We are all so well programmed with jingoistic bullshit.
But here’s some hopeful cynicism: none of this collapse of our democracy is all that bad if one subscribes to the likelihood that we haven’t been a democracy in any meaningful way since the 1980s when the government stopped giving a shit about what the people want or need. Yet again, I give you our shit show of a response to Covid. (Hasn’t been all bad yet shamefully less than it should be.) This collapse is pretty much just an inevitable endgame, made possible while America slept. Or call it liberal denialism.
OK, I guess we've all come to accept that a guy can lose the popular vote by three million and still be "elected" thanks to the Electoral College, how much worse is it if our new "system" is "The guy who loses the popular vote AND the Electoral College still gets to be the President as long as he's a Republican"? Does that seem like a significant change or not?
My point is that we haven’t been a democracy to speak of for well over thirty years where the two parties are in sync with the big issues like the economy, foreign affairs and national security and one party dominates whether “in power” or not.
Too, the problem with your hypothetical is that what you’re implying is an illegal theft will in fact be legal. And if it isn’t, I don’t trust SCOTUS we’re it to come to that. Gore v Bush is a hell of a precedent. (Another problem with it is the belief that we have a functional system of law where precedent rules and such. Except we no longer do.)
So given de facto one party rule and the deep corruption of the state, your vision as it were is hypothetical. The reality is already almost that bad.
If this was 1993 and Bill Clinton was busy ramming NAFTA through Congress, I'd be in total agreement with you.
The tragedy is that - just as the Democratic party is becoming something better - we're moving towards a state of affairs where electing a Democratic president will no longer be possible.
Finally, a majority of Democratic electeds have figured out that big, popular spending programs that help lots of people might actually be a path to electoral success, but sorry, only Republicans can be President now. It's just how our system works.
First error, IMO, grossly overestimating the magic power of a POTUS. Part of the problem is that to have power, you need Congress, a SCOTUS that believes in precedent and the rule of law, governors and state legislatures.
To the extent that the election of any Democrat will be very difficult and POTUS maybe impossible, a large part of that problem is the DNC’s failings since at least the late 80s. More than the GOP, the Dems need to deliver for the base but chose to leave it at lip service. So we get talk on race instead of a voting rights bill. (BTW: If your hypothetical we’re to come true, that failure is a huge part. BTW: There’s only been a clue of its importance since Shelby County came down over eight years. But no rush…) You now have a situation where the federal government, under the law, cannot issue a nationwide mandate to respond to a global pandemic.
And anyone first now seeing where this country has been going for years, now that it’s too late (probably) is part of the problem.
That said, I’m sure the Democrats will be electable on the local level where those of us who can maybe will come together and help each other.
BTW: I don’t get the significance of Slick Willy and NAFTA. Hope you’re not intimating that he pushed it through via magic POTUS power. The Republicans and the Powers That Be wanted it so of course it was going to go through. And if the little people suffered, well, no one who mattered cared. I should say that passing NAFTA didn’t help the Dems in the 94 elections.
Subtle shout-out to Peter Bogdanovitch, who has just gone to the Big Adios. Isn't that an early line in The Last Picture Show? Sure, Jeff Bridges' football team got killed, "but it could have been worse." RIP.
Merrick Garland has been hard at work! He's rounded up hundreds of little fish. Gonna make all the little fish pay for their crimes. Well, gonna make some of the little fish pay--other little fish will get fines or community service.
As for the big fish? Well, ya know, can't really move toooooo quickly. Gotta gather evidence! All the video and written confessions and eye witnesses? Not nearly enough to even begin an investigation!
Very well said, Roy. It’s amazing how even though I feared for our democracy in the runup to 1/6, I was STILL shocked. Nothing prepares you for the reality of anti-democracy goon squads invading the U.S. Capitol to enthrone a dictator until you see it with your own eyes.
But as another American once said, facts are stubborn things. So we need to keep telling the truth for those with ears to hear, which thankfully remains the majority of people.
Well, I’m just a guy with internet and cable out here in the boonies, and I was certain something was going down. We watched the heinous Incitement show, Hawley, Don Minor, Rudi, and Himself.. and when he said in that peculiar Jerry Lewis inflection “Walk with me-to the Cap’it-ul”, dad said “shit he ain’t walking nowhere.”
I feared they might get away with it..and still do.
I’m a bit more sanguine about at least Georgia and North Carolina voting: the genius of Stacy Abrams refusal to concede was that it forced the election to court: and Brian Kemp couldn’t prove he hadn’t stolen an election with his voter suppression moves, and with a hinky hackable election voting system.
