What an unbelievable day. Can't overstate the importance of symbolic victories, and the images of storming the capital look downright historic. You can't buy that sort of visceral propaganda.
No surprise that the usual cast of characters want maximum pain and punishment for a group of protesters who didn't hurt anyone, yet lost lives themselves. It's pretty obvious they simply delight in their pain in any form, and there is little more to it than that.
One has to wonder what that blockade was actually for as there were other people on the other side of it already. It wasn't like they were holding open the door to a government building.
This is what de-escalation looks like. 'Ya, I will pose with you for a picture but then I am going to have to ask you to leave,' sorta deal. This was also after they all were ushered out of the building as other cops are standing around in the background. That police officer's job, the one mingling with the protestors is to keep them calm and prevent them from storming the building again.
You also have to remember these events took place after police shot and killed a protestor in the building. If they didn't de-escalate then, things could have been a lot worse.
It's mighty interesting when de-escalation tactics are used are when they aren't. Quite the mystery, I don't know how we're ever going to be able to discern the reason it was used today and not a single time over the summer. I don't know, maybe it's because the windows at Foot Locker are a more pressing issue than the entire Legislative Branch of the United States being held captive for 6 hours in an effort to stop the certification of electors.
I'm for de-escalation. SELECTIVE de-escalation does nothing but further the already chasm-sized gap between the justice certain people receive and others don't. So until that is rectified (which likely means never), these treasonous fucks can face the same consequences anyone else who isn't of their particular race and political persuasion do. But they won't. For most of them, that shipped sailed when they were leisurely escorted out the front door and told to have a nice day.
During all the protests this summer, was any protestor killed at the hands of police officers?
What an unbelievable day. Can't overstate the importance of symbolic victories, and the images of storming the capital look downright historic. You can't buy that sort of visceral propaganda.
No surprise that the usual cast of characters want maximum pain and punishment for a group of protesters who didn't hurt anyone, yet lost lives themselves. It's pretty obvious they simply delight in their pain in any form, and there is little more to it than that.
This statement is absolutely un-goddamn-real. You're right though. I made them do it. It was my fault. It was ALL the fault of liberals who don't understand them. No agency, to the bitter fucking end.
One has to wonder what that blockade was actually for as there were other people on the other side of it already. It wasn't like they were holding open the door to a government building.
This is what de-escalation looks like. 'Ya, I will pose with you for a picture but then I am going to have to ask you to leave,' sorta deal. This was also after they all were ushered out of the building as other cops are standing around in the background. That police officer's job, the one mingling with the protestors is to keep them calm and prevent them from storming the building again.
You also have to remember these events took place after police shot and killed a protestor in the building. If they didn't de-escalate then, things could have been a lot worse.
It's mighty interesting when de-escalation tactics are used are when they aren't. Quite the mystery, I don't know how we're ever going to be able to discern the reason it was used today and not a single time over the summer. I don't know, maybe it's because the windows at Foot Locker are a more pressing issue than the entire Legislative Branch of the United States being held captive for 6 hours in an effort to stop the certification of electors.
I'm for de-escalation. SELECTIVE de-escalation does nothing but further the already chasm-sized gap between the justice certain people receive and others don't. So until that is rectified (which likely means never), these treasonous fucks can face the same consequences anyone else who isn't of their particular race and political persuasion do. But they won't. For most of them, that shipped sailed when they were leisurely escorted out the front door and told to have a nice day.
During all the protests this summer, was any protestor killed at the hands of police officers?
The amount of videos people filmed of people being brutalized by police for simply being in the same vicinity of where protests were taking place could fill the Disney Vault. And this wasn't a "protest", this was an act of (temporarily successful) sedition, attempting to overthrow the results of an election, directed by the President of the United States on one of the two other branches of government.
Ultimately it's very uplifting to think that a sizable number of people, some dedicated enough to storm the Capitol, believe that the system is not legitimate. That's the exact kind of frame of mind needed to alter the power structure in the way that it needs to be altered, given the systemic and very intentional ways they are disenfranchised, lied about, and lied to. Many may get there through election fraud narratives as peddled by Qlerics, rather than a look at how they are misrepresented in popular culture, in politics, how they are discriminated against in politically important professions and in education, whatever, as long as they get there.
The only disappointing thing is that such dedicated people are behind someone like Trump, who will do nothing for them, and disavow them despite being the one who led them there. Having people willing to risk themselves for you is real power, and he spent his entire time catering to everyone but his die hard supporters.
Ultimately it's very uplifting to think that a sizable number of people, some dedicated enough to storm the Capitol, believe that the system is not legitimate. That's the exact kind of frame of mind needed to alter the power structure in the way that it needs to be altered, given the systemic and very intentional ways they are disenfranchised, lied about, and lied to.
The only disappointing thing is that such dedicated people are behind someone like Trump, who will do nothing for them, and disavow them despite being the one who led them there. Having people willing to risk themselves for you is real power, and he spent his entire time catering to everyone but his die hard supporters.
Let's assume when you say "disenfranchised" you mean economically, because it sure as hell can't mean electorally. I have been poor, have lived paycheck to paycheck, for at least a decade. I am well aware of what economic hardship is. And I can state without hesitation that one thing I NEVER did when short on money was buy a round-trip plane ticket to Washington DC and book a room at a hotel. So the "economic anxiety" narrative doesn't fly with me.
As for people lying about them, it turns out they were exactly who we thought they were. Fascists. As if what they were attempting to do wasn't invalidate the votes of 81 million people. Playing by rules we, as you know, don't particularly think are fair, but are forced to accept anyway. And even that isn't enough.
