Does Overturning an Election equate to Overthrowing the Government?

Politics & Elections
21

There were no “good reasons”. There was no ambiguity in the results. There has never been a right to interfere with the process of certifying elections by violently attacking police and destructively entering the Capitol building and chasing Congresspeople out. Even assuming you are sincere about this and aren’t just engaging in a bit of pinniped mimicry, this trying to paper over a violent attack on the certification of an election or use what George Carlin would have sardonically referred to as “soft language” is itself undermining the seriousness by which this should be taken. Again, first fleeting steps toward autocracy and illiberal governance is how many famous fascist dictatorships have started.

Stranger

22

I said in the other thread, and I’ll repeat here, they came very close to success. The idiots in the mob weren’t going to run the new government. Trump and his gang were. The mob (and fake electors) was simply a way to delay the vote, and then the House would have stepped in and declared Trump the winner. Quite a simple plan really. And there’s nothing we could have done to stop it.

The date for counting the electoral votes is fixed by law as January 6 following each presidential election (3 U.S.C. §15), unless the date is changed by law. Come January 7th, you can bet the House would have stepped in and said, “well, I guess we have to act.”

23

You’ve been here for a while, haven’t you? Heh,

I think we need to temper our language to describe what actually happened that day. Was the intent of the crowd that day to storm the capitol building when they first got there? Or was it a disallusioned reaction to the continued prodding by Trump (why is he even running again?) who should be charged with inciting a riot for sure.

24

Who gives a shit what they intended when they got there? What they intended when they were beating cops at the capitol is what matters.
And furthermore, that is just what every proud boy, armed insurrectionist and body armor wearing politician did intend when they got there.

25

A year after the Insurrection I participated in a meetup group called Thinkers and Drinkers with the question “was it an insurrection?” being the topic. Well, I had some things to say about that.

I prepared 3 pages explaining that there was not just one attempted pathway to insurrection, but 9. When I was done… about 10 minutes into the 1.5 hour debate… the moderator looked at everybody else and asked “well what do you guys want to talk about, because this one is done.”

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I tracked the insurrection two months prior to it occurring, and took the day off of work on January 6th to see whether or not the attempted crew succeeded.

It did not.

But the fact that it did not, does not make it ‘not a coup’.

26

Watch the January 6th Congressional hearings. Some, probably most, of the rioters were just along there because they were worked up and wanted to break stuff, but there was an organized contingent whose goal was specfically to penetrate the capital and stop the proceedings resulting in Trump remaining president. These people took active measures to rile up and direct the crowd into the Capitol towards that end. Their plan was foolish and had next to zero chance of succeeding but lets suppose that the world worked the way they thought it did.

  1. Rioter disrupt the vote
  2. Constitutionally with the vote uncertified by the deadline the vote goes to the house of representatives with each state delegation getting a single vote.
  3. the Republican majority delegates vote for Trump.
  4. Trump remains president, for the next 4 years.

If that had happened would you have viewed it as having overthrown the government? Because that was their intention. A stupid ineffective attempt at a coup is still an attempted coup.

27

I’m not sure why you believe it should matter. Once the “crowd” breached police barricades, broke windows and doors, entered the main chamber and offices looking for specific Congresspeople to “hog-tie” or “hang” (terms actually used by various insurgents to describe their intent) in order to stop the certification process, they were de facto committing an act of insurrection. The perceived need to “temper our language” (Why? Are we concerned about alienating the people who are already determined that the “election was stolen” with no evidence whatsoever despite many election recounts, reviews, and investigations of dubious merit) just serves to embolden bullies and harriers who see that they can accomplish their ends through force.

Last time there was a “disputed” election (2000), it went to the courts, and the ‘losing’ side accepted the result even though it was of dubious legal merit with at most some minor grumbling. Now we are supposed to “temper our language” when a group decides that challenging the results of an election they don’t like means erecting a gallows and bum-rushing the Capitol building? I have a few less-than-soft words for that notion: “Fuck that bullshit!”

Stranger

28

But they were just trying to overthrow the Presidency, not the government!
:wink:

29

Because none of that happened is my answer. Trump sent in the national guard and ended the occupation. If he and his minions were that close to taking over the government, why did he/they not continue? Because that was never the intent. Trump wasn’t only talking to the crowd that gathered, he was trying to rally national support for election fraud. I think Trump shit himself when he saw the capitol upside down and thought “this ain’t good…” He knew a small violent uprising would not work (it would probably get him killed), but if he could get national support for election fraud that that would be of much greater benefit to him. I believe Trump and many of his supporters believed there was actual fraud taking place - not just rhetoric - he honestly believed the election was being stolen.

