[throwaway201103]

Because if there was one thing it wasn't, it wasn't an "existential threat to the republic." Hyperbole like this make it hard to talk about the rest of it reasonably. It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year.

[Trasmatta]

That "protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors" would have absolutely executed a member of Congress or the Vice President if given the chance. And they got unbelievably close to being able to do that. They had weapons, armor, bloodlust, restraints, and smaller organized extremist groups.

How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

[wutbrodo]

> How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

I'm pretty high up the spectrum of taking the riot seriously rather than "a protest gone bad", but how would this extreme worst case be "an existential threat to the republic"? The republic is explicitly designed to rout around the death (incl assassination) of the President, let alone more minor political figures. Was Gabbie Giffords' tragic attack an existential threat to the republic?

I'm a hardliner on political violence and want to see the book thrown at everyone who stormed the Capitol, but that's down to the need to set a Schelling fence; it's not even close to "existential".

[Trasmatta]

> Was Gabbie Giffords' tragic attack an existential threat to the republic?

Somebody also compared this to the Scalise shooting. Neither are comparable. This was a mob executing the whim of the sitting President, trying to prevent the legal counting of the votes of the incoming President. Not to mention the symbolic nature of it taking place at the US Capitol, while the entirety of Congress was in session. This is not comparable to lone wolf attacks against singular targets.

I don't think it would have been actually republic ending -- but it sure would have set us on an extremely dangerous path towards increasing levels of extremism, violence.

[kortilla]

> How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

Because it’s not. Our representatives are not the republic. There isn’t some clause that dissolves government if enough representatives die.

The civil war in which states receded was an existential threat. A bunch of dead Congress members is horrific terrorism but it’s nowhere near an existential crisis. The beauty of our structure is that individuals do not matter in the gran scheme of things.

[Trasmatta]

This has been brought up elsewhere in the thread, but it's not about the individuals dying. It's about the potential for escalating violence and power grabs that come in its wake.

A MAGA mob that managed to kill Senators would likely cause protests and riots to erupt across the country. Likely worse than we saw last summer. Then you have a major danger of counter protesting, and escalating violence between the groups. Then there's the danger of the possible ways in which the government reacts. We already saw Trump last summer threatening to deploy military on domestic soil. The dominos can continue to fall from there, as violence continues, and power consolidates.

Would that have definitely happened, and would that have definitely threatened to end the republic? I don't know. But it's a threat, nonetheless.

This comment explains it better than me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711602

[kortilla]

But that’s all fantasy. The country has the national guard for protests in cities which frequently gets deployed and would be used in these scenarios as well. There is no special power grab that can happen legally so he would need a bunch of life long military generals to agree to a coup, in which case the congress protester attack is irrelevant anyway.

[sparkling]

> They had weapons

Are we talking about guns? I didn't see any report that any of these people had a single gun. Yes you can qualify a broom stolen from the janitors cabin as a weapon, but give me a break...

> armor

Wearing a pair of camouflage pants and a bicyle helmet does not qualify as armor

> bloodlust

maybe

[detaro]

> I didn't see any report that any of these people had a single gun.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/us-capitol-riots... mentions, among other things, multiple charges for carrying guns on capitol grounds. + a bunch of illegal gun stuff in the surrounding area.

> Wearing a pair of camouflage pants and a bicyle helmet does not qualify as armor

Above article mentions at least one case where the police charge explicitly mentions a bulletproof vest, and on various photos you can see "tactical helmets" (which could be unarmored, true) and plate carriers

[throwaway201103]

Because in trying to imagine the worst possible outcome, I still see no way Joe Biden is not sworn in on January 20. I grant you some of the people there may have been under delusions that they could stop it, but it wasn't going to happen. I mean god forbid they killed the VP or the Speaker. The rest of the Congress, the military, the states, are all going stand aside and say "OK well, nothing we can do now, it's President Trump for life!"

[Trasmatta]

It's not just about whether Biden becomes President on the 20th. Because there's not really any way they could have stopped that. It's about how much further that could have escalated extremism and violence.

[Pfhreak]

I suggest you read more history. Sudden violent events have, time after time, been used to increase authoritarian control. I can absolutely see a line that starts with "we need to get the Senate safe, also we're going to give emergency powers to the president." Followed by attempts to prevent the Senate from meeting, increasing police and national guard presence. Protests start nationwide. Protests lead to riots and conflict. Suddenly there's an incentive to use a little force to get everything "in order". And maybe just hold on a bit before handing over power.

Especially because the police support Trump.

[kortilla]

> we need to get the Senate safe, also we're going to give emergency powers to the president.

There is an actor in your sentence that doesn’t exist in the US government. There is no “we” that would give emergency powers to the president against the will of the congress.

