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

If it helps Democracy than that's a good thing. I don't care about the mid terms as much as I care about the ability for generations to be able to vote and have that vote count because corrupt demagogues cannot get states and members of Congress to overturn elections after we learned our lessons of 1/6 and hardened our electoral process. The mid terms and Biden's approval rating mean nothing in the long run compared to that.

 

plenty are not watching

some are not watching but have big opinions

 

I dunno, naming Sydney Powell as special counsel with a scary broad authority to arrest whoever she wanted was a pretty crazy jaw dropper. I didn't see all of the hearing, but from what I saw, it wasn't exactly a snooze fest. Or maybe we are just numb to it by now, and everyone is just looking for a bigger and bigger bombshell every time.

 

to me some of these appear to have been blown out of proportion

to take one example

does what Trump pitch constitute a "plan" to seize voting machines from the states, or was this just a very predictable case of Trump spit-balling ideas off of his subordinates based on a momentary idea that occurred to him in a flash of random synapse activity?

you know, kind of like the ultraviolet radiation/"bleach in your veins" kind of moment

If this was simply him casting about for something, ANYTHING, to do to slow down the inevitable loss of his presidency, then I don't really count that as a "plan." I think it's much more accurate to describe it as another in a long line of crackpot ideas that he floated which then (from everything I've read) pretty much got shot down instantly by his staffers

 

i don’t think republicans give a crap about democracy anymore. Fox News has convinced them that democrats are an existential threat to life as we know it, so it is entirely justified to break the machine if necessary to “save America”.

you got folks here doing Olympic level mental gymnastics and concluding that democracy isn’t even under attack and there’s nothing to see here wrt Trumpy and the Republican Party.

 

how kind of you.

we should definitely give Trumpy the benefit of the doubt, no?

 

That's kind of obvious when the majority went along with not certifying Biden. They chose the coup leader instead. When you have over 100 Republicans running for midterms that are "Trump Won" propaganda spreading liars, you know they don't care about Democracy.

More like America Last, Me First.

 

Trump is very much the scorpion who will bite the frog...but a lot of his followers are too. They'd rather watch the country burn then see people they don't like or see as lesser succeed.

 

but youre not watching the hearings, right?

 

not necessarily, I'm just saying many of the claims @FranchiseBlade listed seem to me to be (at least potentially) exaggerated or overblown.

Sorry for the Washington Examiner source, but here's an assessment of the "Trump plan" to seize voting machines:

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/...executive-order-came-from-outside-white-house

I just don't think it does anyone any favors to blow up some whack-a-doodle idea someone floated and spin it as some conspiracy-clinching nail in the seditious insurrection coffin.

 

So it was more than just a random idea. Trump brought it up. Then he followed up on a meeting asking the DOJ why they hadn't done it. They told him that Homeland security already investigated voting machine claims. Trump then called Homeland security and said that DOJ told him that they weren't seizing the voting machines and asked why they weren't doing the work he wanted done.

This haooend over a series of meetings over a series of days. That constitutes a plan. It wasn't just an off the cuff idea he through out.

He not only wanted it done, he told people to do it. When they refused he planned to replace them with people who would. In the case of the DOJ, his plan was to put Clark in and Clark already was appearing on call logs as acting attorney General.

That's some of the things we didn't know before the hearings. It was dangerously close to working.

 

if you say so. this is like a Rudyard Kipling story . . . "it happened just so." I still don't take this as evidence of the end of civilization as we know it

 

We shouldn't discount the relevance of these revelations. While it may be fair to say he wasn't "planning" it, the very fact that he thought this was a good idea is damning. Some of his advisors were willing and ready to go along with his crackpot ideas, and some were not. The ones that were are the ones he calls loyal, and the ones that weren't are the ones he attacks. If he runs again, which are the ones he'll be rounding up to advise him?

 

Initially I was skeptical of the hearing. I was supportive because I thought it might bring more attention. I expected over-dramatic hyperbole.