The federal court (under Judge Amy Totenburg…humm, where have we heard that name?)ordered a system that was secured, with paper backups. This is why Sec.o’ State Raffensperger was able to tell tfg no: the system was transparent, and there was nowhere for him pull the requested ~11800 votes from..
Stacey is organized and has a plan to overwhelm these GOP chickenshits...
My MAGA kin are now at “there’s evidence of incitement,”
Appealing as the idea of a swastika carved onto every MAGAt’s forehead may be, I’d prefer to invite them all to a private screening of Birth of a Nation, on the original cellulose nitrate stock.
Naive boomer that I am, I too shared an implicit assumption that somehow it couldn't happen here. Yet it did. The best analogy I can think of for the current situation is getting dragged into a fistfight with a crazy person. Because of the insanity, your opponent is incapable of admitting defeat so the only way to prevail is to kill or otherwise incapacitate them. Calling out their nonsense is a good first step, but the reactionary movement in this country is so crazed and militant that I'm very much afraid (with the emphasis on fear) that much stronger measures will be needed.
This country proved a failure in the 1870s, when Reconstruction was abandoned. The attempts to rebuild the Constitution into something that recognized Blacks and women as “created equal” failed to eliminate the undemocratic features (not bugs) that now allow the Racistfascist Party to wield power beyond its popular support. Many evils contribute to the present state of American decline: white supremacy, oligarchy, militarism, religiosity, nationalism, imperialism. None are addressed meaningfully and consistently by those who have a prominent public voice. When my federal representative isn’t lying, he’s refusing to respond to requests to explain his lies. This is depressingly common across the country. Really, haven’t all Americans been deluding themselves about America forever? Why should MAGATs be any different? In light of all this, I understand their insistence on believing Trump’s lies despite all the evidence to the contrary. Doing otherwise would require a reexamination of this country and themselves that their fragile egos could not survive. No red pill for them, in other pop culture words.
I see January 6th, indeed the Tr*mp administration, as the Ultimate In White Entitlement. The makings were always there; it was just a question of when someone would mix greed, a lust for power and bigotry and set it on fire.
“...when the crowd got inside all I saw was aimless milling around. They wandered the halls of Congress with no apparent purpose or design.” So while there is some truth to this for a lot of them (although never forget they SMEARED THEIR SHIT ON THE WALLS and thus should never be welcome in polite -- or any -- society again), there were no doubt plenty of Germans who never would've concocted the Final Solution, but eagerly rounded up their neighbors when the Fuhrer suggested it was a good idea. Being a mean, weak-minded numbskull is no excuse (although it's the one the lawyer for our local January Sixer is pushing). There are always more Indians than Chiefs, and perhaps we should view it as even more shameful.
I've been riding downtown to each of the mega-maga shows for a couple years now, because somebody needs to witness, and it's easy to get around the whole mall on a bike (pro tips: take a bike you do not care about losing; stay far enough from the maga-clumps that you can ride away from them if necessary). I laughed thru the unhinged December-fest which was a much smaller, tho more festive, crowd; many more individual displays of cognizance of a clinically concussed slug). As Jan 6 approached and all the alarums claxoned I figured it my duty to be there to witness, because not to do so would be to cave in to the media barons who gate-keep reality.
It was a dark and dreary day. The crowd at the Ellipse and backed up to the WashMon was easily double or triple the size of December's – probly 25 to 30 thousand all told – mostly due as far as I could see to the massive number of buses (and that's the tell about 'next time' – next time will not be like last time, if for no other reason than masses of people will not be allowed anywhere near the mall, and they'll be met by far more physical resistance much further away from the targets. Note to self: assume other targets next time, and misdirection, etc.)
Anyway, I listened to the incoherence of the speakers and the crowd for awhile (and if you've not heard, the between-speaker musical interludes were mind-altering strange – this was not a crowd likely to rock hard to the K-Tel version of 'YMCA'), then rode down to the Capitol and around to the Supreme Court. There were little knots of folks here and there, each anchored by some desperately earnest moron speaking moron-speak. Many of those were on the Christian Trump-train to glory and wanted everyone else to climb aboard or suffer the various consequences.
At the Supreme Court there was very little going on, in contrast to December (I guess because no one in the hierarchy wanted to detract from the star of the show). The Capitol was quiet but not surrounded – there was almost no one on the east side at all, except a couple clumps of hard-ass-projecting types dressed similarly as if they were all on the same paintball team. It was pretty clear they were looking for an easy way in. This was about an hour before the mob reached the west side.