[ModernMech]

What if the violence ends in everyone who opposes the President losing their lives? They get rid of all Democrats in Congress, and Republicans vote to give Trump emergency powers.

[kortilla]

Can’t happen. They wouldn’t be able to achieve quorum to even have the vote. Would need to wait until states appoint replacement representatives.

[throwaway201103]

Who is the "we" that is giving him more powers? Trump is viscerally hated by the Speaker (2nd in line) and most of the House (they already impeached him once) and a significant portion of the Senate. No way he's getting any emergency powers, if the Constitution would even allow it.

[Trasmatta]

For a more competent autocrat-hopeful, the military. Trump's biggest mistake (and our biggest boon in such a situation) is that he spent 4 years making enemies of the top brass. You don't become a dictator when the heads of the military hate you.

[ergocoder]

Everyone who is involved in this coup should be arrested immediately

Why isn't Trump arrested yet? since many claims he is the leader of the coup.

Even AOC calls for resignation for supporting a coup attempt. Huh?

In many countries, It's a death sentence (or max jail time) if one tries to overthrow a government.

In US, the punishment is resignation and banned from social media and AWS?

Yeah, some hyperbole is involved here.

[lliamander]

I'm old enough to remember when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot a Republican congressman at a baseball practice. Is that an existential threat to the republic that should be laid at the feet of Bernie supporters?

[Trasmatta]

You can't see the difference between a single lone wolf attack at a baseball game, and an entire mob instigated by the President of the United States, at the US Capitol? Taking place while Congress counted the votes of that President's political opponent?

[lliamander]

Most of the people at the Capitol were there for peaceful protest.

Trump did not tell them to kill politicians. His rhetoric was extreme, but arguably so is Bernie's.

[Trasmatta]

> Most of the people at the Capitol were there for peaceful protest.

Okay, but there were many there that explicitly wanted violence, came prepared for it, and used the mob as cover.

> Trump did not tell them to kill politicians

Trump doesn't have to explicitly say "kill these politicians" to make the implication perfectly clear. He repeatedly told them he needed them to "fight" for him.

> His rhetoric was extreme, but arguably so is Bernie's

Bernie never incited a mob to storm the Capitol Building, while Congress ratified the votes for his political opponent.

[lliamander]

> Bernie never incited a mob to storm the Capitol Building, while Congress ratified the votes for his political opponent.

His supporters most certainly include a fringe of people prepared for violence. I've even seen video evidence of such people working for his presidential election campaign.

Bernie Sanders also endorsed the (thankfully failed) Portland mayoral candidate who was an open Antifa supporter and worshiper of Stalin and Mao.

The question, for any political movement that has violent fringe, to what extent can the responsibility for that violent fringe be set at the feet of either the members of the movement or the politicians who lead it?

Bernie and his followers have never been broadly considered responsible for his radicals, despite his extreme rhetoric.

All summer long we had "mostly peaceful" BLM protests that included a significant minority of violent radicals (both BLM and Antifa) and yet no one took responsibility. In many cases people weren't even prosecuted.

Consider this: on election day, D.C. was boarded up, and it wasn't in preparation for rioting Trump supporters. These are people who generally speaking don't want to over through the existing order. They just want to see the existing order working.

[ygjb]

Were they a part of a mob swarming the baseball practice? If so, then yes, they were all complicit for not stopping an escalation of violence. If not, then no, it was a single actor. It's not that hard to apply a tiny amount of critical thinking to avoid false equivalency.

[suzakus]

There's a huge difference between a lone actor and the large amount of people who went into the capitol on the 6th.

[lliamander]

Most of the people there (including many who entered the building) were clearly not intending or prepared for violence.

[Trasmatta]

So? Many of them were. And the mob provided them cover.

[lliamander]

Honest question: do you feel the same about the riots over the past summer?

[jessehattabaugh]

Bernie didn't tell him to do what he did, and he was just one guy. This was a large mob, and Trump had just instructed it to do 90% of what it did. The possibility that violence could occur was clear. That's not at all a valid comparison.

[paulddraper]

And you attest that malatov-throwing, firework shooting, armed, arsonist actors in Summer 2020 wouldn't do the same?

A huge protest with high emotions does mob justice. No surprises there.

[birdyrooster]

Nope, because they weren't interfering with the ratification of a Presidential election. It's one thing to burn out a Target and another to ransack The Capitol while it is in session doing critical constitutional duties.

[paulddraper]

It's better for people aggrieved by the system to loot and burn down community businesses than government buildings?

That is a very hot take.

[birdyrooster]

Yes, when that government building is the Capitol. It's more about the people inside the building than the building itself.

[Trasmatta]

And not just the Capitol, but the Capitol while the entirety of Congress is in session counting the votes for the incoming President.

It's one thing if this had happened on a random Wednesday, but the timing is what makes it so disturbing.

