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@sillystring@infosec.exchange
I mean look at the turn over. As a business person he is terrible.
I never said he was a good businessman or even a good president. He was horrible at both, Biden just happens to be far worse.
With that said he had a signficantly better impact on both the stock exchange and the unemployment rate than Biden’s run as Vice President, right up until the coronavirus. But it would be foolish to compare a complete economic shutdown under Trump to any other period in time, the fallout from that is inevitable. Even so aside from doing much better than Biden pre-coronavirus his unemployment rate recovery after the bulk of the epidemic was at a higher rate than we have ever seen from any other economic crash in history.
Trump literally hit two records as president that havent been matched in the lifetime of anyone living: 1) he managed to get the unemployment rate to the lowest it has been in living history 2) he managed to see the fastest recovery of unemployment following an economic crash of any incident in history.
While I wouldnt say these two facts make him a good president, credit where credit is due, and there isnt much Biden has ever accomplished worthy of any praise, and a lot he has done horrifically wrong.
Biden is superior by merely not instigating mayhem.
I wouldnt say that describes him or the democrats any more or less than Trump.
We certainly had some isolated cases of violence at teh capital, and that isn’t acceptable, but trump was one of the very first people to get on the TV and tell them that violence was unacceptable.
Meanwhile I spent the bulk of the year watching democrat protests burn down buildings and cop cars in my city tot he point that the sky was black with smoke. I didnt see biden decrying those incidents or calling out the violence at all.
@freemo
Wait, you still believe Trump>Biden? I have hoped a literal coup attempt would be enough to change that.
@sillystring@infosec.exchange @SmilingTexan
>literal coup attempt
50 unarmed people waddling into a building and taking selfies isn't a coup attempt.
@antigravman
1. They were armed enough to kill a couple people and had equipment for taking hostages.
2. The building in question was holding an event that was part of the process of a change in power they disapproved of.
3. They explicitly expressed the intent of killing one of the main people leading that event.
Yes, this was a coup attempt.
@sillystring@infosec.exchange @freemo @SmilingTexan
>kill a couple people
Only person killed with a weapon inside the Capitol Building was one of the protesters.
>The building in question was holding an event that was part of the process of a change in power they disapproved of.
Still not a coup. Unless you think those people were going to somehow replace Congress. In that case you're legitimately crazy.
>They explicitly expressed the intent of killing one of the main people leading that event.
Who is "they"? Where is your source that this was an organized attempt to overthrow Congress and the US government?
@antigravman
So as long as someone is killed without the use of weapons it doesn't count?
I don't know what would have happened if they captured (and possibly killed) the people involved in the certification. I doubt they would have succeeded in keeping Trump in power, but it's not obvious. And a poorly planned coup is still a coup.
The protesters among whom the people who attempted the coup were. If they didn't attempt the coup later I would have assumed this was terrible political posturing (which should be condemned, but is within their rights), but since they attempted to execute the threat it's hard to dismiss it as such.
I can provide sources for any of the facts that I am stating, if you don't believe in some.
@sillystring@infosec.exchange @freemo @SmilingTexan
>So as long as someone is killed without the use of weapons it doesn't count?
You said they were armed and killed people. They weren't and they didn't.
The FACT is the only person besides protesters who were "killed" was a police officer who while away from the Capitol was hit in the head with a fire extinguisher and died suddenly the following day due to a stroke caused by a blood clot.
>I don't know what would have happened if they captured (and possibly killed) the people involved in the certification.
You realize the cops were in and about with the protesters as they entered the Capitol right?
You realize the protesters left after they got bored right?
That's not what happens in a coup attempt.
> I doubt they would have succeeded in keeping Trump in power, but it's not obvious. And a poorly planned coup is still a coup.
You're fucking insane to think this was a coup. This is Q-anon level insane conspiracy shit.
50 unarmed people attempting a coup versus the Capitol Police, DC Police, and Secret Service. And to top it off, instead of a coup they were satisfied and left after party crashing in the Capitol?
Take your meds schizo.
@antigravman @sillystring@infosec.exchange @freemo @SmilingTexan @timorl where do you get the number 50 from?
@2ck
One person in the thread requested being removed from the mentions, please try respecting that.
I'm also somewhat curious, although I don't think the specific number changes much in the interpretation of events.
@antigravman @freemo
Trump madd a literal coup attempt now? Literally the moment there was a hint of violence out of anyone Trump was on TV telling people to respect the law and go home. That would be a pretty ineffective response on his part if his intention was a coup.
Plus when Trump was elected we were on our third day of violence from democracy 3 days after the count was in and that continued on and off for 4 years. The levels of violence personally witnessed in those 4 years in my town alone were orders of magnitude worse than anything I saw at the capitol.