By now my phone battery was dead and I figured I'd just do one more loop back to the Ellipse, but as I got back up Penn Av the mob was headed my way. I quick turned left, and that's when I saw how many heavily-armed (every damn flag was on a sharpened pole, and many people were wearing armor), spit-flecked loons were making their way toward the Capitol along the Mall. Here, from my observation point, several things were clear: 1) the cops were massively outnumbered and about to get crushed; 2) the crowd was a mix of angry people and potentially murderous people, but the angry people would provide cover for the murderers simply by their numbers (the hooligans do not go off below a certain threshold of mob size); 3) there were certain people climbing the statues west of the building and looking back west – these were not people just trying to get a better view of the coming battle – they were judging the size and the animosity of the crowd, so they would know when it was ready to go off.
So I watched all that unfold and assumed the worst – which did not occur. Sure, people died, but from my initial vantage I figured there would be dozens or hundreds dead within the hour. Maybe (depending on who the 'victims' were) that would have been a better outcome, I dunno... As the worst of it began to unfold at the building, I left to ride home to see it on video. My phone was dead anyway, so I could not contact anyone to tell them to at least watch the coup, and despite my impulse, there did not seem much to be gained by initiating my nazi-punching career at that moment. So I rode away from the single most momentous thing I've ever witnessed...
At home, the WaPo live-update texting site was still chatting about this and that, oblivious to what was occurring outside. Then gradually enlightenment entered the text messaging, as endarkenment entered the building...
Not to pass judgment on someone I don’t know, but any “friend” who responds to another friend with contemptuous, smart-assed emojis is a piece of garbage.
Your facebook friend is right -- once they got inside, once the dog actually caught the car, all they did was mill around with their thumbs up their asses. I though it was kind of hilarious. But for sleeper cell fascist politicians dreaming of putsch, it turns out to have been a glorious wake up call. In that way it was a huge success.
Well, no. If there had been twice as many or if Trump had walked down there with them what do you think would have happened? They figured that once they got inside the weak kneed liberals would simply have given up. When they didn't, they didn't know what to do next. There was a plan as to what to do if they could delay the count of January 6. They didn't delay it, but it was there.
A bigger, better-armed mob could have gotten to the basement where the World's Greatest Deliberative Body was hiding, and that's when Mr. Art of The Deal steps in.
Also, the fact that the mob itself didn't have a clear idea what to do (other than murder anyone who fell into their clutches) doesn't mean the people who sent the mob didn't have a clear idea what to do.
Great point. I still fall back on, "to have a coup you have to have the military," and I don't think they had enough of the military to make it stick.. Trump, per what seems to have been the plan, could "impose martial law," but all such discussions end there. But then what? I take (small) comfort from the fact that Trump is, in the end, every time, a fuckup, and that he's either advised by ambitious idiots, or won't listen to non-idiot advisers. So I still don't believe they could have actually seized and kept power. But, we all know how naive I am.
I think the plan, as far as I understand it, was to take the electoral votes of the "disputed" states off the table, then neither candidate gets to 270, which throws the election to the House, and Republicans win because they control more state delegations than the Democrats.
I find it hard to believe that such a thing could have worked, but looking at the Republican house today, can we really say they wouldn't vote the party-line if a presidential election were handed to them to decide? And then, having done that, they'd have the law on their side, and what could we do? At that point, the military doesn't need to take an affirmative stand in support of Trump, they're just needed to put down the uprisings and restore law and order, something they'd probably be willing to do.
The more I think about it, the more I think the obvious chicanery & incompetence of Giuliani & his various other day-drunk attorney proxies was a distraction from the actual coup attempt in the making: something to make the liberals guffaw & dismiss (they did, & still do) & allow them to maintain the complacency that brought those fuck-wrenches into power in the first place (liberals love complacency).
Yes, all along their buffoonery has provided cover for the real danger they represent. Want to take over the country with a fascist coup? Just throw in a bunch of loons who claim that child sex slaves are being held in the basement of a basementless pizza parlor, and nobody will take the threat seriously until it's (almost) too late.
Take away the White privilege that caused the cops and military to refuse to imagine that a large group of dumb and angry White people could pose any serious threat, and what do you have? The building would have been ringed with National Guard, and none of these yahoos would have gotten within a hundred yards of the doors. The only video we'd have of the day is red-faced military cosplayers shouting outside a fence. And would we be better off? I dunno.
Because the cops and military saw gun-loving White folks as their natural allies and not as enemies, the building wasn't properly defended, what happened happened, and the whole damn country was given a chance to finally wake up to the threat.
Now, we've got two Democratic Senators who don't see any threat serious enough to give up their beloved filibuster, and about 30% of the country lining up behind "More treason, please." Not exactly an encouraging response, is it? But at least we know where we stand, and - as Roy points out - the treason-makers are still in the minority. Hooray!