Edit: I can't even respond to the part you added without losing my cool. This sad-sack grievance bullshit is so utterly pathetic at this point I can't even find words to talk about it anymore. The culture doesn't reflect them because the culture they want fucking sucks, and the vast majority of people in this country aren't interested in it. And there is no Electoral College to enforce their taste on the rest of the society. Tough shit I guess.
Culture is dominated by artists. Think long and hard about why conservatives are lacking in that department. Start with the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Hollywood blacklist, and the John Birch Society and work from there. Then apply it to science and education. And then you can stop wondering why they are "discriminated" against. They've ghettoized themselves in ALL these areas, deliberately and on purpose, and the fact that they can then bitch about not being adequately represented is just a nice side perk.
The main targets of conservatism's ire are not culture, education and science because they aren't properly represented. They aren't properly represented because culture, education and science are the targets of their ire. From the Scopes Monkey Trial to the opposition to rock n' roll because it grew out of black R&B, it is a reactionary and anti-intellectual movement in American politics. Always has been, always will be. Granted, the party line used to be reversed, and it was mostly Democrats who held these views until the 1960s, but the cultural fault-lines prior to 1968 are meaningless when talking about our current situation.
Ultimately it's very uplifting to think that a sizable number of people, some dedicated enough to storm the Capitol, believe that the system is not legitimate. That's the exact kind of frame of mind needed to alter the power structure in the way that it needs to be altered, given the systemic and very intentional ways they are disenfranchised, lied about, and lied to. Many may get there through election fraud narratives as peddled by Qlerics, rather than a look at how they are misrepresented in popular culture, in politics, how they are discriminated against in politically important professions and in education, whatever, as long as they get there.
The only disappointing thing is that such dedicated people are behind someone like Trump, who will do nothing for them, and disavow them despite being the one who led them there. Having people willing to risk themselves for you is real power, and he spent his entire time catering to everyone but his die hard supporters.
It's true that they believe a system where black people get to vote is not legitimate.
There's absolutely nothing uplifting about a gang of violent, armed fascists storming a public building to thwart the certification of electors, looting the interior, using chemical agents on law enforcement, and putting police officers in the hospital.
There is no room in this country for violent opposition to democracy. That's the literal definition of tyranny. These people are violent criminals and they need to be imprisoned.
I have run out of patience. They will never stop fighting against democracy no matter how badly voters reject them, and they will only get more violent and brutal as time goes on.
Yes, I want these people in jail. I am no longer willing to pretend that they are honest competitors in democracy. We cannot have a free society when radical terrorists can invade the capital in an attempt to kill lawmakers. They brought guns, they brought chemical weapons, they brought body armor, and they proudly announced on social media their desire to kill their enemies.
This isn't a group of people who don't share the same views as me. These people tried to use violence to overthrow MY vote. Their ability to commit violent crimes is absolutely a threat to my freedoms.
This is not over, and they are not done. They will strike again if they are not prosecuted.
I am fucking sick of the false bipartisanship that says Democrats need to smile and stand out of the way when Republicans bust out the rifles and lay siege to the Capitol. Violent criminals need to be prosecuted.
Are we seriously going to pretend--and I will accept no claim of honest misunderstanding here; their motives were proudly announced--that these people were here because liberals don't "respect" them?
No. They stormed the Capitol because they lost the election.
We're not lying about this. We're not pretending. They told us what they wanted. They wanted to stage a coup: breaking into the Capitol building specifically to prevent Biden's victory from being finalized. They didn't even pretend otherwise, and I am not pretending otherwise, either.
If that's not a coup attempt, I demand to see a definition of the phrase.
You know what? I'm not going to let a fake definition, twisted specifically so it will exclude this attempt, squeak out unchallenged.
A coup is "a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government." Last night they tried to do that.
There is NO legitimate or defensible response to this event besides condemnation. Praising violent criminals who invade public places and attack law enforcement in order to overturn a democratic election as passionate defenders of democracy is not an innocent misunderstanding of the situation.
It's a conscious decision to support a literal, physical attack on the literal, physical process of democracy.
There are some things that we can never compromise on. Democracy is one of them.
Yes, I want these people in jail. I am no longer willing to pretend that they are honest competitors in democracy. We cannot have a free society when radical terrorists can invade the capital in an attempt to kill lawmakers. They brought guns, they brought chemical weapons, they brought body armor, and they proudly announced on social media their desire to kill their enemies.
There wasn't even a single violent incident and you are pretending they went to the Capitol to literally kill lawmakers. The woman that was killed wasn't armed. This line of thinking isn't even worth entertaining, it's so far removed from what actually happened.
Just say you don't believe they have a right to protest.
I am fucking sick of the false bipartisanship
Me too. I'm sick of the false bipartisanship where liberals pretend that they ever once saw conservatives as people deserving of political rights, when their every statement and unhinged paranoid fantasy says otherwise. They nakedly cheer for police brutality and mass arrests, they mock any suffering they endure, they incessantly lie about every action they take, like how they went to the Capitol to literally kill lawmakers despite not a single attempt at doing that having actually occurred.
You can't share a country with people who want you to suffer and don't listen to a word you say. Some form of political seperation is looking more and more inevitable. Even the normiest of normal conservative pundits were essentially saying the same thing yesterday.
After a season of mass riots, autonomous zones where police are kicked out and random people with guns patrol the streets, burned down police buildings, and lots of dead people, suddenly everyone who didn't have shit to say then has turned into a Law and Order, Send in the Troops authoritarian at the slightest hint of disorder. A double standard based on the political persuasion of those involved, who could have imagined that!