None of that excuses what happened at the capitol mind you. But in terms of extremes it really doesnt come close to liberals, and in terms of what it means about Trump, well, as I said he was very quick to publicly tell them to stop an go home the moment there was a hint of violence out of them so not even sure how that is Trumps fault rather than the fault of a small minority of republicans.
@freemo
I didn't say Trump did that, although he seemed to encourage it. Mostly by repeatedly telling people who violently opposed his political enemies that he loves them, starting with the "I love Texas!" tweet and culminating in the call to go home which I think you are referring to, where he spent more time telling the insurrectionists that he loves them and reiterating that the election was illegitimate than actually telling them to stop. Unless you are referring to a different appearance?
I'm not sure about the quickness, my impression was that he made his address after it was clear the evacuation was successful, although I'm not quite sure about the timeline. Even if I'm right about the timeline I wouldn't read too much into that as I don't know how long it takes to prepare such an appearance.
There are also the issues with lackluster security and delays in deploying additional forces to control the situation. I hope an investigation will explain what happened there.
Even assuming Trump did not do this on purpose, being incompetent enough to cause a coup attempt by his supporters should be way more than enough to disqualify him from receiving any political support from reasonable people.
And protests, even violent to an extent, are part of a democracy. Trying to throw out the result of an election is not.
@2ck @antigravman
So he loves the groups that vote for him that had some members being violent... sounds an awful lot like what biden did. dont recall Biden down talking antifa when they were being violent even once.
He also never told the insurgents that he loved them, though he did tell a crowd that was mostly peaceful with a few sporadic nutjobs that he loved them if thats what you mean.
Honestly I wouldnt have taken you for someone who would lay on the hyperbole so thick. Generally your not the one exaggerating and taking things out of context quite as much as you see to be.
And no if you thought he didnt speak up until after the evacuations then it is clear you never even watched the events life. It was fairly early on in the event. Shortly after the first unarmed protesters was murdered by police, probably in a bid to calm the violence that was only going to get worse from that incident.
@freemo No, the Texas tweet was explicitly about a violent subgroup, they were the only ones in the video. And you cannot claim that he told the insurrectionists to go home and didn't tell them he loved them if both these things happened in the same address.
I am not using hyperbole right now, I'm choosing my words very carefully. This was a coup attempt, as pathetic as it was, by the group of nutjobs you mention. Trumps first reaction was to tell them he loves them, he is also a natural suspect per _cui bono_, but honestly I hope it's just his incompetence plus other characteristics that sparked this, not actual planning.
I am not using hyperbole right now, I’m choosing my words very carefully.
yes, you are, and there are examples literred all over this post and i dont even need to invoke the coup / insurrection remarks.
Take this:
you cannot claim that he told the insurrectionists to go home and didn’t tell them he loved them
We had a situation where a large group of people were non-violent and actively opposed to the violence (we even hear the reporters saying on the live video how peaceful most of them appear) and a small handful who were being destructive. Even then most of the violence from them only occured after an unarmed protesters was murdered by a cop at the early part of the protest. He clearly told the small percentage who were violent to stop, and refered to the larger group, most of which who were not violent (and happened to include them) that he loved them.
Moreover at the time that he said this those who were being violent were limited to having broken a window, and to have entered the capital buildings mostly non-violently and no indication anyone was armed.. It was however after a unarmed protestor was murdered by a cop. so yea doesnt line up in the slightest with the nonsense your peddling. Hyperbole the whole way.
Its a shame because if we were just talking about the violence and did so in a way that represented it accurately I would have agreed with you that it is uncalled for.
@freemo
It definitely wasn’t clear, even if this was his intention. Read the transcript of his speech if you want – he doesn’t differentiate the groups he is referring to at all. In a very charitable reading he might be doing what you are saying, but he didn’t condemn the people attempting the coup at all, just told them to go home.If he said what you are saying here (denouncing the insurrectioninsts) then it would be clear, buy he did not do that.
And you are trying very hard not to talk about the Texas tweet. It’s very hard to create a charitable explanation of that one. And you cannot take the most charitable explanation of what Trump says all the time, when you already have ample proof that he doesn’t really have a problem with political violence.
And this is not just about violence. The people who entered the capitol went there with the express purpose of stopping the election certification. This is what makes it a coup, in addition to the violence. And this is way scarier then even very violent protests or riots.
@2ck @antigravman
Some random people on twitter had some chatter about stopping election certification. It was not organized however and not some group entering for that purpose. Just a bunch of random people who wound up twaddling in and one or two who actually had serious intent (and were stopped as they were unarmed anyway)
Not even remotely as scary as the laundry list of points you just completely ignored however such as :
1) They burned down multiple building
2) Burnt dozens of cars to the ground
3) Terrorized whole cities
4) in one case took over several city blocks
sorry but a few hundred people who walked into the capital and took selfies with a very small handful having delusions of grandeur for a few hours then its over doesnt come CLOSE to comparing to hundreds of people taking over dozens of city blocks, ending in murder, burning buildings to the ground, burning cars to the ground, terrorizing whole cities and doing it for 4 years on and off.
