[vkou]

The violence and property damage wasn't the problem. Democracies can survive some broken windows, stolen laptops, and yes, even people getting hurt and killed at a protest. This sort of thing has happened for decades and centuries.

What they can't survive is groups of thugs that don't like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.

[nostromo]

> What they can't survive is...

And yet, here we are, democracy intact.

[jacquesm]

There was an excellent article by someone from a place where a failed coup led to a real one a couple of years hence. Democracy is not 'intact', it is now damaged, and whether or not manage to repair it remains to be seen.

The most dangerous thing you can do now is to think this is behind you and from here on in everything is normal. It isn't and it probably won't be for some time. If you manage the next two transfers of power at the end of election cycles without further mishap I'd say that you can say democracy is intact. Until then all bets are off.

Edit: I wished I could locate the article, so far no luck.

edit2: finally found it in my history, this article was from 11 November 2020, and very prescient:

https://indica.medium.com/i-lived-through-a-coup-america-is-...

[belorn]

I would like to see some data on failed coups that does not involve any military.

The latest major failed coup that I can remember would be the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, and the effect it had on the country is well known. The general consensus internationally seems to be that the efforts by their government to stamp out their "terrorists" has been a bit of an overreaction, even if literal tanks was involved. The censorship machine in particular has been quite overreactive.

One can really hope that the US democracy manage a more appropriate reaction that is more proportional to the threat.

[koolba]

The only worse than the the content of that link was the writing style.

[jacquesm]

Thank you for your contribution. Note the error in the one line comment you made.

[koolba]

Ha! Well I'll take unintentional typos over the drivel in that article any day of the week.

[jacquesm]

So far he's made the right call though. Note when it was written, and what has happened since.

[vkou]

Democracy only works because we all believe that it works.

When that belief is shattered, and people no longer believe in a peaceful transfer of power, you get violent transfer of power.

I think it's far too early to make such a claim. Wait till 2022, or 2024, or 2028. This genie is not going back in the bottle without putting up a fight - not while its being egged on by opportunistic mainstream politicians.

[eganist]

> > What they can't survive is...

> And yet, here we are, democracy intact.

You keep cutting off quotes without including the relevant details. You need to stop doing that. The original quote:

> What they can't survive is groups of thugs that don't like the result of an election, and go off to physically prevent its results from being honored. That is unprecedented.

The last part of that sentence you cropped (emphasized by me) didn't come to pass because it was interrupted by Capitol contingency plans and Shelter In Place protocols, among other things. It very well could've been successful; we're lucky to not know that outcome.

[lambda_obrien]

Are we? Because to me there are huge cracks opening up. Death toll isn't the important part about terrorist attacks, it's the responses that count, and the response to this seems about the same or more extreme as 9/11 to me, and I lived through that on a military base. I don't remember 25k troops being deployed into DC for 9/11.

[cmurf]

And that was a foreign attack. 25000 national guard are in D.C. due to a domestic enemy, white nationalist American terrorists, making credible threats.

It's self-evidently anti-Democratic. The last time this nation got into a dispute over an election where the minority decided to just set it aside and not submit to the result, resulted in the bloodiest revolution to date.

[NovaS1X]

Right, just like Germany survived the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 just fine, democracy intact.

People are fools to think this is all just suddenly over now that Trump is gone and big-tech de-platformed one tiny social media platform.

[LarvaFX]

Steve Banon has been pardoned. Stay tuned…

[NovaS1X]

And now Trump is considering starting a "Patriot Party" due to his lack of support in the GOP for overturning the election. Spitting image of the failed Putsch when Hitler realized, in Jail, that a coup d'état wasn't going to work and they needed to attack at a different angle, a democratic angle, and be seen as a legitimate political party.

It's happening just like it was always going to, like clockwork. Americans aren't out of this yet.

[failrate]

These actors haven't finished. The pattern so far is that the current admin has tried every single dirty trick they could muster to avoid leaving power. Even if something happens to Trump today, these folks will recrystallize around a new cult leader.