No doubt, some Capitol Police heads should roll for this failure, but I’ve yet to be convinced any of them were conspiring with the intruders (I’m inclined to use a stronger term).
Man, that’s being awfully forgiving. It isn’t as tho there was a shortage of evidence as to the type of people likely to be involved, or the types of incitements. Nor do the security forces lack experience dealing w/ big crowds and providing protection in that very location. Folk all over social media were expressing their fears of some violence occurring on that very day, and Trump was inviting folk to come. These goofs were less aware than yahoos around here?
Those GOP officials absolutely do have blood on their hands. From the moment any of them decided to entertain the deligitimization of Biden’s election win and Trump’s coup attempt, they knew this was a possible consequence. For Trump, embracing far right conspiracies, and never denouncing QAnon prior to the election was an equally reckless action, and then he obviously took it further by leading the charge on all the stop the steal crap. Every Republican who went along with the shared rejection of reality decided that the risk of something like this or worse happening was worth it to help them keep their jobs as elected officials.
Will they actually be treated as pariahs? Probably not unfortunately. I think the Republican base is going to pretend this didn’t happen and continue to embrace all the reckless right-wing populism that has been embraced so far, without letting themselves take a serious look at the consequences.
The GOP is going to have to throw some part of their most virulent base under the bus as a scapegoat for this. From the speeches given last night, it sounds like the QAnon movement is the first choice, but that might be too big a bite from their base. They’ll probably settle for white supremacists and militias who will just go back to hating all political parties.
Perhaps arrest and trial. Certainly not being shot to death.
Well I don’t think you can just drive a truck and park right up next to the Capitol anymore, but it’s a very public building complex with tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of people going in and around the grounds daily and/or weekly. You can install metal detectors, but if a several thousand-man/women strong mob decides to overrun the entrance, I’m not sure what they could have done unless that’s exactly the sort of thing they were anticipating, and I doubt that even crossed their minds as a fathomable event.
They’ll no doubt use yesterday as a scenario to prepare going forward.
I’d imagine that the Republicans will be trying to see how much of their current fanbase they can retain and take measures that loses the smallest number - wherein the risk lies that they do not do anything effective, they will just allow the idiots to cover up their rhetoric a little.
Take a moment to consider this - there were numerous Confederate Flags brought into the House, what sort of signal is that sending? Without doubt it is an insurrection and the participants should be treated as such to the full extent of the law.
A civil was was fought to put that flag to rest, and here are these criminals trying to revive the civil war - quite frankly it should be identified as an emblem of the enemy and displays of it should be subject to criminal law.
Isn’t the entire job of the security services to prepare for this worse case scenario (heck, it isn’t even worse case - you could have had a few suicide bombers). In the lead up, I could imagine this scenario, and I’m just an oik on the internet.
In my agency’s public service areas, there are metal shields that can shutter windows at the press of a button. And the doors to the employee section are very secure. Surely you’ve encountered stores that have security gates and such.
It truly astounds me that the accessible entrances - doors and windows - were not more secure.
I’m truly astounded at your apparent willingness to excuse what I view as a clear failure. How many millions (billions?) have been spent on security after 9/11 and the shooting of capitol police? There are huge rallies around the Capitol ALL THE TIME - and they couldn’t imagine the possibility that a group of people would walk up the stairs and break a window?
As a species, we are very rarely prepared to deal with anything beyond what we’ve already experienced in our lifetimes. In Japan, there was widespread outrage in one of the coastal towns that got wiped away by the 2011 tsunami because 30 years ago a handful of people pointed out that their current flood wall, while effective against most tsunamis, wouldn’t be able to withstand a massive one. They knew about the dangers for decades, but didn’t prepare. I’m not saying it’s right, just an observation.
Another case in point? The pandemic of 2020.
Not remotely comparable. The entire job of the security services is to prevent trouble entering the Capitol. They failed spectacularly. They KNEW trouble was coming, Trump had called for it, the internet was an open invitation, the MAGA crowds had gathered the day before. This wasn’t an out of the blue tsunami, it was a scheduled event.
Man, you are really off your game this morning. I usually find even your more extreme/radical (IMO) opinions better supported/reasoned. Weren’t there instances of public buildings having been overrun (by DIVERSE groups) just within the past year?
asahi, you saw this picture so you know how prepared Capitol security can be when it wants to be.
That’s why I say its clear that they stood down, they let them in to the Capitol. You have all seen the picture of the wall of cops for BLM maybe showing up. This time they knew for sure MAGA was going to be there, there leader told them to be.
They still did nothing, and let individual officers get let hung out to dry waiting for backup that would not arrive.
See my last:
Something just occurred to me - you’ve got a hundred police officers and several THOUSAND “protesters”. The cops know they’re out-matched, and the best thing they can do is let them through. WHAT IF those selfies were actually intended by the officers to be used as evidence against the rioters to be used against them in a court of law?
Yeah, I know. Wishful thinking. But, it would have been incredibly clever …
Sorry, I’m not trying to say that Capitol Police didn’t make mistakes – they clearly made serious errors. I think they miscalculated. If you want to suggest that they treated the conservative crowd differently than the liberals in past protests, I’d absolutely agree with that. I guess the only thing I push back on is the idea that they knew an invasion of the Capitol was coming, which hasn’t been outright suggested, but I think that’s the part we’re obviously shocked about, and I think they were equally shocked.
No, Cap police absolutely fucked up – no question. But they’re human; I see how it went from allowing the crowd to get too rowdy to full-on panic within a short matter of time. The events yesterday are classic illustration of how quickly the dynamics can change once you get a mob riled up.
Yes this is damming right here, and need to be shown everywhere. A huge show of force for BLM, but nothing for MAGAs they knew were coming. There is no other conclusion but they allowed MAGA to storm the Capitol.
As usual I’ll grant that individual cops didn’t know a stand down was in effect and got left hung out to dry waiting for backup that would not arrive.
The stand down comes from the top and failing to mobilize the proper resources.
I wasn’t shocked. Trump called them to rally on Wednesday and said the day was going to be wild. On Tuesday I was reading a news story about plans to smuggle guns into DC, about organizing on Parler for just the short of violence we saw actually happen.
This wasn’t shocking. The insurrectionists’ plans were reported in mainstream media.
What WAS shocking was how little preparation law enforcement made to prevent the attack.
But they absolutely knew it was coming. We knew it was coming. The insurrectionists announced they were coming, and their Dear Leader said that he was going to send them.
I fully expected them to show up, I expected them to try to get in. I was worried that they may be able to overwhelm the defenses, but the only thing that surprised me about yesterday was how feckless those defenses were.