It's straight out of a wannabe dictator's playbook. The fact that it was incompetent and disorganized doesn't change that.

[Trasmatta]

You're the third person who's responded to my comment with a whataboutism for the BLM protests, something I made zero mention of.

[diryawish]

What was your opinion on the BLM protests outside of the White House ?

[Qub3d]

Okay, putting the ideals of the two events aside, the fact is the police (and national guard) presence was great enough during the BLM protest to make breaching the perimeter essentially impossible, as opposed to the much lighter presence on the 6th.

[diryawish]

Exactly and it’s unacceptable that it wasn’t. Who is to blame?

[zaroth]

And Trump got absolutely pilloried for having that troop presence at the time.

[birdyrooster]

Because it was a photo op, not a constitutional duty of Congress.

[zaroth]

I’m not talking about the photo op, I’m talking about the police presence trying to contain the violent mob earlier in the day.

[Trasmatta]

I'm not sure why you ask, but this seems like a potential bad faith attempt at whataboutism. I don't support any form of rioting. I also don't think what happened outside of the White House was in any way a riot. Certainly not in any way comparable to what happened this week at the Capitol.

[diryawish]

I ask because it makes you think and hopefully prevent overreaction. Banning apps because of extremists and poor police presence is stupid. I think these people should have been treated the same as the second day of protest where Capitol police were stationed outside after the church was set on fire. There was a lot more time to plan for these event as it was less spontaneous and had many hundreds of thousands planning attendance. I think not having a bigger police presence was pathetic and it was likely political.

[bigtiger]

I sincerely hope you are correct, but it's difficult to know the following:

1. just how many citizens were sympathetic to the rioters as they saw those events on unfolding on their screens

2. how their collective behavior will change as a result

I wouldn't say that "existential threat" is hyperbole, I'd say that its accuracy depends on the answer to the above questions.

I wasn't worried about the immediate collapse of the America at the hands of the Capitol mob.

[mostlove]

Not an answer to your question, but a few interesting data points nonetheless:

"From @YouGov poll: among Republican voters, 45% approve of the storming of Capitol, 30% think the perpetrators are 'patriots', 52% think Biden is at least partly to blame for it, and 85% think it would be inappropriate to remove Trump from office after this. This is not a fringe." https://twitter.com/SMerler/status/1347089854958596098?s=20

[wutbrodo]

Fwiw, a more recent PBS/Marist poll puts Republican support for the attack at 18%.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/news/53345...

Full poll (pdf): http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/PBS-...

[mckirk]

Damn, those are depressing numbers...

[na85]

>It was a protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors, and an embarrasing lack of preparedness by the Capitol Police on that day of all days, given what has been going on all year.

Those "few bad actors" had weapons and tried to interrupt the certification of the new president. They may be idiots because of their poor planning but their intent was obvious to anyone who hasn't drank the kool-aid.

[throwaway201103]

I don't think anyone (certainly not me) is denying some intent of at least a core of instigators to create a disruption, at minimum. They should be identified, charged with their crimes, and stand trial.

[WindyLakeReturn]

And previously a few bad actors attempted to assassinate a number of GOP representatives, yet we didn't see a comparable reaction.

I also seem to recall there were people staging faked but realistic looking beheadings of Trump which was celebrated as free speech.

[tenpies]

I really find it fascinating how the US media finds the exception and pretends it's the norm. It's something out of psy-ops.

ONE demonstrator had zip ties, therefore "they had zip ties".

Sure, many were armed and who fired the sole single lethal shot that day? Law enforcement. How is that for peaceful?

The "four people died" narrative is also very telling. One demonstrator was shot by police. One law enforcement officer died of injuries - although details have been very vague. The other two deaths? One heart attack and one unrelated condition. At this point I expect the US media to attribute every single death in DC on that day to these demonstrations just so they can pretend it was an extremely lethal event.

The people "stormed the Capitol" and what did they do once they had it? They took selfies and then left peacefully. That's not a coup or an insurrection, that's a disorganized demonstration that went too far because Capitol police could apparently not keep doors closed.

But I understand. The US media has been priming people for 5 years for this. They've been running influence campaigns and promoting violence the minute Trump won. They spent 3 years talking about Russian collusion and then didn't say a thing when it was proven false. Could you imagine if the Russian collusion narrative had been treated the same way the electoral fraud narrative has been treated?

[asxd]

In a pragmatic way, you are right. This could have ended up much worse than it did. But let's not fool ourselves, the intent of these people was to intimidate officials into disrupting a peaceful transition of power.

They didn't do so because of any actual evidence that the transition was fraudulent, but out of loyalty to one person and a cult of personality. It all just reeks of dictatorship-like behavior to me.