Well, I heard they had Black Pastors with them. Very intimidating, those Black Pastors. In certain parts of the South, they have to be limited to one Black Pastor per courtroom.
All those middle-of-the-road Republican voters are the problem, more than the hopped-up lunatics. Because they number in the zillions, and they desperately want Chuck Todd to bothsides all the treason so they can say, "Whew -- see? Democrats are just as bad -- or worse!"
Last Jan 6, I was staying with my GOP parents (75+), and they were absolutely mortified by what they saw. They both had the sense that TFG was purposely refraining from putting a stop to it because he was an asshole who loved chaos and in some obscure way expected to benefit from this chaos. They were upset with him and the rioters.
But even that day, there were tremors of what was to come. My dad saying testily of the anchors, "Why are they saying insurrection? It's just a mob!" As if to qualify as insurrection, it needed a leader unfurling a proposed New Constitution on the steps of the Capitol. Calling it insurrection was just another way to make Republicans "look bad" -- when meanwhile "They had not one bad word to say about the liberal riots all summer!" But he said this all halfheartedly, gobsmacked by the images on TV. Mostly, he was silent. He knew what he was seeing, how much worse it was than whatever Fox told him happened in Portland, and he knew it was his people doing it. He could not sustain resistance to the facts.
But I suspected that I was already looking at the start of mental gymnastics that a lot of middle-of-the-road suburbanites will force themselves into rather than admit in 2022 and 2024 that maybe the Democrats are *temporarily* a better bet for America than the party we have literally all witnessed conspire in the overthrow of our government.
Good question. The topic is avoided in the house. Tucker Carlson the parents have always avoided as a loon, but Bret Baier is smoother in his presentation, so they don't think he's biased. "He sticks to facts." As to Jan 6, Baier has not gone full denial/conspiracy -- but he has worked hard to avoid presenting facts. As in "Uh-oh, there was news about Jan 6 subpeonas today?? Uhhhh let's run a story about Juss Smollett!" So my parents end up studiously uninformed, and have been since Jan 15, content to be angry about how Ilhan Omar hates democracy. Or, I guess that ought to be past tense, in the case of my dad; he died recently. So I will never get to see him finish processing Jan 6. I miss him for a hundred reasons, of course, and one is not his politics, but I was genuinely curious on that point. He refrained from voting for Trump, but couldn't pull the lever for either Criminal Hillary or Weak Biden, so he threw his vote to some third-party person and I think felt shameful, as if he had not participated in his country. I think in 2024 he would gratefully have voted GOP again -- all they'd have to do is nominate someone who can fake sanity, and he'd've gone vehement: "Quit harping on this insurrection nonsense! That's the past!" He was worried though -- and so is my mother -- that the GOP is a little bit of a mess and not to be 100% trusted lately. Which they handled/handle by saying how much they can't stand Pelosi and Harris. (I try to appease my mom by saying I like Pelosi but would pay to see Schumer pushed out to sea in a barrel.) So my mom currently is, and both of them until recently were, in a holding pattern: Acquiring no info on the investigation, hoping for Trump and his influence to magically evaporate so they can serenely vote for Josh Hawley or whoever. I suspect that is representative of millions of middle-class retirees from corporate work.
We are all so well programmed with jingoistic bullshit.
But here’s some hopeful cynicism: none of this collapse of our democracy is all that bad if one subscribes to the likelihood that we haven’t been a democracy in any meaningful way since the 1980s when the government stopped giving a shit about what the people want or need. Yet again, I give you our shit show of a response to Covid. (Hasn’t been all bad yet shamefully less than it should be.) This collapse is pretty much just an inevitable endgame, made possible while America slept. Or call it liberal denialism.
Oh, well that's hopeful! Albeit cynicism.
It’s tough to be both simultaneously. It’s a pretty neat trick if I so myself.
The fact that things are bad doesn't mean they can't be worse.
For sure. But how much worse? And just how big will the nation’s fall be? I’m just saying we don’t have all that much to fall.
OK, I guess we've all come to accept that a guy can lose the popular vote by three million and still be "elected" thanks to the Electoral College, how much worse is it if our new "system" is "The guy who loses the popular vote AND the Electoral College still gets to be the President as long as he's a Republican"? Does that seem like a significant change or not?
My point is that we haven’t been a democracy to speak of for well over thirty years where the two parties are in sync with the big issues like the economy, foreign affairs and national security and one party dominates whether “in power” or not.