@freemo
They went into the building in which the certification was happening while it was happening. They even managed to interrupt it. Even if only a couple people were planning it and the rest was useful idiots this is still a coup attempt by the ones who were planning it. And I’m willing to (methaphorically ofc) die on that hill because if one cannot call a coup attempt a coup attempt then it’s very hard to defend liberal democracy.
The saddest thing about this is that I think there was a moment of clarity while all this was happening. The reasonable Republicans seemed to be completely appaled by the attempt, the far-but-not-complately-gone were insisting it was actually antifa in an attempt to distance themselves. And then, somehow, it disappeared. Eh, irrelevant…
What can I say about the list other than it’s mostly irrelevant from a coup perspective? There was violence, but my problems with violence are much smaller when it’s not attempting to overthrow an election.
Well, there are maybe two things if you are interested (but with the caveat that I believe all this is mostly unrelated to the discussion). One, I don’t remember Biden ever endorsing political violence, like the Texas tweet did. He did pay some lip-service to the political goals of the BLM movement and even included extremely watered down versions of their demands in his programme, but no endorsements of violence. Maybe I’m wrong on that though.
Two attributing CHAZ (or whatever that entity was called) to Democrats has to be a joke. This was clearly an anarchist project, albeit executed with similar finesse as the coup attempt (I think, I only followed it tangentially). Any kind of anarchist would only vote for Biden because they believed Trump to be a literal facist, and many wouldn’t even despite that. Even Sanders, who afaik is the leftmost part of the Democratic party, would at best be seen by them as a barely acceptable compromise.
Also, 4 years? Do I remember incorrectly that the mass protests only started after the midterms? Because I seem to remember that the boogeyman for the midterms was a migrant caravan, antifa as the boogeyman came later, right?
@2ck @antigravman
Even if only a couple people were planning it and the rest was useful idiots this is still a coup attempt by the ones who were planning it.
Great so 5 people attempted a coup they never had a chance of accomplishing, unarmed, by simply trying to walk t the chamber, meanwhile everyone else was there to take selfies.. ok ill give you that, its a coup in the most absurd sense of the word. Still doesnt even come close to the levels of violence the liberals caused over 4 years.
What can I say about the list other than it’s mostly irrelevant from a coup perspective?
While a coup was one point in the discussion I remind you that no the discussion is not about a coup, your initial interjection was as follows:
Wait, you still believe Trump>Biden?
The discussion is why Trump is better than biden. Using a weak coup attempt by a very small number of people who tried to walk unarmed into a chamber and one got shot dead for their effort with no violent action or means, while a talking point in that discussion, is not the scope of the discussion.
the far-but-not-complately-gone were insisting it was actually antifa in an attempt to distance themselves
While that was a shame it was no different than what the left had done repeatedly every time the violence from them was discussed. We had people burning down buildings all over the country and countless democrats kept making conspiracy theory nonsense posts about people mysteriously putting piles of bricks around town in some weird attempt to incite the violence. Its a failing of both sides to make outrageous conspiracy theory explanations to their own violence.
One, I don’t remember Biden ever endorsing political violence, like the Texas tweet did.
What violence in texas? They misbehaved granted, the people who rode the bus out of town were in the wrong.. but violence implies someone physically hurt another person.. who did that in texas? Are you talking about something else.
Trump supported a non-violent stunt, and he was wrong for supporting it. Not sure where you factor in violence in that though.
Also, 4 years? Do I remember incorrectly that the mass protests only started after the midterms?
You are incorrect, the first violence from the left started the very day Trump won the election with patches of violence lasting for over 3 days on the first go around.
@freemo
It was clearly either more than 5 people or claiming all the useful idiots were just taking selfies is wrong. Have you watched the video I linked earlier? The other video where people chase the policeman through the corridors? In either there are clearly more than 5 people and none of them are taking selfies…
My point is this is a coup attempt by his supporters after he consistently did things that made the center and left call him facist for exactly the reason that they expected these actions would lead to a coup attempt. The Texas thing, “stand back and stand by”, “good people on both sides” referring to neo-nazis and all that jazz, that was dismissed as alarmist bullshit. Maybe he did not do this on purpose, I even assign significant probability to that being the case, but we all warned you this would happen. And it’s so terryfing seeing that not only doing things that can be expected to lead to coups is now normalized (thankfully mostly in the US, but this stuff spreads), but even coups themselves, however pathetic their execution. And doing things that have lead to a coup really, really should be past the point when you put someone at the end of a list of people who should be leading a country.
So forcing a car off a road is not violence? It’s a safe thing you do only symbolically?