[tenpies]

I disagree largely because you're extrapolating the exception to be the rule. There were hundreds of thousands of people there and 99% of them never even entered the Capitol buildings.

I think the most telling part of intent is coming from the arrest data. There have been less than a handful of arrests due to firearms. Two of them were alarming (one had mason jar IEDs, one was making assassination threats at Pelosi). I am sure we will get more of what I would agree with you were "people with an intent to intimidate officials", but they are going to make up less than 99.5% of the hundreds of thousands of people that were there to demonstrate. The bulk of arrests have been curfew related - no surprises there.

I think it helps to put ourselves in the mindset of the people there, regardless of what side you're on. These people were upset that while the "fraud" of 2016 (the Russian collusion narrative) was thoroughly investigated and proven to be false after 3.5 years of dragging the President through the mud, the 2020 "fraud" allegation feels like it's being completely ignored.

And look I do not think there was enough fraud to change the results (I assume that in any election with no voter ID there will be some fraud, period). What I think is problematic is when instead of investigating allegations to appease 70 MM of your constituents, you instead say "no investigation and if you even ask about this you must be de-platformed, banned from the internet, and are probably a terrorist". That response is extremely dictatorial and not the sign of someone acting with good intentions. That's what scares me much more than anything than the fraction of a percent of demonstrators did.

[asxd]

I think I see what you're saying, but it seems like we are focusing on two different aspects of the event. I'm perfectly comfortable with people taking issue and protesting the de-platforming. I personally think it was the right move, but I fully support that others be able to think differently and try to affect change.

But the ban is not dictatorial. It is fully within these private companies' rights to refuse service to the president. And most importantly, this is not the government suppressing the people, it's the people suppressing the government. I can hardly imagine a stronger example of true liberty. Surely in actual dictatorship that would never be allowed to happen.

What these corporations are saying is not "no investigation and you're banned". They're saying they believe Trump purposefully incited people to take action so he could retain power despite the results of the election.

[Trasmatta]

Yeah, this is honestly the best response to the above comment. It was an attempt to disrupt the peaceful transition of power, at the behest of a wannabe autocrat, fueled by lies and conspiracy theories. The fact that it was incompetent and disorganized, and that not everyone there shared that goal, doesn't change anything.

[Trasmatta]

The vast majority of the people there were LARPers who didn't intend any violence.

How does that change the fact that there were multiple armed groups and individuals, many of whom had very clear intentions. Given the chance, they would have absolutely taken hostages, or killed a Senator or the Vice President. And they were able to literally walk right into the Capitol, almost completely unimpeded.

Why does the fact that the majority of them were LARPing change that fact?

[tenpies]

> How does that change the fact that there were multiple armed groups and individuals,

I have heard this statement thrown, but have not seen any good photos, videos or any source material proving it. I suspect this is largely because firearms are banned within the Capitol and you would be insta-arrested if you tried. The Capitol is not an open carry or even a concealed carry area, and as we saw from the one death at the hands of law enforcement, they are not shy about using lethal force on even unarmed individuals when you cross certain lines.

I am also extrapolating from the arrest data that there were clearly almost no armed individuals at all. There have been two firearm arrests. That's two out of hundreds of thousands of individuals and in both cases the individuals had their firearms in their vehicles, not on their person - so they were most definitely not "armed groups and individuals".

See: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-arres...

[bananabreakfast]

I'm genuinely curious, where do you get your news?

What are your information filters that can allow you to believe something like Russian collusion not only was "proved false" but didn't even happen?

Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, George Papadopoulos, Richard Pinedo, Alex van der Zwaan, and Konstantin Kilimnik were all indicted, most convicted and imprisoned due to their role in the Trump campaign colluding with Russian agents. What do you think happened to these people?

I have to assume you arguing entirely in bad faith. "Couldn't keep the doors closed"? There were hundreds of people shoving to get in, screaming racial slurs at black police officers and calling them traitors saying they deserved to be executed for not arresting the liberal politicians.

Also, that officer who died who you kind of just dance around? The mob ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall and beat his head in.

[astrange]

The guy who had a heart attack died because the weapon he was carrying intending to use against a congressman went off and killed himself instead.

[YarickR2]

Intending to use against a congressman ? Did he tell that much to you ?

[astrange]

I also love making threats on social media then flying across the country and taking weapons into buildings where they’re not allowed so I can definitely not use them for anything.

[zaroth]

I think there’s a legitimate question as to whether you’re just making this up on the spot because you’re angry, or if there’s any actual evidence of this that you’d care to share.

[astrange]

Do I look angry? I am always a perfectly rational internet forum poster.

https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/alabama-man-1-of-4-people-wh...

Other reports from the field indicate he died by “tasing himself in the balls” while “stealing a portrait of Tip O’Neill”, which could probably be verified with a livestream if you want to watch someone die, which I don’t.