They want conservatives to suffer and die so badly they will abandon their entire political platform and every stated belief about the nature of protests and police as long as it gives them a chance to enjoy their suffering guilt free. Now drunk with power, I imagine they will get their wish sooner or later if conservatives still have the audacity to think they have the right to protest. You can only have bloodthirsty libs on the sidelines calling for police brutality for so long before it actually happens. And of course they are trying to find and identify protestors so they can call the police on them, because it wouldn't be truly spineless, soulless behavior if there wasn't petty snitching involved.
I no longer see any benefit to a United States. What goodwill and mutual understanding I believe can be achieved from sea to sea has long since been abandoned, and I don't see it coming back in an age where mass culture doesn't exist in the same way anymore. I imagine when conservatives take that message to the Capitol, libs will be twice as gleeful to see them shot, abused, and arrested, if such a thing is even possible.
Because it wasn't a protest. It was an active attempt to prevent the transfer of power from taking place, which was entirely successful for at least six hours. In fact, it technically caused the duty of the Senate to not be fulfilled on the day outlined in the Constitution, since it happened after 3am the next day, which I'm sure is ANOTHER reason they'll say it doesn't count at some point.
The protest was taking place on the National Mall. Then Trump basically ordered them to attack the Legislative Branch, which they did. This wasn't some hippies taking over a street in Seattle and the false equivalency is absurd. It was an assault on democracy itself, that was temporarily successful, instigated by the President. And this was, apparently, noble, because even though they did so because they erroneously believe it's because the election was stolen from them, you think it's great because society doesn't give them enough respect. You know, like a electoral system that is basically the biggest form of affirmative action in existence. And you and Matt fucking Walsh won't acknowledge any of this because YOU don't believe liberal election wins are any more legitimate than those people did yesterday. Check my posts yesterday, up til about 10am. I made one basically mocking the protest up to that point. Then the seat of democracy was attacked at the urging of the head of the Executive Branch. And we're supposed to sit here and act like that's the same as someone looting a Target store.
We may not think their views are particularly legitimate IF we want to maintain a democratic republic, but I am on the record at least a half a dozen times saying their vote should NEVER be taken away, even when people have hypothetically suggested it. But they don't believe that. If the Senate staffers hadn't been smart enough to grab the boxes of the Electoral votes before everyone went into lockdown, the chances are they would have been stolen or burned. And then what??
The most ironic part is, they are now arguing against a system which, as others have mentioned is the ONLY reason they even have a realistic shot at the Presidency since they can't come within 7 million votes of winning an actual national tally. But even spotting them 5 or 6 points isn't enough. The ONLY outcome that is legitimate is a Republican win, or we throw it out and install them anyway. This isn't some side issue they used to come to other conclusions, as you are suggesting. They don't believe liberals, but ESPECIALLY black people in large cities, should have their votes counted. End of story. And they are willing to toss out democracy rather than share it with those people.
The intent to kill was on social media, on Parler. This event was planned weeks in advance. They brought lethal weapons; you don't bring rifles to a peaceful protest. They sprayed police with chemicals. These folks have been talking about killing Democratic politicians for years.
Finally they invaded. That was last night.
And what were they "protesting?"
The certification of electoral votes, another step in making Biden's victory formal.
What was their cause? They were "protesting" democracy. They were protesting the very idea that my vote matters, that my vote should count.
They physically attacked the police and injured many. The ability of the police to eventually fight them back doesn't prove they were harmless.
The police had to physically barricade the chamber just to keep the fascists from reaching members of Congress.
Yes, there is a difference between protesting a police officer getting away with murder, like we saw this summer, and invading the Capitol with guns, like we saw last night, to try to thwart a democratic election itself.
I do not want them punished for voting for Trump. I don't want them punished for supporting the guy, or attacking Biden. I want them prosecuted for breaking and entering and assault.
You're legally allowed to stand outside the Capitol and shout and hold signs. But breaking into the Capitol is, yes, illegal.
Did you hear me calling for the arrests of nonviolent protestors? No, you did not. I saw countless Stop the Steal protests and never called them criminal. I never even commented on them. Look at my posting history.
You heard me call for the arrest of people who attacked police officers and broke into a public building fully armed.
Criticize me for that if you want. Criticize me for the statements I actually make; not for imaginary statements I haven't.
I am not happy about this. I will not cheer to see these fascists prosecuted, or even successfully convicted and imprisoned. I've never felt joy when criminals go to prison.
But invading the Capitol is illegal. Spraying police officers with chemicals is illegal. Looting the building is illegal.
The fact that their ideology is fascism doesn't mean their behavior is any less criminal.
And as for them not attacking any lawmakers, what do you imagine would have happened if they had breached the chamber before everyone had evacuated, and ten or twelve of them had run into Pelosi or AOC in the flesh?? That they would have simply had a nice conversation?? The Legislative Branch was de facto taken hostage for 6 hours yesterday.
Meanwhile, there are now two camps, the one we are reading about above, who think the whole thing was just dandy because liberals are too smug, and the people who are seriously, without irony, suggesting it was the work of Antifa. They can't even own their own shit, ever. As I said, there is NO agency for conservatives. Everything is always happening to them, they are never making decisions or taking action on their own. If the Capitol was breached, there are only two explanations. 1.) liberals forced us to because there are too many gay people on TV and some NFL players knelt during the national anthem or 2.) it was actually leftists in disguise trying to make us look bad.