Yeah, I remember the multi-day protests after he won an election, because people were worried this would end badly, ha… Then not that much until Floyd’s death, which was just in May last year (so even my initial upper bound of midterms was way off). That’s a bit less than a year of total mass protests, even if you counted the whole rest of 2020 as being filled with protests. Was the 4 years hyperbole?
Then you werent watching the live feed. the reporters themselves on the live feed, up until the first unarmed protesters was murdered, said “They appear peaceful”.. pretty much literally all except for about 5 were and the ones that were not had not assaulted or injured any individuals but had broken windows and were trying to get into the chamber. but yes they were very few indeed.
Now after the unarmed protester was murdered by the cop more than 5 people began to act violently for sure. But that was a response from the crowd, and thankfully still somewhat isolated at that point.
Have you watched the video I linked earlier? The other video where people chase the policeman through the corridors?
Yes I saw the video long before you linked it. It had a police officer running from an unarmed group of people who were chasing him as he repeatedly stopped, tried to beat them with their baton, and then ran again.
As a general rule when you try to beat a unarmed crowd that out numbers you with a stick you will likely get chased. Now while no one in that video at any point assaulted the police officer that we could see one might expect the outcome of that could have potentially been a few punches in good measure for the beating the officer was giving them. However we do not see that actually happen in the video so hard to say if that was the outcome.
So forcing a car off a road is not violence? It’s a safe thing you do only symbolically?
The car wasnt forced off the road. In the scene you describe the car tried to force the trump supporter off the road by trying to dangerously force merge in between the truck and the bus ahead when there was not enough space between them. The truck then responded to this by veering to the left. while the Truck driver was acting inappropriately in engaging in surrounding the bus in the first place that does not justify the other driver trying to drive him off the road and potentially kill him. The truck drivers response is likely the only thing that saved his life by veering to the left to ensure he had the momentum.
but we all warned you this would happen
Sorry but when your burning down buildings, installing dictatorships (literally) across multiple city blocks, burning down cars, and beating people bloody in the streets cries of “oh he might maybe incite some fascism” is going to fall on deaf ears… and a unarmed “coup attempt” by all of 5 people, one of whom get shot dead is hardly a counter argument that you were right.
Yeah, I remember the multi-day protests after he won an election, because people were worried this would end badly,
A bunch of violence because people were worried it would end bady, 4 years of building fires and violence all because you were worried it would end badly, and it ended with half a dozen nut jobs trying to walk into the chamber unarmed , which was responded to by killing one of them. good thing you did all that violence to warn us of that oh so horrible threat… maybe next time do it without burning down buildings and you might come out smelling like roses, but not this time.
So an angry mob walking towards people they just chanted about killing should have been… what?
Now you are just making stuff up. At no point did the entire group start chanting to kill anyone.. jesus christ man at least stick to actual facts.
getting inside the building required violence (as in the video I posted earlier, which is different from the policeman chasing video)
I saw a bunch of people pushing forward to get into the building, some people (includding the protestors) did get pinned while the crowd pushed through (as often tends to happen). But where do you see in the initial efforts to get into the building anyone in that crowd actually physically punching or hurting anyone. The closest I saw to anything that came close to that was an explicitly non-violent (though inappropriate) use of some pepper spray, which mind you was already being used against them along with being beaten by sticks.
In fact in the full video of them pushing into the building you already see the first violence is not from the protestors at all but from the cops. You can clearly see in the full length video that before any pepper spray was used (the only near-violent act) the policy were reaching over the barricade and beating the crowd repeatedly and as hard as they could with their baton. Not that is actual physical violence, much more so than responding to that with pepper spray. Beyond that the only “violence” your talking about is the people pushing through when trying to be blocked.
Then that woman was crawling through a barricaded door, with a mob behind her, after chanting for death of the people behind the door. I find it very hard to call shooting her “murder”,
An unarmed woman who gave no indication of being armed breaking a window getting shot to death is murder, period… Unless someone has a weapon, especially when they have not thrown a single punch, shooting them dead is murder, there is no exception to this, period.
I hope an investigation helps explain why it wasn’t, but at the point where there were few policemen against an angry uncontrolled mob what do you think should have hppened?
So what should happen when there is a small number of police up against an unarmed group of people trying to walk into a building they dont have a legal right to walk into. That should be simple, call the military, which literally is minutes away and could have been there in no time flat, and stand back and do nothing until they got violent or a weapon was seen. Since they acted illegally but non-violently the police had no right or cause to act violently in return and did not have the physical man power to non-violently handle the situation.
So this means Trump “just” supported creating a dangerous situation on the road involving his political opponents in this case. That is still a massive problem.
Yes it is a problem that Trump supported their behavior that day. But it was not a show of support for violence, and does not come close to the issues and violence from the left. I have never claimed Trump wasn’t a problem or that he doesnt make really shitty choices. Only that he isnt as bad as the other side. that has more to do with just how horrifically bad the other side is and less to do with any merrit Trump himself has.
