It wasn’t a coup

[rboyce]

It wasn’t a coup

yes it was and the attempt continues

[crowmanyclouds]

@Ike_Witt

Was Trump willing to sacrifice Pence in order to declare martial law?

Hanged, on Fifth Avenue, in broad daylight, with a Trump brand tie.

[rboyce]

@Velocity

I agree, this was a motley bunch of disorganized rabble storming the Capitol

But, but, but they were organized.
Check out CNN and MSNBC
dump FOX

[rboyce]

@Sitnam

Hang the current GOP for their role in what happened

Are you advocating murder-?
Just asking

[Buck_Godot]

The problem is as I think someone said above (unless it was another thread) that there weren’t just one set of invaders. There certainly was a group that had specific targets in mind, planned their attack and came prepared. But there was also a larger number who were caught up in the moment saw an opportunity to make a scene and stick it to the Libs. Its this second group that provided cover for the first group. So to a large extent you are both right. There a motley bunch of disorganized rabble stormed the capitol within which was a organized group who planned to take hostages and possibly execute sitting members of congress.

[rboyce]

What concerns me the most is the persons who stormed the White House and their followers.

Most of them honestly believed what Trump was saying

Being good American citizens, they honestly believed they were doing the right thing based on what the president of the USA was saying.

I hope the FBI and local police understand this. I would not object to pardons for most of them. Those who used this for devious purposes need to be charge for their crime.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Sounds like the Steve Martin Defense.

Just say those magic words: “I forgot”.

“Your Honor, I forgot armed robbery was a crime.”

[Lance_Turbo]

@Sitnam

I still think, if not for legal reasons, at least to convince the majority of the American people of something this serious you’d have to show plans of some sort.

NEW: Audio of militia members narrating the Capitol invasion:

“We have a good group: 30 to 40 of us. We’re sticking together and sticking to the plan."

“We are in the main dome right now."

“Keep going.”

"…Everything we fucking trained for.”

Lois Beckett

[Euphonious_Polemic]

Your honor, my client really needed the money, and as you can see by this affidavit, he honestly thought that it would be OK to rob the bank, because some folks told him that it was the right thing to do.

[Sitnam]

@rboyce

@Sitnam

Hang the current GOP for their role in what happened

Are you advocating murder-?
Just asking

Of course not, it’s a colloquialism. Like being ‘hoisted by a petard’. Let them get their just deserts.

Bizarre to live in a time where killing congressmen is even a topic and that you DIDN’T advocate for that.

[Kimstu]

@Buck_Godot

The problem is as I think someone said above (unless it was another thread) that there weren’t just one set of invaders. There certainly was a group that had specific targets in mind, planned their attack and came prepared. But there was also a larger number who were caught up in the moment saw an opportunity to make a scene and stick it to the Libs.

I just did a bit of musing in a concurrent thread about the ongoing radicalization of US conservatism, if you’ll forgive my quoting myself:

@Kimstu

In my young day, the mindset of conservatism was heavily enmeshed with what we still occasionally called “squareness”. Conservatives self-identified as supporting “family values”, religious traditionalism, quasi-authoritarian patriotism, conventional careers, etc. What conservative parents feared (at least, according to the comparatively few people with conservative family backgrounds I knew in college) was that their kids would be lured away by the appeal of the “lifestyle” of “hedonistic”, sex-having, substance-consuming, art-class-taking, swear-word-using, hair-growing liberals.

Then came Rambo, and the rise of the “antisocial conservative” hero figure in general. The conservative self-image shifted (not entirely, but substantially) toward the “badass lone wolf” model, the beleaguered and disillusioned (but extremely cool, unlike his “square” predecessor) anti-hero type, who has to fight to survive in a hostile environment. (Mad Max is another avatar of this transition.)

So we segue from Moral Majority to militias and then MAGA. A significant chunk of conservatism is radicalized and aggressive, perceiving itself now as the “outsider” rather than the dominant “establishment” (despite the fact that people who identify as conservative, especially conservative white men, still have hugely disproportionate power in our society).

[rboyce]

I did not say “all” of them were innocent.
There were some who were duped by da dump because Trump was/is the President of the USA

[Sitnam]

Wow. The FBI is going to be busy.

[rboyce]

@Sitnam

Of course not, it’s a colloquialism.

My bet is the criminals among them will use the same excuse.

[Sitnam]

I suspect it will play differently in court with all the broken glass, mayhem, and a man’s skull caved in with a fire extinguisher.

Nuance.

[rboyce]

@Velocity

I agree, this was a motley bunch of disorganized rabble storming the Capitol but most not knowing what to do once inside. Many of them even obeyed the velvet ropes, like tourists - they probably hadn’t even expected they’d be able to breach the Capitol in the first place. Like what the Joker says about a dog chasing a car; what’s he going to do if he caught one?

That is a great analogy, thanks

[Northern_Piper]

“Pence? Never really liked the guy. No guts. Just a pussy, really.”

[robby]

@Ann_Hedonia

I’d like to point out that if the Democrats hadn’t taken the house in 2018, they might have been able to pull it off, getting both the House and Senate to reject the votes from swing states and having the House vote by state because they failed to reach 269.

Exactly. And what happens the next time we have a Presidential election in which the House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans? There’s no reason to think this won’t happen as soon as 2024.

We are already in a situation where no Democratic president is likely to get a Supreme Court nominee confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate.

We may soon find ourselves in a situation where no Democrat gets elected president if the House and Senate are controlled by Republicans. After all, all they have to do is to claim fraud, regardless of the veracity of the allegations.

[Atamasama]

@crowmanyclouds

Hanged, on Fifth Avenue, in broad daylight, with a Trump brand tie.

You are insane and delusional if you think that is at all possible.

That shitty tie would rip before he hung.

[Princhester]

That being said, I tend to follow the RCP aggregate. And looking today, Trump approval has fallen off a cliff and headed downward as more recent polls are added, and older polls removed.

I would be cautious about making assumptions concerning why his approval is falling off a cliff. RWA’s like “strong men” and don’t like “losers” and their categorization changes faster than today’s newspaper becomes tomorrow’s fishwrap. Trump is now pretty clearly a loser. His effort last Wednesday failed. His avenues for maintaining power have pretty much gone. He’s lost his Twitter voice. His henchmen are leaving the sinking ship.

My guess would be that a lot of his RWA supporters (and that will amount to a huge percentage of his supporters) won’t be dumping him because he tried to organize a coup, but because his coup failed.