Check my posts yesterday, up til about 10am. I made one basically mocking the protest up to that point. Then the seat of democracy was attacked at the urging of the head of the Executive Branch.
Yes.
We didn't call it criminal until after they broke the law.
It amazes me that even after Trump supporters storm the Capitol to stop the certification of an election, liberals are somehow the bad guys for... criticizing violent fascists too harshly.
When people cite real evidence to accuse liberals of being tyrants, the evidence they use is that we use our freedom of speech too strongly, that we criticize people too much. That's what happened today.
When people cite real evidence to accuse Trump supporters of being fascists, they can point to an act of violence against democracy itself. That's what happened last night.
Check my posts yesterday, up til about 10am. I made one basically mocking the protest up to that point. Then the seat of democracy was attacked at the urging of the head of the Executive Branch.
Yes.
We didn't call it criminal until after they broke the law.
It amazes me that even after Trump supporters storm the Capitol to stop the certification of an election, liberals are somehow the bad guys for... criticizing violent fascists too harshly.
When people cite real evidence to accuse liberals of being tyrants, the evidence they use is that we use our freedom of speech too strongly, that we criticize people too much. That's what happened today.
When people cite real evidence to accuse Trump supporters of being fascists, they can point to an act of violence against democracy itself. That's what happened last night.
The views we are hearing above might as well be coming from the head of Chicago's biggest police union. The messages might as well have been coordinated. Get a load of this shit. And justifies everything I said about law enforcement's fascist sympathies. Thread:
The competition is no longer even about fiscal policy or international security or environmental concerns. It's about whether votes matter, whether votes are valid, whether democratic elections are how we decide things.
The GOP believes that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. They've made that very clear, from decades of Second Amendment posturing to ominous threats of civil war to literally shooting liberals protestors like Kyle Rittenhouse to storming the Capitol building. All pretensions have fallen.
We on the left accepted Trump's victory in 2016, as much as we hated it, even though we knew for a fact that Comey had tipped the scales and the Russians had selectively leaked information to hurt us and we won the popular vote. But Trump supporters refused to accept Biden's victory even after 50+ attempts to invalidate our votes in court failed, even with a crushing popular vote margin, because they believed social media rumors that told them the reality in front of them was fake.
So John Catanzara is flat-out telling people that he sympathizes with the fascists, views them as innocent, and repeats the lie that the vote count was fake. Even he is opposed to the election results. He even lies that there was no looting (people were photographed carrying stuff away) and no violence (people were injured).
This is why fascists can get away with committing crimes. Law enforcement likes them. The very people who are supposed to enforce the law have a distinct political bias they proudly announce, and fascists know they won't be held accountable.
Besides that woman who was shot by police, four other people have apparently died for currently unknown medical reasons.
I particularly struck by the line about the point of sieging the Capitol is not to necessarily mass casualty, but to show it CAN be attacked. Maybe someone can explain to me how that is a functionally different sentiment than "not being able to buy that kind of visceral propaganda" and "that's the exact kind of frame of mind needed to alter the power structure in the way that it needs to be altered."
For those who don't know, the original fascists in Italy were not government officials at first. They were roving bands of street thugs who attacked their political enemies with batons. That's where the word comes from. Fascism started out as grassroots violence. The original version was not top-down like most forms of authoritarianism are.
The fascists were also notable for having no coherent ideology beyond being opposed to democracy and being opposed to socialism.
And as that Twitter thread mentions, yes, they did erect a gallows.
There are no pretensions to nonviolence here. The only pretensions to nonviolence came after the fact, from people who want to support the fascists and avoid confronting the reality facing them:
Fascists preparing to execute their enemies.
Or are we now going to pretend that it was all symbolism?
It's obviously a false equivalency to compare the BLM protests in response to the police murdering George Floyd by kneeling upon his neck for 8+ minutes and the MAGA riot that attacked the capitol building because they've been lied to by a conman for the past 2 months that the election was somehow stolen.
The former is more aptly comparable to the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma. The latter is more aptly compared to the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
Frankly, I'm surprised the "ANTIFA did it" argument wasnt used, but I suppose when you're proud that bunch of Americans stormed the capitol in an attempt to stop a legal and legitimate election from concluding, you dont need to pin it on anyone else.
Didnt we have a discussion not so long ago in which some people scoffed at the notion that the modern conservative movement in the USA has an authoritarian streak? Yikes. That disagreement aged like milk...
It's obviously a false equivalency to compare the BLM protests in response to the police murdering George Floyd by kneeling upon his neck for 8+ minutes and the MAGA riot that attacked the capitol building because they've been lied to by a conman for the past 2 months that the election was somehow stolen.
The former is more aptly comparable to the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma. The latter is more aptly compared to the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
Frankly, I'm surprised the "ANTIFA did it" argument wasnt used, but I suppose when you're proud that bunch of Americans stormed the capitol in an attempt to stop a legal and legitimate election from concluding, you dont need to pin it on anyone else.
Plenty of people are pinning it on someone else, due to a completely debunked story. But once Matt Gaetz repeated it on the House floor last night, it EXPLODED on right-wing social media. Within an hour of me mentioning it here based on random Twitter comments I was seeing, my aunt sends me a text saying that the entire MAGA-brigade side of our family was posting the theory on Facebook. And just like that, 20% of the country is now convinced it wasn't Trump supporters, who were willing to declare their allegiance to any camera within eyeshot, but a false flag operation. The search for absolution from blame on this one was even more of a priority than it usually is, so they grabbed the most ridiculous excuse available at the time. By 7pm tonight, there will probably be a new prevailing theory.