Yeah, good idea, dismiss the argumets because some people vaguely related to them were violent.
And again more hyperbole and even a little bit of strawman. No I dont dismiss your arguments, not wholly, though they are excessively exaggerated. What I have said and continue to say is that while there are many points of concern for Trump and a good portion of the ones you bring up, once you wash off the mountain of hyperbole on top of them, even have a grain ot validity to them. but they pale in comparison to the repeated and continued violence and rights violations coming from and promoted by the left and even by Biden himself.
promoting fringe political conspiracy theories and ignoring the standard decorum of liberal democracy would lead to anti-democratic changes. This was dismissed as alarmist.
What standard decorum, there is nothing remotely respectful of the tactics the liberal democrats have pulled, not even close. Nor is anything trump said anti-democratic, it is conspiracy theorist, and often moronic, but not anti democratic. He thinks the vote was cheated from him. I personally dont (though the last 24 hours seeing at least one state try to pass a law, by democrats, to hide election security auditing from the public is a scary red flag and if i see this pattern continue i might actually agree with him).
When he stated that he would accept the resuts of an election if he won, people were worried this meant he wouldn’t accept the results if he didn’t. This was dismissed as alarmist.
And this has been shown and proven exactly to be alarmist. He stated early on when questioned if he would leave if he lost, he said very straight forward, yes he would. He has at no point refused to leave and only exercised democratic avenues to challenge the election. Now that the day has come to leave, he has left without a peep… So yes this has quite literally been proven to be alarmist.
When he (predictably) didn’t accept the results after losing people were worried this would result in attempts to overthrow the results by force. This was dismissed as alarmist.
Again, it was alarmist and demonstrated as such. There was no legitimate or sizable number of people who attempted to overthrow anything. A few people rushed into buildings they weren’t allowed in and walked around peacefully taking selfies, a window was broken and that was about it, right up until a cop decided to murder one of the unarmed people at which point the crowd got rowdy but even then it was relatively minimal compared to the size of the crowd.
If this statement had even a glimmer of truth to it, if even 5% of that crowd, hell 1% of that crowd had any intention of actually overthrowing anywhing there would be people other than protestors dead and they would have gotten a lot farther. Instead you had half a dozen nut jobs and a bunch of people just being peaceful and taking selfies when not being actively beaten or attacked.
while none of what they did is acceptable calling it a legitimate attempt to overthrow the government is absurdism at its finest.
Now such an attempt happened, and being worried about it is being dismissed as alarmist. “Oh it was just a small coup attempt, nothing to worry about, our democracy is absolutely fine.” What is next?
Yea half a dozen people having delusion of grandeur thinking they can overthrow a government, none of who were armed, and of that half a dozen who were willing to be violent limited their violence to broken windows at worst and have yet to see even a single video of them physically being violent against a person (punching them kicking them etc). the closest you have is some guy being pushed up against a wall and getting squished by the passing crowd as there were too many people…
I mean hell the level of exageration here as you try to turn a shitty incident with very minimal violence and some tress passing into some rampaging mob out for blood is really hard to take seriously on any level and invalidates any chance you have of coming across objective enough to actually make an argument in any of this.
I mean hell you already admitted that one video you cited as your strongest piece of evidence of violence, the texas video is one you didnt even watch and after several back and forths finally admitted didnt even depict violence at all
My bad, you are right, in this video https://youtu.be/ba0UR7gITrU they probably just finished their laundry and a politely asking for their pants to be hanged. Definitely not calling for the death of a public official who just refused a request of his superior to throw out the results of an election, and who is present in the building they are attempting to enter.
You might have missed the flagpole being swung at the policeman on the ground.
And you appear to be unaware of one of the basic tenets of law enforcement philosophy on which the concept of police in most democratic countries is built. Police are given a state-sanctioned monopoly (or at least permission, depending on the laws regarding defending one’s property and such) on using violence to enforce laws and protect people. That includes stopping burglaries from happening, or more broadly stopping people from entering buildings they are not allowed to enter. This is especially clear when the people attempting to enter are an angry mob that intends to interrupt part of the democratic process. There are obviously considerations concerning how much violence exactly they are allowed to use, and in general what the proportional response should be. And preferably they should be sufficiently prepared to minimize the violence, but that was not the case here.
So let’s assume the woman was unarmed, and the police were fully convinced of that fact (not sure why they would be, since this is a strange assumption to make about someone crawling through a barricade, but alright). What were they supposed to do? Wait for all the people to enter, fill the room, one of them to grab a flagpole and start hitting one of the people originally inside? Or maybe watch them build a noose, politely ask for somene to step on a chair, put the noose on their neck, and then, as soon as the chair was kicked from under them spring to action? These scenarios are obviously ridiculous, but in none of them violence happens earlier than when it’s already too late. Before that there is only implied threat of violence, which is also clearly present when climbing through a barricade. And to be perfectly clear, I would obviously have preferred that they did not shoot her, her death is a tragedy. But I also don’t know enough about what else the policeman could have done in the situation to stop it from deteriorating into something even more terrible – if you know I would be grateful if you shared.