Too, the problem with your hypothetical is that what you’re implying is an illegal theft will in fact be legal. And if it isn’t, I don’t trust SCOTUS we’re it to come to that. Gore v Bush is a hell of a precedent. (Another problem with it is the belief that we have a functional system of law where precedent rules and such. Except we no longer do.)
So given de facto one party rule and the deep corruption of the state, your vision as it were is hypothetical. The reality is already almost that bad.
If this was 1993 and Bill Clinton was busy ramming NAFTA through Congress, I'd be in total agreement with you.
The tragedy is that - just as the Democratic party is becoming something better - we're moving towards a state of affairs where electing a Democratic president will no longer be possible.
Finally, a majority of Democratic electeds have figured out that big, popular spending programs that help lots of people might actually be a path to electoral success, but sorry, only Republicans can be President now. It's just how our system works.
First error, IMO, grossly overestimating the magic power of a POTUS. Part of the problem is that to have power, you need Congress, a SCOTUS that believes in precedent and the rule of law, governors and state legislatures.
To the extent that the election of any Democrat will be very difficult and POTUS maybe impossible, a large part of that problem is the DNC’s failings since at least the late 80s. More than the GOP, the Dems need to deliver for the base but chose to leave it at lip service. So we get talk on race instead of a voting rights bill. (BTW: If your hypothetical we’re to come true, that failure is a huge part. BTW: There’s only been a clue of its importance since Shelby County came down over eight years. But no rush…) You now have a situation where the federal government, under the law, cannot issue a nationwide mandate to respond to a global pandemic.
And anyone first now seeing where this country has been going for years, now that it’s too late (probably) is part of the problem.
That said, I’m sure the Democrats will be electable on the local level where those of us who can maybe will come together and help each other.
BTW: I don’t get the significance of Slick Willy and NAFTA. Hope you’re not intimating that he pushed it through via magic POTUS power. The Republicans and the Powers That Be wanted it so of course it was going to go through. And if the little people suffered, well, no one who mattered cared. I should say that passing NAFTA didn’t help the Dems in the 94 elections.
Subtle shout-out to Peter Bogdanovitch, who has just gone to the Big Adios. Isn't that an early line in The Last Picture Show? Sure, Jeff Bridges' football team got killed, "but it could have been worse." RIP.
Bummer.
Merrick Garland has been hard at work! He's rounded up hundreds of little fish. Gonna make all the little fish pay for their crimes. Well, gonna make some of the little fish pay--other little fish will get fines or community service.
As for the big fish? Well, ya know, can't really move toooooo quickly. Gotta gather evidence! All the video and written confessions and eye witnesses? Not nearly enough to even begin an investigation!
The important thing is that The Norms have been restored, and a wise, gray-haired Daddy is calming things down at the AG’s office.
I yearn for a future where politics do not revolve around Daddies at all....
Tut-tut! So like a Bernie Bro. [exaggerated sigh] Very Trumpian, actually. /s
My limited experience with Norms is that they sit on a barstool, guzzle beer and try to avoid work as much as possible. Fucking useless, really.
And this the guy Blue America pinned all their hopes on in the SCOTUS? Fucking wankers
You just gotta sit tight. The DOJ works in secret. Except of course when spilling Hillary beans.
Very well said, Roy. It’s amazing how even though I feared for our democracy in the runup to 1/6, I was STILL shocked. Nothing prepares you for the reality of anti-democracy goon squads invading the U.S. Capitol to enthrone a dictator until you see it with your own eyes.
But as another American once said, facts are stubborn things. So we need to keep telling the truth for those with ears to hear, which thankfully remains the majority of people.
Well, I’m just a guy with internet and cable out here in the boonies, and I was certain something was going down. We watched the heinous Incitement show, Hawley, Don Minor, Rudi, and Himself.. and when he said in that peculiar Jerry Lewis inflection “Walk with me-to the Cap’it-ul”, dad said “shit he ain’t walking nowhere.”
I feared they might get away with it..and still do.
I’m a bit more sanguine about at least Georgia and North Carolina voting: the genius of Stacy Abrams refusal to concede was that it forced the election to court: and Brian Kemp couldn’t prove he hadn’t stolen an election with his voter suppression moves, and with a hinky hackable election voting system.
The federal court (under Judge Amy Totenburg…humm, where have we heard that name?)ordered a system that was secured, with paper backups. This is why Sec.o’ State Raffensperger was able to tell tfg no: the system was transparent, and there was nowhere for him pull the requested ~11800 votes from..
Stacey is organized and has a plan to overwhelm these GOP chickenshits...
My MAGA kin are now at “there’s evidence of incitement,”
The “Stolen Election” shit is wearing thin.