So you have two competing narratives working here, and I suspect some people hold both of them (and I guess we can at least give credit that we aren't being fed that load of bullshit here). They are quite happy with what went down, but can't admit it was Trump supporters because it kinda sorta proves the whole "deplorable" narrative was true. So they reach for the new all-purpose boogeyman.
It's obviously a false equivalency to compare the BLM protests in response to the police murdering George Floyd by kneeling upon his neck for 8+ minutes and the MAGA riot that attacked the capitol building because they've been lied to by a conman for the past 2 months that the election was somehow stolen.
The former is more aptly comparable to the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma. The latter is more aptly compared to the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
Frankly, I'm surprised the "ANTIFA did it" argument wasnt used, but I suppose when you're proud that bunch of Americans stormed the capitol in an attempt to stop a legal and legitimate election from concluding, you dont need to pin it on anyone else.
Plenty of people are pinning it on someone else, due to a completely debunked story. But once Matt Gaetz repeated it on the House floor last night, it EXPLODED on right-wing social media. Within an hour of me mentioning it here based on random Twitter comments I was seeing, my aunt sends me a text saying that the entire MAGA-brigade side of our family was posting the theory on Facebook. And just like that, 20% of the country is now convinced it wasn't Trump supporters, who were willing to declare their allegiance to any camera within eyeshot, but a false flag operation. The search for absolution from blame on this one was even more of a priority than it usually is, so they grabbed the most ridiculous excuse available at the time. By 7pm tonight, there will probably be a new prevailing theory.
Sarah Palin was saying it was Antifa on Fox News last night before Congress was even back in session. Saw it with my own two baby blues...
It amazes me that even after Trump supporters storm the Capitol to stop the certification of an election, liberals are somehow the bad guys for... criticizing violent fascists too harshly.
A woman is dead and you slander her over her dead body. Her social media is open to all. No fascism to find be found here. But that's not relevant, is it? You don't need any evidence to label them as such, no evidence to the contrary would convince either. In fact, I would go further and say i'm 100% sure you don't know anything about anyone involved.
I don't believe you really believe it, anyway. It's just a label you can throw at people you hate to dehumanize them. People who think the election was stolen and protest against that stolen election wouldn't be called fascists by any stretch of the imagination. They would be pretty obviously pro-democracy.
When your criticism amounts to false labels and lies, every moral standard you claim to hold you abandon so you can better try to hurt people you dislike, when you want to punish people who haven't hurt anyone just because you don't like them, when you posture as generous and open minded while displaying the exact opposite traits at every possible opportunity, when you fail to demonstrate any semblance of good character or good faith in any capacity when dealing with people you find distasteful, you are the bad guy, it turns out.
When people cite real evidence to accuse liberals of being tyrants, the evidence they use is that we use our freedom of speech too strongly, that we criticize people too much. That's what happened today.
Criticizing too much and being remarkably uncritical of yourself is a pretty bad character flaw, it turns out. It breeds arrogance, ignorance, and self righteousness. Traits we see in abundance in this group. It is the sort of arrogance that can lead one to cheer for violence and repression and believe you are in the right.
When people cite real evidence to accuse Trump supporters of being fascists, they can point to an act of violence against democracy itself. That's what happened last night.
Ah, yes, the trademark fascist trait of staging protests at government buildings.
Pointing to an act of violence via short protest against the concept of "democracy" is the only sort of violence anyone can claim happened here, other than the violence with the protestors as the victim.
Your protests kill cops, teenagers, and the protestors themselves. If the shoe was on the other foot, you would be howling about how morally superior you are and that there is no "both sides".
Even as right wing protests remain remarkably tame, you still want them repressed and punished to the maximum possible extent. Do they even register as people to you?
I was consistent on this. I supported the BLM protestors burning down the police building at the start, because they didn't hurt anyone in the process. I disavowed the violence when it happened as well. Go ahead and find my comments about it.
You won't see me wishing harm on folks because they protested in a chaotic but nonviolent manner. It takes a certain kind of personal depravity to do so solely on the basis of politics.
"At" a government building?? No. Protests "at" a government building are the stuff you see outside the Supreme Court every time a major decision is about to come down. These people were "in" a government building, and they were "in" that building because they literally broke into the Senate and House chambers to stop the electoral vote certification. Successfully. Which you continue to purposefully ignore because it shatters the rest of your arguments. To which you are just gonna respond "I don't believe the democracy in the US is legitimate anymore" and, to be honest, we don't need to be told that at this point, so you might as well save yourself the hassle of typing the extra sentence.
If gay marriage activists literally stormed the Supreme Court, it would not have been excused. Anytime anyone so much as hops the fence at the White House, they are probably going to be shot dead. But somehow breaking into the United States Capitol, which has only fallen twice, once in 1812, and once yesterday (temporarily) is now just a normal protest. And the sad fact is, it probably would have REMAINED a protest (albeit a ridiculous one) had they not been incited by the President, his lawyer and his son in the hours and minutes leading up to it. But then it ceased being a protest, but I wouldn't classify it as a riot either. It was armed insurrection instigated by a losing Presidential candidate in an attempt to prevent the man that beat him from assuming power. For the 100th time, a coup attempt that fails is still an attempted coup.
Comments
No surprise that the usual cast of characters want maximum pain and punishment for a group of protesters who didn't hurt anyone, yet lost lives themselves. It's pretty obvious they simply delight in their pain in any form, and there is little more to it than that.
During all the protests this summer, was any protestor killed at the hands of police officers?
