s pathetic. I get you guys hate the liberals and don’t want to give ground.

But jeebus, aren’t you even a little embarrassed to be making these arguments? How is that better than just saying what we all know - you don’t give a crap about how bad Jan 6 was or the big lie, you just want republicans back in power. That’s a lot more respectable than this nonsense. You’d be laughed out of high school debate camp.

 

There were people in black masks beating down cops all summer in 2020. Those were riots too. Obviously is somehow, magically, a foreign army from ISIS managed to infiltrate the United States, mass in the thousands undetected, and swarm into the Capital, that would be a bit more concerning than a domestic riot, but I still wouldn't think they were about to take control of the US government. I would be a lot more concerned that they might seriously consider killing members of Congress or Mike Pence, but that is kind of based on their documented history of killing people and posting it on YouTube. I suspect ISIS might have taken a few firearms with them when storming the Capitol as well, but anything is possible I guess.

That is a constant for me. People make the same arguments I have already refuted. Like no other presidential candidate has challenged the results of the election.

Yes, she did. Which is commendable.

There are still Clinton supporters that believe the Russian government hacked the voting machines and changed the vote totals to make Trump president. They are not only talking about thirty thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads, they are talking about actual election fraud.
Here is an article TWO YEARS after the 2016 election that is talking about the Russians changing vote totals. On Conspiracy Theories and Election Hacking [Updated] (theroot.com)

There is a difference, but those were not the only claims made. There were and are still people that believe the 2016 election was fraudulent, not because of Russians putting stuff on Facebook or exposing stuff from DNC servers, but actual election fraud. I say we can't prove election fraud in 2016 or 2020, so we have to accept the results were the results. I would make drastic changes to remove doubts in the system (which is what helps create these narratives), but you have to accept the outcomes under the rules in place at the time.

I can't stand the Democrats, but the Republicans are only slightly better. They are both big government, big taxing, big spending, freedom crushing, bullshit spewing parties full of idiots and liars. I would prefer total gridlock to either of those parties getting to do anything.

I don't really give a crap about those things, beyond thinking riots are bad and Trump is a moron. The Dems obviously have the high ground with regard to January 6, because it was clearly hard core MAGA idiots doing the rioting.

What do you mean it doesn't matter? They stopped the certification for the duration of the riot. That was the best they could hope for. It accomplished nothing. Whatever "plan" they had was doomed from inception. There was no scenario under which 800 people armed with pepper spray and sticks (with or without flags) were going to take over the government. Nothing could have happened during the riot that would have resulted in victory for the rioters.

To me it matters no more than the police officers injured and killed in other riots.

Okay, and? There really is supposed to be something after this that would reference that scenario.

I don't like the term liberal used in a negative fashion. To me, liberal means things like free speech and robust individual rights. I don't like the Democrats. I dislike them even more than the Republicans.

I'm pretty comfortable with my arguments.

I want libertarians in power, or failing that, a government dysfunctional enough not to get anything done. Republicans in power is just a different set of problems (instead of higher taxes and big spending on social programs I would get more borrowing and bigger spending on domestic spying). I suppose I would prefer Republicans in power to Democrats in power, but that isn't saying much. I think we should be accurate about what happened on January 6th, and the "big lie" is nothing to me, because Trump claiming he should have won in 2020 is no more impactful to me than Hillary saying she should have won in 2016 or Gore in 2000. People need to accept election results and look to improve future elections, not change past elections.