Well, of course HE wasn’t going to be walking — that’s almost TWO MILES!!! He’d be taking the golf cart, of course.
The little people, they can walk.
Imagine how history would've been different if he dropped dead at the quarter-mile mark.
He didn't bring along a sedan chair?
Pompeo and Cavanaugh struggling under the burden?
"that peculiar Jerry Lewis inflection"
I think of it as more Gilbert Gottfried.
It's plumb wore out.
Appealing as the idea of a swastika carved onto every MAGAt’s forehead may be, I’d prefer to invite them all to a private screening of Birth of a Nation, on the original cellulose nitrate stock.
Whump! 🔥
Does that thing about screaming fire in a crowded theater have an exception for when the theater is actually on fire?
Naive boomer that I am, I too shared an implicit assumption that somehow it couldn't happen here. Yet it did. The best analogy I can think of for the current situation is getting dragged into a fistfight with a crazy person. Because of the insanity, your opponent is incapable of admitting defeat so the only way to prevail is to kill or otherwise incapacitate them. Calling out their nonsense is a good first step, but the reactionary movement in this country is so crazed and militant that I'm very much afraid (with the emphasis on fear) that much stronger measures will be needed.
This country proved a failure in the 1870s, when Reconstruction was abandoned. The attempts to rebuild the Constitution into something that recognized Blacks and women as “created equal” failed to eliminate the undemocratic features (not bugs) that now allow the Racistfascist Party to wield power beyond its popular support. Many evils contribute to the present state of American decline: white supremacy, oligarchy, militarism, religiosity, nationalism, imperialism. None are addressed meaningfully and consistently by those who have a prominent public voice. When my federal representative isn’t lying, he’s refusing to respond to requests to explain his lies. This is depressingly common across the country. Really, haven’t all Americans been deluding themselves about America forever? Why should MAGATs be any different? In light of all this, I understand their insistence on believing Trump’s lies despite all the evidence to the contrary. Doing otherwise would require a reexamination of this country and themselves that their fragile egos could not survive. No red pill for them, in other pop culture words.
I see January 6th, indeed the Tr*mp administration, as the Ultimate In White Entitlement. The makings were always there; it was just a question of when someone would mix greed, a lust for power and bigotry and set it on fire.
“...when the crowd got inside all I saw was aimless milling around. They wandered the halls of Congress with no apparent purpose or design.” So while there is some truth to this for a lot of them (although never forget they SMEARED THEIR SHIT ON THE WALLS and thus should never be welcome in polite -- or any -- society again), there were no doubt plenty of Germans who never would've concocted the Final Solution, but eagerly rounded up their neighbors when the Fuhrer suggested it was a good idea. Being a mean, weak-minded numbskull is no excuse (although it's the one the lawyer for our local January Sixer is pushing). There are always more Indians than Chiefs, and perhaps we should view it as even more shameful.
"paw the levers of power and bawl his bigot spiels"
That's a great line!
I can't wait for the part where Lynn Cheney lines the insurrectionists up and shoots them in the face like her Dad taught her.
On edit : I see her Dad showed up for today's events. Oh man- Somebody's getting shot in the face!
Well some of us were not the least surprised...
I've been riding downtown to each of the mega-maga shows for a couple years now, because somebody needs to witness, and it's easy to get around the whole mall on a bike (pro tips: take a bike you do not care about losing; stay far enough from the maga-clumps that you can ride away from them if necessary). I laughed thru the unhinged December-fest which was a much smaller, tho more festive, crowd; many more individual displays of cognizance of a clinically concussed slug). As Jan 6 approached and all the alarums claxoned I figured it my duty to be there to witness, because not to do so would be to cave in to the media barons who gate-keep reality.
It was a dark and dreary day. The crowd at the Ellipse and backed up to the WashMon was easily double or triple the size of December's – probly 25 to 30 thousand all told – mostly due as far as I could see to the massive number of buses (and that's the tell about 'next time' – next time will not be like last time, if for no other reason than masses of people will not be allowed anywhere near the mall, and they'll be met by far more physical resistance much further away from the targets. Note to self: assume other targets next time, and misdirection, etc.)
Anyway, I listened to the incoherence of the speakers and the crowd for awhile (and if you've not heard, the between-speaker musical interludes were mind-altering strange – this was not a crowd likely to rock hard to the K-Tel version of 'YMCA'), then rode down to the Capitol and around to the Supreme Court. There were little knots of folks here and there, each anchored by some desperately earnest moron speaking moron-speak. Many of those were on the Christian Trump-train to glory and wanted everyone else to climb aboard or suffer the various consequences.