This statement is absolutely un-goddamn-real. You're right though. I made them do it. It was my fault. It was ALL the fault of liberals who don't understand them. No agency, to the bitter fucking end.
The amount of videos people filmed of people being brutalized by police for simply being in the same vicinity of where protests were taking place could fill the Disney Vault. And this wasn't a "protest", this was an act of (temporarily successful) sedition, attempting to overthrow the results of an election, directed by the President of the United States on one of the two other branches of government.
The only disappointing thing is that such dedicated people are behind someone like Trump, who will do nothing for them, and disavow them despite being the one who led them there. Having people willing to risk themselves for you is real power, and he spent his entire time catering to everyone but his die hard supporters.
Let's assume when you say "disenfranchised" you mean economically, because it sure as hell can't mean electorally. I have been poor, have lived paycheck to paycheck, for at least a decade. I am well aware of what economic hardship is. And I can state without hesitation that one thing I NEVER did when short on money was buy a round-trip plane ticket to Washington DC and book a room at a hotel. So the "economic anxiety" narrative doesn't fly with me.
As for people lying about them, it turns out they were exactly who we thought they were. Fascists. As if what they were attempting to do wasn't invalidate the votes of 81 million people. Playing by rules we, as you know, don't particularly think are fair, but are forced to accept anyway. And even that isn't enough.
Edit: I can't even respond to the part you added without losing my cool. This sad-sack grievance bullshit is so utterly pathetic at this point I can't even find words to talk about it anymore. The culture doesn't reflect them because the culture they want fucking sucks, and the vast majority of people in this country aren't interested in it. And there is no Electoral College to enforce their taste on the rest of the society. Tough shit I guess.
Culture is dominated by artists. Think long and hard about why conservatives are lacking in that department. Start with the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Hollywood blacklist, and the John Birch Society and work from there. Then apply it to science and education. And then you can stop wondering why they are "discriminated" against. They've ghettoized themselves in ALL these areas, deliberately and on purpose, and the fact that they can then bitch about not being adequately represented is just a nice side perk.
The main targets of conservatism's ire are not culture, education and science because they aren't properly represented. They aren't properly represented because culture, education and science are the targets of their ire. From the Scopes Monkey Trial to the opposition to rock n' roll because it grew out of black R&B, it is a reactionary and anti-intellectual movement in American politics. Always has been, always will be. Granted, the party line used to be reversed, and it was mostly Democrats who held these views until the 1960s, but the cultural fault-lines prior to 1968 are meaningless when talking about our current situation.
It's true that they believe a system where black people get to vote is not legitimate.
There is no room in this country for violent opposition to democracy. That's the literal definition of tyranny. These people are violent criminals and they need to be imprisoned.
I have run out of patience. They will never stop fighting against democracy no matter how badly voters reject them, and they will only get more violent and brutal as time goes on.
Yes, I want these people in jail. I am no longer willing to pretend that they are honest competitors in democracy. We cannot have a free society when radical terrorists can invade the capital in an attempt to kill lawmakers. They brought guns, they brought chemical weapons, they brought body armor, and they proudly announced on social media their desire to kill their enemies.
This isn't a group of people who don't share the same views as me. These people tried to use violence to overthrow MY vote. Their ability to commit violent crimes is absolutely a threat to my freedoms.
This is not over, and they are not done. They will strike again if they are not prosecuted.
I am fucking sick of the false bipartisanship that says Democrats need to smile and stand out of the way when Republicans bust out the rifles and lay siege to the Capitol. Violent criminals need to be prosecuted.
Are we seriously going to pretend--and I will accept no claim of honest misunderstanding here; their motives were proudly announced--that these people were here because liberals don't "respect" them?
No. They stormed the Capitol because they lost the election.
We're not lying about this. We're not pretending. They told us what they wanted. They wanted to stage a coup: breaking into the Capitol building specifically to prevent Biden's victory from being finalized. They didn't even pretend otherwise, and I am not pretending otherwise, either.
If that's not a coup attempt, I demand to see a definition of the phrase.
A coup is "a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government." Last night they tried to do that.
There is NO legitimate or defensible response to this event besides condemnation. Praising violent criminals who invade public places and attack law enforcement in order to overturn a democratic election as passionate defenders of democracy is not an innocent misunderstanding of the situation.
It's a conscious decision to support a literal, physical attack on the literal, physical process of democracy.
There are some things that we can never compromise on. Democracy is one of them.
That is what is at stake here.
There wasn't even a single violent incident and you are pretending they went to the Capitol to literally kill lawmakers. The woman that was killed wasn't armed. This line of thinking isn't even worth entertaining, it's so far removed from what actually happened.
Just say you don't believe they have a right to protest.
Me too. I'm sick of the false bipartisanship where liberals pretend that they ever once saw conservatives as people deserving of political rights, when their every statement and unhinged paranoid fantasy says otherwise. They nakedly cheer for police brutality and mass arrests, they mock any suffering they endure, they incessantly lie about every action they take, like how they went to the Capitol to literally kill lawmakers despite not a single attempt at doing that having actually occurred.
You can't share a country with people who want you to suffer and don't listen to a word you say. Some form of political seperation is looking more and more inevitable. Even the normiest of normal conservative pundits were essentially saying the same thing yesterday.