I'm willing to not take everything at face value, even when it bolsters positions and opinions that I hold.

The fact that I was expecting old news, partisan grandstanding, is what makes the work done by the committee so much more impressive.

You may think a leader of the free world that knows he lost an election trying to seize voting machines, telling officials to go ahead and just say the election was corrupt and that he and others would take care of it from there, try and replace officials who wouldn't do these things with partisans that would isn't a danger to our democracy that's up to you.

 

look, I think everyone knows that following the election Trump grew increasingly desperate and increasingly unstable. That's not news. I get it . . . Orange Man Bad.

But he is gone now and best forgotten. The only thing that this Third Impeachment™ of Trump is accomplishing is keeping him in the news and speeding up his decision to announce for 2024. That could be either a good outcome or a bad outcome, time will tell.

But the hyperbole serves no one's best interest. I'm still waiting for the committee to get around to the security failures on Jan 6 and in the days leading up to Jan 6. Do you think they will eventually get to that? no, me neither. And that's because they are almost exclusively focused on The Third Impeachment. That's fine--it's good to have a hobby. But the committee shot itself in the foot when it decided to go all laser-focused on Trump rather than cast a broader net on the entire web of failures that occurred on Jan 6.

So you should go ahead and enjoy the prime time spectacle. I'm sure it's captivating, even better than summer league games. I prefer to read about the spectacle after the fact when cooler heads have had time to consider, deliberate, and ruminate on what it all means. And so far that's still coming up as a bunch of mostly disorganized rioters and all-purpose-far-right whack-a-doodles breaking through the police lines on Jan 6, much to their own surprise and to the surprise of others, and finding themselves in the Capitol with cell phones in hand taking pictures.

Were people hurt and injured along the way? yes. Should we condemn everything that happened that day? yes. But should we blow it all out of proportion to score political points by beating a dead Trumpian horse? your mileage may vary, but I'm inclined to lean towards NO on that last one.

 

There no single piece of information that is evidence that American democracy is on its way down and that we have already peaked.

It's a accumulation.

 

You might not be implying this, but when I read that bold part, I read as his advisors came up with crackpot ideas, and then Trump went along with it. I don't think that's the case.

I think the sequences are pretty clear. Before the election, he said he cannot lose unless the Dem cheated (many people downplay this as just Trump being Trump and didn't take it seriously). When he lost, he refused to accept the result and did what he said he would do - claim Dem stole the election and that he actually won (the big lie). The stage was set for his advisors to then promote crackpot ideas (one of which will be heard by the supreme court - so, yea, let's do take it seriously). And of course, he went along with those crazy ideas and plans.

It has been established that he knew he lost. He intended to overturn the election result and stay in power. It's pretty clear to me that it was an attempted self-coup, one that was planned in a poor and ad-hoc way and failed.

This isn't you ... but the lesson many people continue to NOT learn from Trump is treating him as "just being Trump" and not taking him seriously. Now that has been extended to many other "crazy" Republicans. Trump and some Republicans have said they will do it again (won't accept the election result), but the media and many people continue to downplay it even though the landscape has changed (6-3 court, the local election laws giving power to legislators to overturn results, the crazy idea that the legislator can overturn and ignore the people vote that is going to the supreme court, fears by honest election workers, and believer in the big lie elected to local positions dealing with elections) to more likely overturn an election.

 

I get it. There's no knowledge about who wrote that or under what circumstances. Could have been an intern for all we know.

But if it floats your boat, go for it

 

The security failures have already been corrected. There is already beefed up security now. Why spend a lot of time going over what has already been fixed? They can do it, but we already have the solutions in place.

What hasn't changed is safety mechanisms to prevent Trump or a different leader from making sure the partisans are in place to nullify an election and stay in power.

It isn't just about a bad guy being desperate. Ignoring it won't make it change or stop. It will allow it to happen again. There are already people who no longer trust the validity of our elections which is a serious wound to our democracy.