At the Supreme Court there was very little going on, in contrast to December (I guess because no one in the hierarchy wanted to detract from the star of the show). The Capitol was quiet but not surrounded – there was almost no one on the east side at all, except a couple clumps of hard-ass-projecting types dressed similarly as if they were all on the same paintball team. It was pretty clear they were looking for an easy way in. This was about an hour before the mob reached the west side.
By now my phone battery was dead and I figured I'd just do one more loop back to the Ellipse, but as I got back up Penn Av the mob was headed my way. I quick turned left, and that's when I saw how many heavily-armed (every damn flag was on a sharpened pole, and many people were wearing armor), spit-flecked loons were making their way toward the Capitol along the Mall. Here, from my observation point, several things were clear: 1) the cops were massively outnumbered and about to get crushed; 2) the crowd was a mix of angry people and potentially murderous people, but the angry people would provide cover for the murderers simply by their numbers (the hooligans do not go off below a certain threshold of mob size); 3) there were certain people climbing the statues west of the building and looking back west – these were not people just trying to get a better view of the coming battle – they were judging the size and the animosity of the crowd, so they would know when it was ready to go off.
So I watched all that unfold and assumed the worst – which did not occur. Sure, people died, but from my initial vantage I figured there would be dozens or hundreds dead within the hour. Maybe (depending on who the 'victims' were) that would have been a better outcome, I dunno... As the worst of it began to unfold at the building, I left to ride home to see it on video. My phone was dead anyway, so I could not contact anyone to tell them to at least watch the coup, and despite my impulse, there did not seem much to be gained by initiating my nazi-punching career at that moment. So I rode away from the single most momentous thing I've ever witnessed...
At home, the WaPo live-update texting site was still chatting about this and that, oblivious to what was occurring outside. Then gradually enlightenment entered the text messaging, as endarkenment entered the building...
Brilliant as always, Roy. It breaks my heart, oh Lord, too may Ts to carve...
Not to pass judgment on someone I don’t know, but any “friend” who responds to another friend with contemptuous, smart-assed emojis is a piece of garbage.
Your facebook friend is right -- once they got inside, once the dog actually caught the car, all they did was mill around with their thumbs up their asses. I though it was kind of hilarious. But for sleeper cell fascist politicians dreaming of putsch, it turns out to have been a glorious wake up call. In that way it was a huge success.
Well, no. If there had been twice as many or if Trump had walked down there with them what do you think would have happened? They figured that once they got inside the weak kneed liberals would simply have given up. When they didn't, they didn't know what to do next. There was a plan as to what to do if they could delay the count of January 6. They didn't delay it, but it was there.
A bigger, better-armed mob could have gotten to the basement where the World's Greatest Deliberative Body was hiding, and that's when Mr. Art of The Deal steps in.
They were also actively seeking Democratic elected officials to murder.
A pack of hyenas looks aimless until they find dinner.
Yes they were. I'm just recalling what I saw on TV that day. Their murderous intentions became clear to me only later.
But for a well-placed shot into the chest of Ashli Babbit, they would have breached the doors and had the whole House chamber to play in.
Also, the fact that the mob itself didn't have a clear idea what to do (other than murder anyone who fell into their clutches) doesn't mean the people who sent the mob didn't have a clear idea what to do.
Great point. I still fall back on, "to have a coup you have to have the military," and I don't think they had enough of the military to make it stick.. Trump, per what seems to have been the plan, could "impose martial law," but all such discussions end there. But then what? I take (small) comfort from the fact that Trump is, in the end, every time, a fuckup, and that he's either advised by ambitious idiots, or won't listen to non-idiot advisers. So I still don't believe they could have actually seized and kept power. But, we all know how naive I am.
I think the plan, as far as I understand it, was to take the electoral votes of the "disputed" states off the table, then neither candidate gets to 270, which throws the election to the House, and Republicans win because they control more state delegations than the Democrats.
I find it hard to believe that such a thing could have worked, but looking at the Republican house today, can we really say they wouldn't vote the party-line if a presidential election were handed to them to decide? And then, having done that, they'd have the law on their side, and what could we do? At that point, the military doesn't need to take an affirmative stand in support of Trump, they're just needed to put down the uprisings and restore law and order, something they'd probably be willing to do.
God damn it, you're right. Who asked ya?
The more I think about it, the more I think the obvious chicanery & incompetence of Giuliani & his various other day-drunk attorney proxies was a distraction from the actual coup attempt in the making: something to make the liberals guffaw & dismiss (they did, & still do) & allow them to maintain the complacency that brought those fuck-wrenches into power in the first place (liberals love complacency).
