# The American Coup: 11.9.2020 - **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 9, 2020, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182 "2020-11-09T23:29:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 123
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2444 "2021-01-09T17:17:57Z")
What is CFSG? ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2445 "2021-01-09T17:19:28Z")
Cheeto-Faced Shit Gibbon. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2446 "2021-01-09T17:20:43Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > I strongly disagree, unless you mean it was a subconscious effort to not oppose their “own side”. What possible goal would they have in mind? Surely they didn’t think a rabble of a few thousand amateurs could pull off an effective coup. And they probably knew that their jobs would be forfeit if they failed to contain the mob, or at least kept them out of the capitol. More of - their plan didn’t make any sense, so there was no conscious deliberate collusion. Just dangerously compacent. Again, the many MAGA sympathizers among law enforcement live in the same delusional alternate reality as all other Trump supporters. They may not be strategic masterminds, more likely their plans will be completely idiotic from the perspective of people in touch with reality. But given their role, if they are colluding it is a very serious problem with potentially horrific consequences, as we saw on 1/6. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2447 "2021-01-09T17:23:43Z")
Predicting exactly who will be the one to pick up the battle flag is impossible to say at this point. It could anyone from one of Trump’s children to Ted Cruz to someone not really on our radar yet. But it’s important for people to understand that Trump didn’t really create the crisis; he capitalized on it. He was the first one who understood that being a racist and just being a bad person could lead to a successful campaign for the presidency – precisely because there’s a market for that kind of guy (or gal, even). There still is, and I think that market is only going to expand, even as the push back against it intensifies and expands concurrently. What it would take to end it something that causes a major paradigm shift of thought, and I think the key is a boldly progressive economic and political agenda that is focused like a laser on growing and protecting the middle class. As the scientist Peter Turchin radically pointed out back in 2010, America (perhaps the democratic world) has an ecological problem. Where he and I differ somewhat is that he seems to be saying the primary driver is an overproduction of elites, and that elites end up fighting with each other, just like they do in, say, ant colonies. I agree that too many elites can end up with displaced elites challenging other elites, but displaced elites ultimately need a lot more disgruntled and displaced foot soldiers, and those passionate foot soldiers come in the form of displaced working class, who really didn’t have a ton of ambition but had certain expectations that they’d have a certain life and lifestyle. One of the blaring warning sirens, one of _the_ warning signs are 20-40 year old males (particularly from political dominant demographics) who are either underemployed, or who lack stable income and opportunities for regular sex – I know this seems nuts, but stay with me. It’s the ecological problem. When you take large numbers of people who believe that they are entitled to a certain status, and they are then deprived of that status - regardless of that demogrpahic’s power and status relative to everyone else - you are sitting on a social powder keg. That’s what we’re dealing with now. What’s really alarming is that what happened on Wednesday wasn’t really and truly the worst of it; most of those people were probably astroturfers and professional shit disturbers, not the worst of the worst that we could imagine. Contrast them to the members of Al Qaida who hijacked the planes on 9/11: men in their early to late 20s from working class and/or working poor families in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, and UAE. If what happened in Saudi Arabia between 1975 and 2000 – per capita income dropping from $25000/year to about 8000/year – or if an economic decline even , say, half of a third that bad happens, that is when you would really see shit go absolutely out of control. We’re in a pandemic right now that is raging out of control. We’re in a deepening economic crisis. Both of these conditions could seriously worsen over the next 6 to 12 months, which would bring us to the situation or scenario that I’ve laid out above. We have an opportunity to reverse this situation for the better, but we’re also dangerously close to having all-out conflict - much closer than we realize. Wednesday was nothing, trust me. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2448 "2021-01-09T17:35:34Z")
So you whip up a group of malcontents, turn them into a cult, fed them bullshit for _years_, group them in one area, then sicced this crowd on a target whereupon five people are killed, all while you sat at home and egged them on. Are you: _Poll ([view on site](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2448))_ ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2449 "2021-01-09T17:47:28Z")
