I disagree that the far-right makes up a majority of Republican Party voters. I don’t think the majority of Republican Party leaders are genuinely far-right, although I sometimes doubt this. However, in my opinion, the “mainstream” right are too sympathetic to the far right elements. Which means, unfortunately, that I agree with your first and third sentences.
LARPers who tried to sieze control of the US Government. Reminds me of the novel, “The Mouse That Roared”, only terrifying
I am inclined to agree with those who say that a weak response, such sa no prosecutions, will send a very clear message to the right-wingers, and for that matter to wingnuts of all persuasions; if you think you have a good cause, you can do anything - and get away with it.
If the Proud Boys become Cowed Jailbirds it might just send a message.
I am bemused by the claims of some right-wingers that “ANTIFA thugs” dressed up as Proud Boys (do they even have a uniform?) and committed the violence. Interesting. Would several outsiders be able to slip in? My guess is that any group of Proud Boys they all know one another, and outsiders would be spotted at once unless vouched for. And have they disowned the violence?
But don’t let me spoil a really great incipient conspiracy theory.
You might find this article (and the related articles) interesting:
I disagree. In fact, I think it backfired on them horribly. Republican cabinet members are resigning because, basically, they cannot serve that president anymore. Notable Republican figures have vigorously spoken out against what transpired. World opinion is HEAVILY against what transpired. In trying to burn down our democracy and make himself a dictator, Trump may have burned down his own party as well. At the very least, it is badly singed.
The Republican party may have lost a host of swing voters for a very long time.
Agree, the problem for the Republicans is a fairly long standing one - the drift ever further rightwards has been a feature since the Bush Junior and perhaps even Bush Senior and his drug dealing activities.
The only thing that has played for the Republicans for a long time is that their support has been more politically engaged and turn out to vote - and that has balanced out the change in demographics. Now that minorities have been elected to higher office, and they can also see the effects of minority representation we may well see that the shrinkade in Republican demographics is terminal.
The Republican demographic has been shrinking for a long time whilst the Deomcratic one has been increasing, both will continue to do so, their response has been to recruit and energise those even further out to the right, groups and individuals who would likely not be interested in Republicanism or even politics ten or more years ago.
Republicans have replaced their usual membership and support as it has died off through old age, they are now dependent upon the far Right, it is arguable that without the far right they hardly exist at all, and certainly would not have the numbers to have much effect.
Think about what we’ve had, the tea partiers, swiftboaters, birthers, now we have MAGA and add in all the social media tools along with Fox media.
Republicans, by their actions, have demonstrated they cannot gain or retain power through democratic means alone - use of voter supression, ballot challenge and thug bully boys all demonstrate that the older version is currently not a real force, the only thing they have to use is extremism - they are dependent upon it.
Republicans have fought line by line against the most important social measure and effectively hobbled full implementation of universal healthcare - Covid has really brought that home to a whole tranch of the voting population in a most direct manner.
They have pandered to the moneyed classes against the population - this they have done over generations but never has it been more evident than today.
Yet they got a higher vote than they ever did - it will be interesting to see if it represents a high water markl.
Sharper minds in what is left of the rational Republican Party will already be deciding if their whole organisation needs to be poltically relocated - but for me I think it might be too late, at least for the next two or four terms
47% of republicans support what happened. And who knows how many believe it didn’t happen or was Antifa or was overblown by the Lamestream Media?
If this attempted coup means they can never win a free and fair election again, even more reason to try another coup.
I’ve given up on those people, so they aren’t even a consideration for me. The fact is that, for the Republican party to dominate, they need swing voters, not just their own fanatics.
Oh, just out of curiosity; how, exactly, can you “overblow” an attempt to overthrow our democracy and install a rogue in the place of the president who was democratically chosen by the people of the United States? Over to you …
That’s about my thinking, yes. Here’s someone else who shares that view (4 minute video); there’s a lot of info in there that i’d bet some of y’all don’t know yet:
We’re talking about two different things here: the future fortunes of the Republican Party as a whole, and what the Trumpers take away from this.
What I’m hearing from those who keep an ear on Parler, Gab, and other far-right sites is that there’s a lot of exultation there. They think this was a big success, they’re celebrating.
Maybe that’ll change if hundreds of Wednesday’s invaders of the Capitol get identified, prosecuted, and imprisoned for years. Or maybe not. But certainly nothing less will do the job. And it’ll have to be topped off with immediate and strong responses to future attacks of that nature, where the participants are captured on the spot, hauled off to jail, and successfully prosecuted.
As far as the Republican Party in general is concerned - well, they’ll have to disavow this attack and its instigators (and are already doing so) just as they had to disavow the OKC bombing back in 1995. But short of that, they’re going to be just as radical as they’ve been, because that’s where their voters are.
The fact that they got 74 million votes in November is sobering. And their turnout for the Georgia runoff was high, even by general election standards; as in November, the only reason we won was that our turnout was even higher.
There may be a drop-off in their turnout once Trump is off the ballot, but I don’t think we can count on it. Our turnout needs to keep on being higher. So how do we do that?