30

Yes. Many of them came very prepared to do exactly that. Sure, they convinced some other dupes to merely follow them, but it’s crystal clear that there was a plan to storm the building, remove or execute Representatives, stop the certification of the legal election results and install a government of their own choosing who were not legally elected.

This was their plan; to overthrow the elected government and install their own, using intimidation and violence.

And your Walmart analogy in the OP is indeed not “the best analogy”. It is in fact a piss poor analogy.

Perhaps if a group of minority shareholders got together and fomented a mob to storm/physically break into corporate headquarters during a meeting of the board of Walmart, threatening to hang members if they did not vote for their chosen CEO, broke up the board meeting, forced the members into hiding, killed police who were attempting to break it up, etc. etc… you might have a slightly better analogy. Slightly.

31

I think a tempered response might lead to more of the same. I think a better response would involve treating the matter as seriously as it deserves, for to slowly and patiently explain that being sentenced to hard labor or to death would be appropriate.

32

The 1st NG troops arrived at 5:40 PM, and Chris Miller officially called upon the National Guard at 6 PM. By then, the insurrection had failed.

So, no, the actual events do not lend credence to your claims.

It has also been clearly and repeatedly documented that Mike Pence authorized the troops. Not the Defendant himself.

33

Cheerfully withdrawn.

35

Modnote: No, just no. Do not go there even about Trump. Inappropriate. Do not make sexualize comments about politicians please.

37

Again, it has been well documented that Donald Trump knew for over a month prior to January 6 that he lost the election. He even admitted it on multiple occasions:

All the claims you have made in the quoted post are provably false. Just so you know.

38

Probably. Which police were killed on Jan 6th?

39
40

I’ll have to read through the thread later, but … meanwhile …

If a half-dozen of us intend to rob a casino (think: “Ocean’s Eleven”) and we encourage thousands of people to create chaos, as a distraction, on the day of the planned robbery, then – even if they aren’t all charged with the robbery directly, they were there – knowingly or unknowingly – to participate in the robbery.

In Criminal Law, there are crimes where one’s incompetence is a slight advantage – say: Attempted Murder. You DO get some credit for lousy aim.

The idea that The Gravy SEALS were NOT trying to overthrow the extant US government seems, to me, factually untenable.

I’ve heard it a lot, though, and generally respond with:

I do think it’s hysterical that Trump supporters (even if the OP does NOT fit that definition) are now relying on the “nobody is THAT incompetent” defense.

Also see:

A coup d’état (/ˌkuːdeɪˈtɑː/ (listen); French for ‘stroke of state’, also known as a coup or an overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, military, or a dictator. Many scholars consider a coup successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

AND

41

Pretty much every elected legislature has rules about what to do if some members of the legislature are unable to fulfil their duties, for whatever reason (illness, conflicting schedules, death, whatever). Most involve having a quorum of the elected body present, and everyone agrees that, so long as the quorum is met, the actions of the legislature are legal and binding until overturned by a further vote, or by some higher authority like the President or Supreme court.

So it’s not necessary to kill all the Democrats, and lots of the Republicans. You need to just kill enough of the Democrats to eliminate their majority in the legislature, while still maintaining sufficient numbers for a quorum.

Then, after the rabble are cleared out, the remaining members vote, with the majority now supporting refusing to certify the election results*, tossing the results to the House, or the Supreme Court, both of which are dominated by the very people who most want to overturn the election.

Bim bam boom, the election is overturned, Biden is out on his ass, Trump is still president, and it’s all perfectly legal, if you just ignore all that messy murder 'n shit, which the QOP will.

*“Oh, but that would never happen, they’d come to their senses!” Nope, even in the real world, we still had significant numbers of Republican members of Congress voting against certifying the results, after the vote was resumed after the mob had failed to kill anyone. If the mob had actually succeeded, even more of them would have voted this way, either because they wanted to, or were afraid not to.

42

I can certainly believe that some / many of the insurrectionists, having been comprehensively lied to for months by major media outlets dedicated to helping Trump remain president, sincerely held the belief the election was stolen. But only because they were too blind to listen to anything they didn’t already agree with. But that sincerity is not in any sense “honest belief”; instead it’s utterly “intellectually dishonest unreasoning faith”. There is a difference. A crucial one.

Creating a monomaniacal fanatic is not the work of an afternoon. It’s the work of years. Which work had been assiduously in progress for a decade before Trump ever stuck his nose into politics. But which he, along with e.g. Fox showed great skill in amplifying and exploiting.

As to what Trump himself “honestly believed”, I’m not sure “honest belief” is a term that can actually be applied to such a psychologically defective individual. He certainly preferred to believe that, once again in the utter absence of actual factual evidence and in fact in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The fact the person entrusted with the Presidency could be so blinded to the facts by his own self-interest seems to me to be incontrovertible evidence of his 25th Amendment incapacity for the job.