Yes, all along their buffoonery has provided cover for the real danger they represent. Want to take over the country with a fascist coup? Just throw in a bunch of loons who claim that child sex slaves are being held in the basement of a basementless pizza parlor, and nobody will take the threat seriously until it's (almost) too late.
Take away the White privilege that caused the cops and military to refuse to imagine that a large group of dumb and angry White people could pose any serious threat, and what do you have? The building would have been ringed with National Guard, and none of these yahoos would have gotten within a hundred yards of the doors. The only video we'd have of the day is red-faced military cosplayers shouting outside a fence. And would we be better off? I dunno.
Because the cops and military saw gun-loving White folks as their natural allies and not as enemies, the building wasn't properly defended, what happened happened, and the whole damn country was given a chance to finally wake up to the threat.
Now, we've got two Democratic Senators who don't see any threat serious enough to give up their beloved filibuster, and about 30% of the country lining up behind "More treason, please." Not exactly an encouraging response, is it? But at least we know where we stand, and - as Roy points out - the treason-makers are still in the minority. Hooray!
And yet during the DC BLM protests, guess what was ringed by National Guardspeople?
Well, I heard they had Black Pastors with them. Very intimidating, those Black Pastors. In certain parts of the South, they have to be limited to one Black Pastor per courtroom.
All those middle-of-the-road Republican voters are the problem, more than the hopped-up lunatics. Because they number in the zillions, and they desperately want Chuck Todd to bothsides all the treason so they can say, "Whew -- see? Democrats are just as bad -- or worse!"
Last Jan 6, I was staying with my GOP parents (75+), and they were absolutely mortified by what they saw. They both had the sense that TFG was purposely refraining from putting a stop to it because he was an asshole who loved chaos and in some obscure way expected to benefit from this chaos. They were upset with him and the rioters.
But even that day, there were tremors of what was to come. My dad saying testily of the anchors, "Why are they saying insurrection? It's just a mob!" As if to qualify as insurrection, it needed a leader unfurling a proposed New Constitution on the steps of the Capitol. Calling it insurrection was just another way to make Republicans "look bad" -- when meanwhile "They had not one bad word to say about the liberal riots all summer!" But he said this all halfheartedly, gobsmacked by the images on TV. Mostly, he was silent. He knew what he was seeing, how much worse it was than whatever Fox told him happened in Portland, and he knew it was his people doing it. He could not sustain resistance to the facts.
But I suspected that I was already looking at the start of mental gymnastics that a lot of middle-of-the-road suburbanites will force themselves into rather than admit in 2022 and 2024 that maybe the Democrats are *temporarily* a better bet for America than the party we have literally all witnessed conspire in the overthrow of our government.
And where are they now? Given time, have the Fox-News-supplied rationalizations and denials taken hold?
Good question. The topic is avoided in the house. Tucker Carlson the parents have always avoided as a loon, but Bret Baier is smoother in his presentation, so they don't think he's biased. "He sticks to facts." As to Jan 6, Baier has not gone full denial/conspiracy -- but he has worked hard to avoid presenting facts. As in "Uh-oh, there was news about Jan 6 subpeonas today?? Uhhhh let's run a story about Juss Smollett!" So my parents end up studiously uninformed, and have been since Jan 15, content to be angry about how Ilhan Omar hates democracy. Or, I guess that ought to be past tense, in the case of my dad; he died recently. So I will never get to see him finish processing Jan 6. I miss him for a hundred reasons, of course, and one is not his politics, but I was genuinely curious on that point. He refrained from voting for Trump, but couldn't pull the lever for either Criminal Hillary or Weak Biden, so he threw his vote to some third-party person and I think felt shameful, as if he had not participated in his country. I think in 2024 he would gratefully have voted GOP again -- all they'd have to do is nominate someone who can fake sanity, and he'd've gone vehement: "Quit harping on this insurrection nonsense! That's the past!" He was worried though -- and so is my mother -- that the GOP is a little bit of a mess and not to be 100% trusted lately. Which they handled/handle by saying how much they can't stand Pelosi and Harris. (I try to appease my mom by saying I like Pelosi but would pay to see Schumer pushed out to sea in a barrel.) So my mom currently is, and both of them until recently were, in a holding pattern: Acquiring no info on the investigation, hoping for Trump and his influence to magically evaporate so they can serenely vote for Josh Hawley or whoever. I suspect that is representative of millions of middle-class retirees from corporate work.
Thanks, that was so much more informative to me than a thousand Ohio diner interviews. And I'm sorry for your loss.
Thank you. And I do have a tendency to get a little tl;dr -- sorry to subject you.