A stupid conspiracy is still a conspiracy. These wasn’t some grand elaborate plan based on an overarching philosophy. But it was still a conspiracy to overthrow the government, even if it was organized around nothing more than the twin principles of spite and profiteering. There are people in the government that are definitely culpable because of willful blindness, the failure to recognize what should have been a blinding obvious fact — _ **The President is mustering an army to attack Congress because they intend to ratify Joe Biden’s victory** _. I told people on Wednesday morning, after the GA election, that this attack was a virtual certainty. If I can piece this together from my iPad 500 miles away, the freaking FBI should’ve pieced it together. But this “willful blindness ( a legal term that will become very important shortly) is just that. They announced that they were doing this, the event was called STOP THE STEAL. They told their radicals to muster on the White House lawn and advance on the Capitol at 1PM, the time of the “steal”. I’ve been trying to research the permissions and permits issued for this advance without a whole lot of success. It does appear that a couple of groups got permitted for “first amendment gatherings” of around 5 or 10 thousand. I found this article using one of my favorite tricks. If you are looking for background info on a current event, do a date limited search that cuts off any results after published after the event. > **[MAGA marchers plot final D.C. stand on Jan. 6](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/04/maga-marchers-trump-last-stand-454382)** > > After failed lawsuits and investigations, Trump supporters are traveling to D.C. in a doomed bid to convince Congress to overturn the election. It’s frightening naive in retrospect. But the money phrase, for my purposes, is “As is typical for large MAGA gatherings, there is some dissension over who is organizing the event. There shouldn’t have been. And city and federal officials should’ve noticed that the crowds amassing were far in excess of what had been permitted.This wasn’t a good faith underestimate of an event’s popularity, that happens. This seems like a deliberate attempt to evade the permitting laws and ensure that the Capitol building was underprotected. I’m not blaming the front line police officers, I’m blaming the Trump culture that has infested the federal government, the law enforcement agencies that apparently decided that if Trump told them his followers would remain peaceful they’d take his word for it. As long as he pinky-sweared. ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2450 "2021-01-09T17:49:03Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I’m friends with a guy who is involved with organizing media conventions, like various city-based comic-cons. He says it’s common, at any large event, to have some number of National Guard troops assigned to the location. I am amused by the idea of the National Guard standing by, in hiding, at ComicCon. I supposed it might be true, but somehow I can’t bring myself to believe it. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2451 "2021-01-09T17:51:02Z")
You forgot the wallpaper hanger. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2452 "2021-01-09T17:55:53Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > It’s not a scheme, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just people doing their individual parts in looking the other way as authoritarians try to take root in our democracy. > [@Riemann](#): > > More of - their plan didn’t make any sense, so there was no conscious deliberate collusion. Just dangerously compacent. > > Again, the many MAGA sympathizers among law enforcement live in the same delusional alternate reality as all other Trump supporters. They may not be strategic masterminds, more likely their plans will be completely idiotic from the perspective of people in touch with reality. > [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I’m blaming the Trump culture that has infested the federal government, the law enforcement agencies that apparently decided that if Trump told them his followers would remain peaceful they’d take his word for it. One thing I kind of glean from the statements of some participants and/or supporters of the criminal nonsense (including DJT himself and his spawn), is that they seem to operate based an an assumption/expectation that somewhere, _someone else_ is assembling and organizing and doing what needs done and you are just waiting for the call to just show up and do your thing. Thus the constant looking for signs and signals and allusions to things like “the Kraken” and stuff like Pizzagate and QAnon – the more bizarre and implausible, paradoxically, the more it **must** be something some real masterminds are coming up with. One can imagine a situation in which sympathizers coming together or crossing paths all believe or trust that _the other guy_ is the one that has the plan and I just have to step aside or join in or cheer them on. The danger is what happens when someone shows up with an actual plan and will be willing to take the risk of actually saying “do THIS and THIS” and actively leading, as opposed to just making “positive affirmation” a-la Trump. > [@Grrr](#): > > What is CFSG? I was thinking a while past that we needed a pinned post… ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2453 "2021-01-09T18:04:49Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > What is CFSG? We should probably add this to the FAQ. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2454 "2021-01-09T18:12:24Z")
Good idea. I always get mixed up and call him the Shit-Faced Cheeto Gibbon. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2455 "2021-01-09T18:15:59Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > We should probably add this to the FAQ. Maybe Discourse could add a keyboard shortcut for CFSG? I’m thinking Ctrl- Forward Slash would be easy to remember, it looks like a Nazi salute. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2456 "2021-01-09T18:18:27Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I’m friends with a guy who is involved with organizing media conventions, like various city-based comic-cons. He says it’s common, at any large event, to have some number of National Guard troops assigned to the location. They are placed on standby, out of view, like in the hotel basement or an unused convention hall, somewhere on site where they can respond quickly but won’t be seen until activated. The number of them varies depending on the scale of the event and the current alert level for national security, but they’re almost always there. > > You don’t have to put the Guard in a ring around the Capitol. It would have been very easy to have them twiddling their thumbs in, say, the cafeteria. Any professional site-defense and crowd-control specialist would have known this. > > The fact that it wasn’t done tells you that this was, almost certainly, actively coordinated by authorities loyal to Trump who were trying to set the stage for the invasion of the building. Lots of support for this view: “You cannot tell me I don’t know what they should have done. I can fly to Washington tomorrow and do that job, just as any police official in Washington can fly to Paris and do mine,” the official said. The official directs public security in a central Paris police district filled with government buildings and tourist sites. “These are not subtle principles” for managing demonstrations, “and they transfer to every situation,” the official said. “This is why we train alongside the US federal law enforcement to handle these very matters, and it’s obvious that large parts of any successful plan were just ignored.” That quote is from this article: [US Allies Say Trump Attempted Coup With Help From Federal Law Enforcement](https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-attempted-coup-federal-law-enforcement-capitol-police-2021-1?fbclid=IwAR1Dwd8qGq0ZckTRNnJpR8a4FsfxJo8GqIfqjhG-JsLMQRbsODqvP7E8rt4) ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2457 "2021-01-09T18:21:33Z")
Nice. ---
**Author:** ![Ziberian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/919ad9/32.png) [@Ziberian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ziberian)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2458 "2021-01-09T18:42:07Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > No, I’m saying that if the National Guard was posted with force - Say a number of Bradleys and a few hundred men outside would have given Trump and all of his supporters to cry "FOUL ! This is proof that the electoral vote was stolen, because… " They will cling to any lame excuse they can. I’m also saying (if you read my post) that if a few hundred or maybe 50 additional LEO’s where inside the Capitol, once seeing an overwhelming show of force from inside (or when they forced their way in). It would have been over in a few minutes. There are crowd control measures besides tear gas (though that should have been used much more). > > I don’t blame anyone but Trump and his enablers and supporters. But I think that the Capitol could have been better prepared. Supporting/surrounding the building with military, would have given Trump a soap box to stand on. Trump & his supporters twist reality and cry ‘foul’ no matter what is done or not done unless it directly supports their view. For example, I just saw a Facebook post claiming this was not an attempt to overthrow the government because those folks just waltzed in there with no resistance. They’re still working on their excuses for this, but so far a) Antifa did it, b) it wasn’t a coup, libs are being suckered by the alphabet media again, c) why didn’t people condemn the BLM riots (complete with comparison charts showing how the BLM riots were much worse). To skimp on public safety to appease these people is a mistake. They are not rational and reason does not apply. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2459 "2021-01-09T19:17:59Z")
> **[Jake Angeli, Capitol rioter in horned helmet, arrested by Feds](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jake-angeli-capitol-rioter-in-horned-helmet-arrested-by-feds-11610219370?mod=economy-politics)** > > Federal agents have arrested the rioter seen wearing a horned-headress and holding a spear during Wednesday’s rampage through the Capitol. Arizona resident Jacob Anthony Chansley, 33, also kn… They got another one ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2460 "2021-01-09T19:26:00Z")
Background on that guy, from another article: "The Republic interviewed Angeli during 2020 as part of a series of stories and a mini-documentary on the Patriot movement in Arizona, the increasingly powerful right-wing of the Republican party. Some adherents promoted conspiracy theories including the baseless idea of QAnon. "Angeli lived in Phoenix, but it was not clear what he did for a living. “He was listed on a webpage that let (sic) be hired out as a voice-over actor. He also sold online courses in shamanistic studies.” ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2461 "2021-01-09T19:26:12Z")
> [@Ziberian](#): > > To skimp on public safety to appease these people is a mistake. They are not rational and reason does not apply. That was a response to my suggestion of installing more LEO’s in the Capitol? Ok then. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2462 "2021-01-09T19:27:01Z")
… and the guy who walked off with the Speaker’s lectern. [Three Men Charged in Connection with Events at U.S. Capitol](https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/three-men-charged-connection-events-us-capitol) > Adam Johnson, 36, of Florida, was charged with one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; one count of theft of government property; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. Johnson was arrested yesterday and is currently in custody. > > **It is alleged that on Jan. 6, 2021, Johnson illegally entered the United States Capitol and removed the Speaker of the House’s lectern** from where it had been stored on the House side of the Capitol building. A search of open sources led law enforcement to Johnson, who is allegedly seen in a widely circulated photo inside the Capitol carrying the lectern. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182/2463 "2021-01-09T19:30:35Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > … and the guy who walked off with the Speaker’s lectern. He’s gonna have a hard time with that in over head luggage storage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182.md?page=122) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-coup-11-9-2020/925182.md?page=124)