Best approach I can think of is two-pronged: (1) pass legislation like HR 1 in 2019 that protects expansive voting rights, and (2) pass, or try to pass, legislation that makes a concrete difference in people’s lives. (None of this is original with me, of course.) Such as the $2000 checks, a major minimum wage hike (and applying it to farm workers, domestic workers, etc. and tipped workers to some extent, e.g. setting their employer-paid minimum to 80% of the regular minimum), student debt cancellation (can be done by executive order), etc.
The point is to ensure that voting Dem makes people’s lives better, so that low-propensity Dem voters are motivated to turn out.
I wonder if generations from now, people wear orange masks like Guy Fawkes celebrants and remember this failed coup.
Be wary, be wary, the Sixth of January…
The Covfefe treason and plot…
I know of no reason why Covfefe treason,
Should ever be forgot.
The harsh response he’s actually advocating as necessary is that the elected officials who promoted this should have been rounded up en masse and tried. In 24 hours. I don’t think that’s going to happen at all, but if it were to happen in less than 24 hours, I’d consider that a worse sign of how our democracy is going than what actually happened.
The idea that because there haven’t yet been big public consequences (line the bastards up against the wall) means that there won’t be any substantial consequences is just wrong. Republicans lost the Senate because of this sort of antidemocratic bullshit. Trump will likely be impeached again. The DOJ gets a new head with carte blanche to go after this shit in 2 weeks and the morons were posting selfies on social media of their federal crimes.
As RTFirefly pointed out, just because this went down very badly for the Republican Party doesn’t mean that’s the conclusion that these Capitol intruders will take away from it. Many of them will see things entirely differently.
Also, from social media, many people of such inclination had apparently been under an impression that only one side (BLM, Antifa, etc.) had been doing violence while the Trump side had been too peaceful, and it was time to “even things up”; “two can play at this game.” Whether that was true or not is totally irrelevant; that’s apparently how many such people think.
This.
What did it “work” for? Everybody knows that violent spectacles get attention.
The only meaningful insight to be gained remains to be seen: whether white insurgents end up skating free, or restrained on a gurney with needles in their arm.
Obviously we’d all like that number to be much lower but it also means that half of Republicans were against the riot. This means that the party will be warring within itself over a significant action. I think this will hurt them.
I dunno.
“Ratings” is a facile and apt term, but the thing that keeps me awake at night is truly not knowing if there’s any line this POS won’t cross.
He’s never been told “No” before, it seems – not in any resounding way where the stakes were high and what was being denied him … mattered greatly to him.
This guy has figured out that he has a ragtag army of inbred morons, willing to give their lives for him (ie, the true ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’).
What if he ends up in Mar-a-Lago, editing his voluminous Enemies List, and just decides to start Tweeting (the term used generically), in classic Mob Boss fashion (ie, in an extremely implicit way) that Person X was the one ‘at the heart of taking this election away from us.’
What if the generalities about the media being the ‘enemy of the people’ became specifics – naming individuals.
There may have been woefully few ‘adults in the room’ over the last four years, but will there be any in the next four ?
I don’t feel comfortable assuming that he wouldn’t do something like this in an effort to mollify his leviathan and critically wounded ego, and I am under absolutely no illusion that any number of his followers would welcome the opportunity to serve Dear Leader (In Exile).
With CFSG, every single grievance – real or imagined – must be redressed, and with disproportionate harm.
He very well may, assuming he isn’t in a state prison somewhere instead. One difference, however—and I am not presenting this as optimistic reassurance, just an important detail—will be that from now on Trump will be naming and scolding many prominent Republicans as well as Democrats as his “traitors” and “enemies”. He will have nothing to gain from the Republican Party per se anymore, and he will bitterly resent their “abandoning” him.
And wealthy Republican politicians and former Trump administration officials are NOT going to tolerate a situation in which THEY are the ones in the crosshairs of MAGA vigilantes. Once they’ve figured out that the “Trump-Lite” schtick is no longer a viable option for them and they can no longer ingratiate themselves with Trump voters who are violently pissed off at them, they are suddenly going to discover that partisan intimidation and right-wing domestic terrorism are terrible, terrible things, and those lawless loose cannons must be brought to book. The FBI will be deployed in perpetuity.
The question is how much resistance their anti-rightwing-terrorism law-and-order campaign would be likely to encounter from local law enforcement and municipal officials who have bought into all the Trump-In-Exile bullshit themselves. I admit it would be a bit wryly funny, if it weren’t so shamefully disgusting, to think of DeVos and a bunch of other former Trumpers barricading themselves into their mansions behind platoons of Blackwater mercenaries because they don’t trust local cops not to be in cahoots with Trumpist wannabe “tyrannicides”.
And then they’d still be nervous about a potential Praetorian Guard sitch involving disaffected mercenaries. What a shitshow all around.
According to this: 53 people have been charged so far.
Yes, it would have been better if they had been arrested at the scene. But I’m going to reiterate that maybe we should give this a little time to shake out.
I’m in favor of waiting until after the inaguration to make arrests. Just to be rid of Trump and his corrupt influence prior to the reckoning.