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

There's a part of me that wants to buy that as a sticker in bulk and put them on vehicles I see that have the flags/stickers/wraps of and in support of trumptard.

 

Sure, a good candidate will easily beat a bad one. But even if Obama would be able to run now, he'd win, but a significant portion of the population wouldn't trust the results and might engage in violence.

 

You enjoy posting articles and making intellectual sounding noises, but not one meaningful response to what I said. What’s the matter, uncomfortable swimming in the deep end?

 

Exactly right. Not sure which is more BS, him and his Trump is gone blah blah blah or the fact that he said he was a Democrat. All I know is he and his tag team circle jerk of deflect and deny buddies who troll, trigger, bully, and hate on people for calling Trump out aren't worth my time. I don't read their crap any more. As long as that party calls Trump their man, as long as they cower to call out his lies, and as long as he is being investigated he is relevant, because he's not going away until he's put behind bars.

 

AOC accidentally saying the truth out loud

 

even after a good night's sleep you are still one weird dude

 

Robert F. Kennedy said it best...

"Every time we turn our heads the other way when we see the law flouted, when we tolerate what we know to be wrong, when we close our eyes to the corrupt because we are too busy or too frightened, when we fail to speak up and speak out, we strike a blow against freedom, decency, and justice."

 

Wait... it's news that AOC (or anyone) is concerned and is in fear that members of Congress were working with the insurrectionists?

Where have you been for the past 18 months?

 

Yep I thought a lot about the brothers Gracchi and Trump. But I am a history nerd.

 

Given that Trump is still holding rallies, is still leading all other Republicans in polls, many Republicans still crave his endorsement, many Senators and party leaders still debase themselves to him show that he is very relevant. This was going on before there were public hearings over Jan. 6 so it's not as though that is driving that. Lindsey Graham said a month after Jan. 6 said he doesn't think the Republicans can gain the majority without him.

Even leaving aside Trump's continued relevance is the basic question of whether we are a nation of laws that apply to our highest leadership. That a a president tried to overturn an election through non legal means, that a president tried to intimidate state officials and even his own VP is important given what we've seen has happened to many other countries and civilizations.

The example of the Brothers Gracchi is telling. The Gracchus brothers were populist leaders who seized power in the Roman Republic. As Ottomaton noted the chaos they created did fatally weaken the Republic and allowed strong generals like Julius Ceasar to eventually take over. Since it's Bastille Day and another example would be the fall of the French Republics and how two of them starting as populist revolutions became ruled by tyrants.

Republican democracy (emphais on small 'r' and small 'd') is fragile and just sweeping under the rug because it's politically inconvenient is the surest way to make sure that attempts to overthrow it will happen again.

 

possibly. Although I really think folks overemphasize the possibility or likelihood of Jan 6-type rioting to occur again. And if we look at Jan 6, out of an estimated 10,000 people that were in attendance at the "rally" (out of 74 million Trump voters), only 800 to 1000 went to the Capitol and engaged in rioting.

In contrast, the Pussyhat March in 2017 drew an estimated 500,000 participants to Washington DC to protest Trump's election; an estimated seven million people world-wide participated in companion/sister events ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women's_March#Pussyhat_Project ).

I just don't think Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Trump-Whack-a-Doodles-dot-com etc can muster that kind of citizen involvement. I think these far-right groups are fringe groups; I believe that by continuing to give these groups "air time" in the form of the Jan 6 hearings and in the media has a down side to it as well as an up side; and I think it's a mistake to think that "a significant portion of the population . . . might engage in violence" at some hypothetical point in the future. I just think that speculation is very, very unrealistic and very unlikely.

Again, if the policing and crowd control had been just fractionally better on Jan 6, none of this would have happened, and we wouldn't be talking about it now. I think it's really important not to blow the Jan 6 events out of proportion. Condemn those events? yes. Prosecute the people responsible for those events? yes. Learn from those events? yes.

But do not make the mistake of overreacting to those events.

 

And with better policing, Uvalde wouldn't have happened.

And with better [whatever] Parkland wouldn't have happened.

And with better decisions, Astros would have won the WS in 2019.

And with better candidates, Trump and Biden wouldn't have happened.

And with better policing, Floyd wouldn't have happened.

We can go on and on.

 

After a good nights sleep, pathetic still.

 

Thats the worry … hysterical people “overreacting to those events”. What a bunch of morons we are.

There’s no way that Trump could run in 2024 and try this again right? Surely, he is a changed man and has learned from his mistakes. No doubt that he will respect the rule of law and believe in gracefully acknowledging an electoral loss. With the passage of time, he has clearly learned that there are laws, norms, differences between fact and fiction. He has figured out through experience not to be solely concerned about himself, but to act in the interest of the greater good. We are a bunch of alarmist, paranoid fools.

And if Trump doesn’t run or loses that 2024 nomination, it is clear that nobody else will take up the mantle and behave like him, right? After all, the Republican Party has normalized, decided that facts matter, told its electorate that The Big Lie was a big ol lie? I mean, DeSantis couldn’t possibly believe in the Big Lie right? Surely he isn’t talking about election fraud and greasing the skids for chaos if he were to lose.

Jan 6 is just an aberration that couldn’t possibly happen again. Wayward tourists that entered the Capitol.

 

I'm not worried about more rioting. I'm more worried about a consistent narrative of a false election being popular enough where state legislators are brave enough not to certify election results and throw the table claiming "fraud".

 

even that's a more plausible concern than any of the other worries. The continued erosion of trust in election processes is a real issue.

 

Your hyperfocus on the events of that one day miss the mark by a lot.

The leadership of one of our two major parties, representing roughly half the population, has demonstrated they will not respect the outcome of democratic elections that they lose and will take a wide array of active measures to overturn those results, including a comprehensive campaign to lie about election fraud, spurious lawsuits, direct pressure on election officials to "find votes", submission of fake electors, and finally inciting their supporters to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. The vast majority of the party representatives, either support these efforts, or remain silent. The very few party representatives who have opposed the efforts have been removed from leadership positions, successfully primaried, or declined to run for re-election. The former president, who led these efforts, remains the most powerful force in the party, whether he runs again or not. So, in short, there is strong evidence that the party will continue efforts to overturn democratic elections they do not win. That is a profound threat to our democracy.

 

I don't know that it's a "hyperfocus" but I appreciate your point more generally

I don't really disagree with any of this