I thought that was what the coup-folk were planning on doing with Mike Pence.
The bolded part isn’t by itself a feature of a coup. That is how prime ministers in many parliamentary systems come to power: being the leader of the larges party in the parliament, and legally appointed by the head of state.
Did not intend to imply otherwise. Pointing out that the German populace never actually elected him, he was able to leverage a appointment from the president int a dictatorship, one crisis and political machination at a time.
McConnell likely won’t vote to impeach, and I’m not convinced that too many other ‘outraged’ Republicans will, either.
So, how much has really changed?
? The impeachment has happened, hasn’t it? You mean that McConnell won’t vote to convict.
All the more reason to hold the trial, examine the evidence, and let Republicans go on record as saying “nah, let it go”.
I just don’t understand the relevance of saying he was never elected by the people. That’s common in many parliamentary systems. What point are you trying to make ? I don’t understand.
I could be wrong, but I’m not sure that it matters - not sure what does. I mean, shit if Americans cannot unify and collectively agree that an armed insurrection on the Capitol was an unambiguous outrage…
But why else would any Republican feel safe in opposing Trump’s conviction? It seems that a large chunk of this country really doesn’t see the assault as an outrage, or maybe they do but believe it’s a Deep State job.
Is it though? In most parliamentary systems* the prime minister and cabinet are selected from within parliament, right? Hitler was never a member of the German Parliament. He literally never won an election in which he ran (and he ran in several). I think that is unusual, but I could be wrong.
* My perception is mostly informed by current parliamentary systems. Perhaps they were different back then.
I’m not sure they do feel “safe” in opposing it. I think it’s probably just that they feel less safe in supporting it. They risk anger and possibly actual violence from the Trumpublican faction of their party, and political opposition and condemnation from radicalized Trumpublican state GOPs.
But they can’t be sure that their toleration of Trump’s malfeasance won’t come back to bite them in some form: they just don’t know which way or when the cat will eventually jump. Look how long it took for Congressional Republicans to repudiate Richard Nixon, for example.
Far better all around for today’s Congressional Republicans if they can just duck the issue by saying “whoops, POTUS out of office, nothing can be done about it even if something should have been done about it, too bad” and avoid having a trial altogether. That way they don’t have to go on record as standing up for Trump’s insurrectionism but they don’t have to go on record as opposing it, either.
So Congress should go ahead and have the trial. The Pubs are not entitled to duck out of this, ardently as they may wish to.
There is a difference between Westminster systems (Canada, UK, etc) and Western European parliamentary systems. In Westminster systems, the 1st minister snd Cabinet ministers are members of Parliament. In some West European parliamentary systems, the 1st minister and Cabinet ministers are not members of the Parliament. I don’t know how it worked in Weimar Germany?
But my point is that Hitler was originally appointed Chancellor by ordinary means, with the political legitimacy that came from leading the largest elected party in the Reichstag, although not a majority. The Chancellor has never been chosen by popular election, so I’m not sure what point Strassia is making?
My point is that it did not take a majority or even an election to get a dictator. It took a dedicated minority, a complacent majority, and a reactionary elite looking to take advantage of the popularity of someone they thought a fool. The German president appointed Hitler as bulwark against socialists and liberals.
Solid appraisal, and eerily close to what got us Trump in 2016.
Except there were elections. In both the elections in 1932, the Nazis were the single largest party in the Reichstag, and Hitler was the leader of the party. That is one of the reasons Hindenberg appointed him as chancellor.
All tours were shut down for covid restrictions. Then magically there was a tour right before an invasion.
His voters just not only said, “Here, here,” but “Let me pull the trigger for you so you don’t strain yourself.”
So if the invaders had gotten ahold of Mike Pence and hung him on the gallows out front, that wouldn’t have been a coup attempt because, in your eyes, that still wouldn’t have prevented the actual turnover of power to Biden?
They marched on the Capitol with the intent of overthrowing the results of the election and installing their own candidate as the President. That they see themselves as the patriots and defenders of democracy and protecting the true will of the people from the rigged election is irrelevant. Their intent was to retain Trump as President by any means necessary.
No, we do need to be aware of other forms of coup attempt, like you mention. But your own argument defies your use of what the Republicans in Congress did from being a coup. Because the objectors to the certification of electors had no real ability to stop the results, only delay. So that couldn’t be a coup, either, because there was no ability to succeed.
Or maybe your definition is wrong.
I agree it was a terrorist attack, but it was also a coup attempt, and denying that won’t prevent future groups from replicating the methods or improving them. We’ve already had an invasion of one state capitol building, and threats of repeating this in other states.
Calling this a coup attempt does nothing to suggest to other groups they might be more effective next time if they try harder - they already feel that way and it is true. Killing off a few Congresspeople or even just the Vice-President would do a lot to intimidate the rest of the legislators. I don’t think you can justify that it wouldn’t work. Once that level of violence occurs, how far away from open revolt is the country?
They really should have known that would go down in flames.
Sadly, a second police officer who was involved in responding to the coup has committed suicide.
Suicide is rarely a good response to a problem. But when somebody does it, they do have a reason in mind. Maybe not a good reason objectively, but one good / persuasive enough to them to motivate them into action. Very drastic action.
ISTM there are a bunch of different possible reasons / causes to commit suicide in this circumstance. Here’s the first few that came to my mind; there may be more:
- I was supposed to stop this and I failed. I suck at my job. I’m such a loser.
- Soon the investigation will uncover that I was part of the inside job.
- Soon the investigation will uncover that I was active on far-right social media and they’ll suspect I was part of the inside job. But I wasn’t. I’m trapped.
- Basic PTSD. I signed up to be a mostly ceremonial guard and I’m just not cut out for what became (briefly) a war. The things I saw/did haunt my every waking moment and fill my dreams.
- America is doomed because of the leftists and I don’t want to live to see it.
- America is doomed because of the rightists and I don’t want to live to see it.
- It just looks like a suicide. They did it. For various murky values of “they.”
Do we / anyone have any idea what may have motivated either the earlier or the current suicide / “suicide”?
It’s not clear yet. Several Metro police (municipal police) have spoken out about the coup. The Capitol Police (a federal agency) has long had a problem with racism in its ranks. But remember that a black Capitol Police officer used his own body as bait to lure the white nationalists away from senators.
Some MPD officers have alleged that security was intentionally reduced to allow the coup a better chance of success. MPD wasn’t called in until very late.
What these officers experienced was firsthand trauma. They were outnumbered by a mob, which included fellow police officers. It was a mob that vastly outnumbered and overpowered them. They were met with brutal violence, physically assaulted and verbally accosted. One of their officers was killed by the mob, and others were injured. I could see how maybe they came to the conclusion that they let their team down.
Beyond that, imagine that your one job is to protect the Capitol and you fail miserably. You fail so badly that the legislative chambers are overtaken by men in military uniforms and shaman outfits. You fail so badly that the very people you’re there to protect were potentially close to being murdered, potentially disrupting the government. This is an incident that won’t soon be forgotten, and what could have and should have been done will be Monday morning QB’d for the next several months, if not years.
Missed the edit, but one of the police suicides was from Capitol Police and the second was from MPD. MPD also had 65 injuries during the coup including the officer who was beaten with an American flag pole while people screamed “kill him with his own gun.”