They did call for support, eventually, and processing the request through bureaucracy took way too long. This obviously needs to be investigated, including the fact that the national guard was not pre-approved to defend the buildings despite clear signals of what was coming, and it appears that it will be. In the meantime, the policemen still had the duty to protect the people and democratic process inside. As for details as to why the use of violence was justified in this situation see two paragraphs above.
Hyperbole is claiming something was happening for 4 years, when it was actually happening for at most half a year, to strengthen the argument. I am stating facts and pretty straightforward interpretations of them. You can disagree with either, but calling it hyperbole is just wrong.
So when did Biden endorse violence? I tried looking for “Biden supports CHAZ”, “Biden endorses violence” or things like that, but the only results that came up were him answering a question about condemning violence affirmatively. But maybe I just missed it?
Things like accepting the election results when they are not favourable, he hinted at only acepting results when he wins, multiple times. Also talking about Lugenpresse, when the media are reporting unfavourable facts about him. There are probably other things, I can try making a comprehensive list on request, but it kind of doesn’t matter for the argument – liberals and the left warned about mutiple things he was doing ending up in anti-democratic consequences, and it could have been debatable at the time, but now after the consequences happened it is clear. In this case the left and liberals clearly had a better model of reality than you.
He didn’t accept the result of the election, he never admitted he lost. He admitted that he will be leaving the White House and a new administration will be sworn in, but he still has not accepted the results explicitly, he did not say “Biden won” or “I lost” or anything else to that effect. He only accepted that he does not have enough support to stop the change in power, and even that was after the coup attempt. At best this may be seen as a win for US democratic institutions, which were strong enough to force out a president who refuses to accept election results. Also note that even if he actually admitted he lost after the coup attempt, this would not invalidate the reasoning that lead people to believe that him refusing to accept the loss could lead to a coup attempt. Oh, and this distinction between accepting the results and accepting the change in power is important, because now his supporters will still believe the election was “stolen” from them, which will increase anti-democratic sentiment and lead to even worse things happening next time. Yes, this is another one of these predictions that so far seem to be scarily coming true.
(Side note, please don’t get offended: you are you not trolling me and actually believe the stuff you are writing, right? I normally wouldn’‘t ask, because in general you always gave me the impression of someone who treats these things seriously, but the “left without a peep” phrase was so ridiculously outlandish that the surreal feeling it gave me made me consider the possibility. Sorry if it was just a turn of phrase, and you did not notice how strange it sounded in the context of an enormous rally against the election results.)
It was a coup attempt, pathetic and clearly unsuccessful, but an attempt nonetheless. If there were more and better organized people the coup could have been successful – at least as far as getting to the people certifying the election, likely the US democratic institutions would be strong enough to stop Trump from actually assuming power. It came scarily close to a successsful attempt, considering how easily these people got inside and how close they were to apprehending congresspeople and the vice-president. If you wait for a sucessful attempt to call it a coup attempt, then you likely won’t be able to call it that for long…
It’s not the strongest piece, that is the fact that all this is happening after warnings from the center and the left (and also, to be fair, parts of the right before Trump won the primary and they fell in line) that it would happen due to what Trump was doing. And creating dangerous, life-threteaning situations might not be literal violence, but it is so close that I’m not sure it matters. If it continues, there might even be a coup attempt by supporters who see this as permission to pursue undemocratic ways of obtaining power… Oh wait.
I’m sorry but at this point I have to exit the conversation, it is feeling far too much like arguing with a conspiracy theorist than someone with any sort of practical outlook. Now I do respect that you will debate respectfully, so do feel free to disagree or interject in the future, but hopefully next time around it wont be on this level of absurdity, denial of facts, lies, and exaggerations.
Just to be clear on why im calling this conversation quits I want to highlight the main points in your discussion that have led me to that conclusion.
Completely changing fundamental facts
This one is the most obvious and the exchange we just had in the last message shows that
You said:
So an angry mob walking towards people they just chanted about killing
and then your presented evidence in the very next post here:
My bad, you are right, in this video https://youtu.be/ba0UR7gITrU they probably just finished their laundry and a politely asking for their pants to be hanged.
So now in the most absurd fashion possible you went from a video of people chanting “We want Pence” to that being equivalent to “chanting about killing”
On top of that your claim was they chanted about killing the cops (people) they were walking towards to get int he building. Pence wasnt seen by the crowd at any point and the video not just had nothing to do about chanting death threats, but it wasnt even remotely aimed at the cops they were walking past
You didnt even watch your own video evidence
At least twice now, at least that you have proven, you have made exaggerated and absurdist claims and repeatedly claimed videos to back it up. In ever case the video didnt have the slightest relationship to the claims you made and in one case you outright admitted to not even watching the video you had claimed to be the biggest piece of evidence you had.
