timorl @timorl@qoto.org

@rysiek
Somehow this feels like a poorly made advertisement that gets viral.

@penny Yeah, that makes much more sense than my hypothesis.

@penny Maybe it's because people here really care about consent and joking about not giving consent dilutes actual non-consent?

Not really being serious, but these jokes low-key annoy me personally for that reason >X

@penny That's a pretty bad political ideology, even at the feeling level. You should try making your heart care about the details and nuances, because they actually correspond to changes in people's lives.

@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

@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?

@2ck @antigravman

@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

@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

@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.

@2ck @antigravman

@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

@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

@SmilingTexan Terribly sorry for polluting your feed, I responded to a response to you and did not edit the automatically filled mentions.

I won't be watching, I'm definitely not interested in such celebrations. Although if something happens again I'll probably see some clips...

@antigravman

Did you want to post this video? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/video-shows-police-officer-dragged-down-steps-of-us-capitol-beaten-by-rioters/vi-BB1cFhcH

The one you posted is after it was already clear they failed.

@sillystring@infosec.exchange @freemo @SmilingTexan

@antigravman
I said armed enough to kill (my point was killing doesn't require weapons), and they killed a person. Although I wasn't aware they only injured him initially.

What do you think would have happened if they managed to get to the House chamber before it was evacuated? In particular what would they have used the
zip handcuffs for?

At the point where it was clear they wouldn't get to anyone important what were they supposed to do? The coup failed and it clearly was a terrible attempt, but still an attempt.

@sillystring@infosec.exchange @freemo @SmilingTexan

@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

@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

@freemo
Wait, you still believe Trump>Biden? I have hoped a literal coup attempt would be enough to change that.
@sillystring@infosec.exchange @SmilingTexan