They want conservatives to suffer and die so badly they will abandon their entire political platform and every stated belief about the nature of protests and police as long as it gives them a chance to enjoy their suffering guilt free. Now drunk with power, I imagine they will get their wish sooner or later if conservatives still have the audacity to think they have the right to protest. You can only have bloodthirsty libs on the sidelines calling for police brutality for so long before it actually happens. And of course they are trying to find and identify protestors so they can call the police on them, because it wouldn't be truly spineless, soulless behavior if there wasn't petty snitching involved.
I no longer see any benefit to a United States. What goodwill and mutual understanding I believe can be achieved from sea to sea has long since been abandoned, and I don't see it coming back in an age where mass culture doesn't exist in the same way anymore. I imagine when conservatives take that message to the Capitol, libs will be twice as gleeful to see them shot, abused, and arrested, if such a thing is even possible.
The protest was taking place on the National Mall. Then Trump basically ordered them to attack the Legislative Branch, which they did. This wasn't some hippies taking over a street in Seattle and the false equivalency is absurd. It was an assault on democracy itself, that was temporarily successful, instigated by the President. And this was, apparently, noble, because even though they did so because they erroneously believe it's because the election was stolen from them, you think it's great because society doesn't give them enough respect. You know, like a electoral system that is basically the biggest form of affirmative action in existence. And you and Matt fucking Walsh won't acknowledge any of this because YOU don't believe liberal election wins are any more legitimate than those people did yesterday. Check my posts yesterday, up til about 10am. I made one basically mocking the protest up to that point. Then the seat of democracy was attacked at the urging of the head of the Executive Branch. And we're supposed to sit here and act like that's the same as someone looting a Target store.
We may not think their views are particularly legitimate IF we want to maintain a democratic republic, but I am on the record at least a half a dozen times saying their vote should NEVER be taken away, even when people have hypothetically suggested it. But they don't believe that. If the Senate staffers hadn't been smart enough to grab the boxes of the Electoral votes before everyone went into lockdown, the chances are they would have been stolen or burned. And then what??
The most ironic part is, they are now arguing against a system which, as others have mentioned is the ONLY reason they even have a realistic shot at the Presidency since they can't come within 7 million votes of winning an actual national tally. But even spotting them 5 or 6 points isn't enough. The ONLY outcome that is legitimate is a Republican win, or we throw it out and install them anyway. This isn't some side issue they used to come to other conclusions, as you are suggesting. They don't believe liberals, but ESPECIALLY black people in large cities, should have their votes counted. End of story. And they are willing to toss out democracy rather than share it with those people.
Finally they invaded. That was last night.
And what were they "protesting?"
The certification of electoral votes, another step in making Biden's victory formal.
What was their cause? They were "protesting" democracy. They were protesting the very idea that my vote matters, that my vote should count.
They physically attacked the police and injured many. The ability of the police to eventually fight them back doesn't prove they were harmless.
The police had to physically barricade the chamber just to keep the fascists from reaching members of Congress.
Yes, there is a difference between protesting a police officer getting away with murder, like we saw this summer, and invading the Capitol with guns, like we saw last night, to try to thwart a democratic election itself.
I do not want them punished for voting for Trump. I don't want them punished for supporting the guy, or attacking Biden. I want them prosecuted for breaking and entering and assault.
You're legally allowed to stand outside the Capitol and shout and hold signs. But breaking into the Capitol is, yes, illegal.
Did you hear me calling for the arrests of nonviolent protestors? No, you did not. I saw countless Stop the Steal protests and never called them criminal. I never even commented on them. Look at my posting history.
You heard me call for the arrest of people who attacked police officers and broke into a public building fully armed.
Criticize me for that if you want. Criticize me for the statements I actually make; not for imaginary statements I haven't.
But invading the Capitol is illegal. Spraying police officers with chemicals is illegal. Looting the building is illegal.
The fact that their ideology is fascism doesn't mean their behavior is any less criminal.
Meanwhile, there are now two camps, the one we are reading about above, who think the whole thing was just dandy because liberals are too smug, and the people who are seriously, without irony, suggesting it was the work of Antifa. They can't even own their own shit, ever. As I said, there is NO agency for conservatives. Everything is always happening to them, they are never making decisions or taking action on their own. If the Capitol was breached, there are only two explanations. 1.) liberals forced us to because there are too many gay people on TV and some NFL players knelt during the national anthem or 2.) it was actually leftists in disguise trying to make us look bad.
We didn't call it criminal until after they broke the law.
It amazes me that even after Trump supporters storm the Capitol to stop the certification of an election, liberals are somehow the bad guys for... criticizing violent fascists too harshly.
When people cite real evidence to accuse liberals of being tyrants, the evidence they use is that we use our freedom of speech too strongly, that we criticize people too much. That's what happened today.
When people cite real evidence to accuse Trump supporters of being fascists, they can point to an act of violence against democracy itself. That's what happened last night.
The views we are hearing above might as well be coming from the head of Chicago's biggest police union. The messages might as well have been coordinated. Get a load of this shit. And justifies everything I said about law enforcement's fascist sympathies. Thread:
And I know when I protest, I always bring zip ties to possibly make citizen arrests of whoever I may run into, just to be safe:
The GOP believes that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. They've made that very clear, from decades of Second Amendment posturing to ominous threats of civil war to literally shooting liberals protestors like Kyle Rittenhouse to storming the Capitol building. All pretensions have fallen.
We on the left accepted Trump's victory in 2016, as much as we hated it, even though we knew for a fact that Comey had tipped the scales and the Russians had selectively leaked information to hurt us and we won the popular vote. But Trump supporters refused to accept Biden's victory even after 50+ attempts to invalidate our votes in court failed, even with a crushing popular vote margin, because they believed social media rumors that told them the reality in front of them was fake.