See the following quotes from you:
And you are trying very hard not to talk about the Texas tweet. It’s very hard to create a charitable explanation of that one.
Biden ever endorsing political violence, like the Texas tweet did.
So forcing a car off a road is not violence? It’s a safe thing you do only symbolically?
I only watched the video with the cars surrounded and heard the claims about someone being forced off the road.
You literally strung out that example as some defacto impossible deny example across four different messages and literally never even watched it, and just assumed what you “heard” was true, putting no effort in of your own to verify truth. Which leads me to the next point…
You are just parroting liberals
This point is evident from the last, and your general pattern. You have sworn up and down atrocities, which almost certainly is little more than a parroting of what you heard on mainstream media or from liberal friends, from sound bites and 5 second clips.
Then when actually pressed with evidence it is clear you never even watched the videos you held as evidence. Clearly im just arguing with dogma here and a parroting of what you heard, and despite having the weakest evidence those arguments are also the hardest to argue against and change anyone’s mind.
Exaggeration to the point of dishonesty
We covered this already:
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“We want pence” turned into “chanting for murdering the people (cops) they are approaching”
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An anti-trump protestor trying to ram a trump protestor off the road turned into a trump protesters being violent
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Claims of violence from a group where every video you showed to prove it shows no violence from the group towards people of any kind and multiple acts of violence against the group including being beaten with sticks and in one case an unarmed protesters/rioter being shot and killed.
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Implying it was organized, when there was no organized effort for any of it. You had a handful of wackados online who made a few absurd and inappropriate threats but pretty much 0 coordinated effort outside of that.
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Calling a bunch of people taking selfies in the capitol who are unarmed and nonviolent with only about half a dozen actually being destructive or threatening, and even they were completely non-violent against individuals, a “coup”.
Honestly I just cant engage in a conversation that has this sort of level of intellectual dishonesty. It isnt a good use of my time.
“We want Pence”? Did you watch the video on your phone, or something with terrible sound quality? I re-watched it twice and it’s not even that unclear, especially as the person recording enters the doorway – they are very clearly chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. I suggest you rewatch it in better sound quality or something?
Well done though, you made me doubt reality, I re-watched it a third time just to be sure. Still very clearly “Hang Mike Pence”.
(Once again this made me wonder if you are trolling, because if you are, you are being amazingly successful.)
As far as I understand the policemen were not the only people behind that door (and why would they be, no sense in guarding an empty chamber). So I was referring to the congresspeople who were still there. Unless you have reason to believe the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence” would be more forgiving of members of congress, especially the better known D ones, then my description is accurate.
I was clearly wrong about the original claim concerning the Texas video – I originally watched the surround video, though to myself this was terryfying and was appaled when Trump tweeted his support. Somewhere along the way I fell for the echo chamber claim that they were also pushing the bus off the road, and that was clearly a mistake I have to be careful about in the future. But I already learned from that, I looked for the “Hang Mike Pence” video and watched it very carefully to make sure I’m not falling for some propaganda. And this time, I wasn’t. So yeah, I’m trying not to repeat my mistakes, even being a bit paranoid about that – that’s why I rewatched it more times, as mentioned above.
This should also cover the “parroting” argument. I often try to double check accusations against Trump, especially the more outlandish ones, and they are correct a surprizing proportion of times. But since he was doing so many terrible things it would be a full-time job to double-check all of them. Now I’ll at least double-check the ones I use as arguments, sorry for being late about that.
- The first point is incorrect, they were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and I was referring to the congresspeople in the room as being threatened.
- Here I was wrong about important details, but Trump sending signals that putting his political enemies in danger is not only acceptable, but laudable is still enough to support my argument.
- The policeman being hit with a flag-pole (or at least some long object; yes you made me rewatch that video too) is a counterexample to these people not being violent. Most of the non-violent moments are when they are not meeting any opposition, as I mentioned previously.
- They made absurd threats, right, no way they could ever get inside a government building while an election certification is happening, how silly of me for thinking there was any danger. To be more serious, clearly a significant portion of the people there was just riled up and without a plan, although very useful in helping everyone get inside. And there were clearly people in that group that had more dangerous plans, most obviously the zip handcuff guy, but I also don’t know about all the people chanting “Hang Mike Pence”.
- Yeah, the previous point covers this.
I hope I convinced you that I am trying quite hard to be very honest and precise. So far I have been clearly wrong in one point during this conversation, surely that shouldn’t be enough to dismiss everything I am saying. Although, obviously, you are welcome to disengage from the discussion, I don’t want to be an unnecessary drain on your mental resources. I only want for more people (including me! so thanks for correcting my impression about the Texas video!) to be less wrong about the world, that’s why I partake in such conversations.