This is why fascists can get away with committing crimes. Law enforcement likes them. The very people who are supposed to enforce the law have a distinct political bias they proudly announce, and fascists know they won't be held accountable.
Besides that woman who was shot by police, four other people have apparently died for currently unknown medical reasons.
I particularly struck by the line about the point of sieging the Capitol is not to necessarily mass casualty, but to show it CAN be attacked. Maybe someone can explain to me how that is a functionally different sentiment than "not being able to buy that kind of visceral propaganda" and "that's the exact kind of frame of mind needed to alter the power structure in the way that it needs to be altered."
The fascists were also notable for having no coherent ideology beyond being opposed to democracy and being opposed to socialism.
There are no pretensions to nonviolence here. The only pretensions to nonviolence came after the fact, from people who want to support the fascists and avoid confronting the reality facing them:
Fascists preparing to execute their enemies.
Or are we now going to pretend that it was all symbolism?
It's obviously a false equivalency to compare the BLM protests in response to the police murdering George Floyd by kneeling upon his neck for 8+ minutes and the MAGA riot that attacked the capitol building because they've been lied to by a conman for the past 2 months that the election was somehow stolen.
The former is more aptly comparable to the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge in Selma. The latter is more aptly compared to the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.
Frankly, I'm surprised the "ANTIFA did it" argument wasnt used, but I suppose when you're proud that bunch of Americans stormed the capitol in an attempt to stop a legal and legitimate election from concluding, you dont need to pin it on anyone else.
Didnt we have a discussion not so long ago in which some people scoffed at the notion that the modern conservative movement in the USA has an authoritarian streak? Yikes. That disagreement aged like milk...
Plenty of people are pinning it on someone else, due to a completely debunked story. But once Matt Gaetz repeated it on the House floor last night, it EXPLODED on right-wing social media. Within an hour of me mentioning it here based on random Twitter comments I was seeing, my aunt sends me a text saying that the entire MAGA-brigade side of our family was posting the theory on Facebook. And just like that, 20% of the country is now convinced it wasn't Trump supporters, who were willing to declare their allegiance to any camera within eyeshot, but a false flag operation. The search for absolution from blame on this one was even more of a priority than it usually is, so they grabbed the most ridiculous excuse available at the time. By 7pm tonight, there will probably be a new prevailing theory.
So you have two competing narratives working here, and I suspect some people hold both of them (and I guess we can at least give credit that we aren't being fed that load of bullshit here). They are quite happy with what went down, but can't admit it was Trump supporters because it kinda sorta proves the whole "deplorable" narrative was true. So they reach for the new all-purpose boogeyman.
Sarah Palin was saying it was Antifa on Fox News last night before Congress was even back in session. Saw it with my own two baby blues...
A woman is dead and you slander her over her dead body. Her social media is open to all. No fascism to find be found here. But that's not relevant, is it? You don't need any evidence to label them as such, no evidence to the contrary would convince either. In fact, I would go further and say i'm 100% sure you don't know anything about anyone involved.
I don't believe you really believe it, anyway. It's just a label you can throw at people you hate to dehumanize them. People who think the election was stolen and protest against that stolen election wouldn't be called fascists by any stretch of the imagination. They would be pretty obviously pro-democracy.
When your criticism amounts to false labels and lies, every moral standard you claim to hold you abandon so you can better try to hurt people you dislike, when you want to punish people who haven't hurt anyone just because you don't like them, when you posture as generous and open minded while displaying the exact opposite traits at every possible opportunity, when you fail to demonstrate any semblance of good character or good faith in any capacity when dealing with people you find distasteful, you are the bad guy, it turns out.
Criticizing too much and being remarkably uncritical of yourself is a pretty bad character flaw, it turns out. It breeds arrogance, ignorance, and self righteousness. Traits we see in abundance in this group. It is the sort of arrogance that can lead one to cheer for violence and repression and believe you are in the right.
Ah, yes, the trademark fascist trait of staging protests at government buildings.
Pointing to an act of violence via short protest against the concept of "democracy" is the only sort of violence anyone can claim happened here, other than the violence with the protestors as the victim.
Your protests kill cops, teenagers, and the protestors themselves. If the shoe was on the other foot, you would be howling about how morally superior you are and that there is no "both sides".
Even as right wing protests remain remarkably tame, you still want them repressed and punished to the maximum possible extent. Do they even register as people to you?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/01/george-floyd-protests-officer-killed-near-oakland-protest-identified/5308024002/
I was consistent on this. I supported the BLM protestors burning down the police building at the start, because they didn't hurt anyone in the process. I disavowed the violence when it happened as well. Go ahead and find my comments about it.
You won't see me wishing harm on folks because they protested in a chaotic but nonviolent manner. It takes a certain kind of personal depravity to do so solely on the basis of politics.
If gay marriage activists literally stormed the Supreme Court, it would not have been excused. Anytime anyone so much as hops the fence at the White House, they are probably going to be shot dead. But somehow breaking into the United States Capitol, which has only fallen twice, once in 1812, and once yesterday (temporarily) is now just a normal protest. And the sad fact is, it probably would have REMAINED a protest (albeit a ridiculous one) had they not been incited by the President, his lawyer and his son in the hours and minutes leading up to it. But then it ceased being a protest, but I wouldn't classify it as a riot either. It was armed insurrection instigated by a losing Presidential candidate in an attempt to prevent the man that beat him from assuming power. For the 100th time, a coup attempt that fails is still an attempted coup.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/07/lawmakers-trump-25th-amendment-455832