1) I told you I was done with the conversation, please respect that.
We want Pence”? Did you watch the video on your phone, or something with terrible sound quality? I re-watched it twice and it’s not even that unclear, especially as the person recording enters the doorway – they are very clearly chanting “Hang Mike Pence”. I suggest you rewatch it in better sound quality or something?
Even the official CNN transcript has it written as “We want pence”, and CNN is liberal leaning and in general misrepresented a lot of clips out of context, so thats pretty damning that they recorded it as such.
From the transcript:
CROWD: We want Pence. We want Pence. We want Pence. We want Pence. We want Pence. We want Pence. We want Pence.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2101/11/ebo.01.html
Well done though, you made me doubt reality, I re-watched it a third time just to be sure. Still very clearly “Hang Mike Pence”.
(Once again this made me wonder if you are trolling, because if you are, you are being amazingly successful.)
Apparently me, CNN, and tons of other people who all watched the clip are all trolling you then. More conspiracy thoery talk.
After this lead in I’m not even going to read the rest of your post.
I asked you politely to drop it, please do. I do not find the conversation productive or your current mentality remotely objective enough to be a useful conversation.
PS: I just watched the video again just to make sure, cant imagine how you hear “Hang mike pence” on that video, seems clearly “We want pence”, just as CNN transcribed it.
Sorry about bringing this up again then, but really, watch the video. No idea why the transcript says that, maybe it’s some shitty automation, but the video is extremely clear. And from now on I will not write any more about this to you, unless you explicitly ask me to. Sorry again.
Apology accepted, no worries, as I said we are generally respectful in both directions and its appreciated.
As i said in my last comment at the very end (see the PS).. aside from the transcript i did watch it again before typing that comment and it still sounds like “we want pence” to me. Though there are parts where its a bit garbled, but even when I try to hear or pick out “hang mike pence” from that my brain can not hear anything remotely close to that.
@freemo
So an angry mob walking towards people they just chanted about killing should have been… what? They acted relatively calmly as long as they didn’t meet opposition, getting inside the building required violence (as in the video I posted earlier, which is different from the policeman chasing video) and later they did not have anything to be violent against, as long as they were able to walk freely. Then that woman was crawling through a barricaded door, with a mob behind her, after chanting for death of the people behind the door. I find it very hard to call shooting her “murder”, under the circumstances, and I’m not sure what you expect should have happened there? Should they just have let the mob in and hoped they were actually unarmed and not angry enough to hurt someone? After the aforementionedd mob chanted for death? I mean obviously the security of the building should have been better in the first place, especially after all the publicly posted threats and plans about “storming the capitol”, and I hope an investigation helps explain why it wasn’t, but at the point where there were few policemen against an angry uncontrolled mob what do you think should have hppened?
As for the policeman my understanding was that he was trying to lead them away from the people being evacuated. And this seems like a prudent course of action, given the circumstances.
You are right about the Texas situation, I only watched the video with the cars surrounded and heard the claims about someone being forced off the road. So this means Trump “just” supported creating a dangerous situation on the road involving his political opponents in this case. That is still a massive problem.
Yeah, good idea, dismiss the argumets because some people vaguely related to them were violent. When Trump won the Republican primary people were worried that him building a cult of personality, promoting fringe political conspiracy theories and ignoring the standard decorum of liberal democracy would lead to anti-democratic changes. This was dismissed as alarmist. When he later kept saying things that seemed to affirm far-right groups people were worried this would lead to emboldening these groups to more decisive action. This was dismissed as alarmist. When he stated that he would accept the resuts of an election if he won, people were worried this meant he wouldn’t accept the results if he didn’t. This was dismissed as alarmist. When he (predictably) didn’t accept the results after losing people were worried this would result in attempts to overthrow the results by force. This was dismissed as alarmist. Now such an attempt happened, and being worried about it is being dismissed as alarmist. “Oh it was just a small coup attempt, nothing to worry about, our democracy is absolutely fine.” What is next? “Oh, maybe he took power by force, but it’s just one term, after four years he will surely give it up.”? I don’t think this will happen immediately, especially since he seems to be finally out of power enough, that his more powerful allies are no longer spporting everything he does, but after he wins in 4 years (and he has a significant chance of doing that) I expect things will get worse. And so far my expectations in these regards have been consistently fullfilled.
So was it 4 years of violence about Trump or 3 days of violence about Trump and half a year of violence about police violence? Because as far as I can tell it was the latter. And even if all the people warning about the dangers of Trump’s style o politics were partaking in that violence, it wouldn’t be enough to dismiss their arguments once they proved correct.
Trump is a danger to democracy. He caused a coup to happen, whether intentionally or not. This should be more than enough to confirm that statement, whether you know enough history to predict in advance that would have been the result of his actions or not.
@2ck @antigravman