Fast forward to today.
President Biden and VP Kamala Harris speak about the events of January 6, one year ago today.
Events Commemorating Jan 6 (THE WEEK)
A series of remembrance events during the day will be widely attended by Democrats, in person and virtually, but almost every Republican on Capitol Hill will be absent,” The Associated Press reports. Many Republicans will be in Atlanta on Thursday for the funeral of former Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), while others will simply avoid the Capitol and the commemoration of an event few GOP lawmakers are eager to talk about.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will preside over a minute of silence in the House chamber, a moderated discussion with historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Jon Meacham, and first-hand accounts of the insurrection from House members there that day. Pelosi told AP on Wednesday that she will focus on the fact “democracy won that night.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested Biden will single out Trump for blame. “I would expect that President Biden will lay out the significance of what happened at the Capitol and the singular responsibility President Trump has for the chaos and carnage that we saw,” she said Wednesday. “He will forcibly push back on the lies spread by the former president — in an attempt to mislead the American people, and his own supporters, as well as distract from his role in what happened.
Events Commemorating Jan 6 (Washington Post)
Democratic House leaders have planned a full day of commemorative activities, including testimonials from lawmakers, commentary from historians and a prayer vigil. Senate Democrats plan to deliver floor speeches about the day. Republican leaders do not plan to participate.
Not one Republican leader has said that they will attend even a single commemoration event. Not one.
Watching events unfold at the Capital on Jan 6 was horrifying, but at no point on that day did I ever believe that it would be successful; I believed that order would prevail. My thoughts were focused on what’s taking so long rather than what if we don’t prevail, what if our democracy falls.
At the time, I simply did not comprehend how far the Republicans and white supremacists would go to retain power. I had no idea that they would still be undermining democracy one year later – and that elected officials in congress and across the country would be doing it right out in the open, with enemy action on every single possible front.
What were you thinking one year ago today as the events unfolded?
zhena gogolia
I was sitting in a dermatologist’s parking lot, blissfully ignorant. By the time I got to my office and saw BJ, it was almost over. I saw Cheryl’s “Welp” post and lost my s–t.
CindyH
I thought that the repugs would finally turn on trump – yes, I was born the day before
Jeffro
I was thinking that I never want to talk politics with my RWNJ dad and brother, ever again.
Oh wait…that was by the end of the day, after they denied being Biden-win-deniers and also saying that 1/6 was the RW equivalent of a BLM march. During the day I was horrified to my core like everyone else.
(they’ve still never manned up and admitted that 1/6 was part of our most corrupt president EVER’s coup plan, or that they did indeed – entirely as predicted – willingly and happily follow him down the spiral for five years.
A couple months ago they took that ‘which of America’s 6 parties are you in?’ quiz in the NYT, and reassured themselves with the results…that they were ‘Rockefeller Republicans’. F that – once you’re MAGA, you’re MAGA for life.)
Baud
I was following the events here while working, I believe.
Betty Cracker
We had an electoral count open thread here that day. It seems to be where the magnitude of the violence first started to dawn on us. At first, I remember thinking it was just a small number of people descending on the Capitol. It took a while for the true scale to sink in.
ETA: My super-insightful comment was: “Wow, this is some crazy shit!”
dmsilev
I was at work, got an alert on my phone, and pulled up CNN on one of the lab computers. One of the grad students and I spent the next hour or so basically just staring at the screen in near-disbelief before being able to do anything vaguely productive.
Very reminiscent of 9/11 actually. Then, I was the grad student and I happened to be in my boss’s office talking with him about something or another when his wife called and told him about the first plane hitting the WTC. We tried to pull up news on the web, but all of the sites were overloaded and crashed. AM/FM radio in the lab did the trick…
raven
I remember when the plugged Ashli Babbitt.
WaterGirl
Kamala Harris speaking now.
Dorothy A. Winsor
At first, I thought it was just a riot that had managed to get inside the capitol. That was unbelievable enough. Then pics of the violence started to emerge. At that point, riot shaded into assault for me. I’m still processing how close we came to having TFG reinstalled by force.
Starfish
I was both too distracted by the events to accomplish much at work and also keeping my child completely in the dark about it because I was worried that we would have to explain “How the government was overthrown.” I did not want to worry him with “How the government MIGHT BE overthrown” if I was going to have to explain “How the government WAS overthrown” later. Days later, we explained that something bad had happened, but we kept it nebulous.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro:
Laughing. Mordantly. One can only imagine the quality of the test the FTF NY Times would administer. They desire a world where everyone is a Rockefeller Republican. And saying so makes it so, no?
I was walking dogs with a friend. Long walk. Missed the whole thing. Wish I’d known how to do a screen grab on iPhone, because there were some very urgent headlines.
Learned of it in depth at this here blog.
Elizabelle
@raven: I have no sympathy for Ashli Babbitt. None. Except that she was susceptible to the Q trash. Entirely possible she was a normal person, maybe even nice, before that.
She went looking for death, and found it.
debbie
J6 was no less shocking than 9/11. Talk about feeling old.
In the 15 minutes I have it on every weekday morning, the local NBC affiliate (part of NexStar) usually focuses on COVID, sports, weather, and traffic reports, with fluffy little human interest bits in between. This morning, they reported on the eight locals who were there and have been charged. Not just a listing of names, but photographs and detailed explanations of their actions, the investigations, and their current statuses.
I’m not sure how conservative NexStar is, but they do feature the Pledge of Allegience every morning and have added some religious programming. I can’t tell you what a surprise that report was.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: Me either.
What did she think would happen? She could see those guns pointed her way as clearly as we could. She was laughing
narya
I was working from home, so I did something I never do–I actually turned on the television for awhile. And I was both horrified and enraged.
geg6
Just being absolutely horrified is how I remember the day. I got no work done all afternoon because I couldn’t take my eyes off of what was happening. I was working from home and had the tv on and was mesmerized, crying my eyes out at several points and getting absolutely murderously furious at others. I’ll never forget or forgive it. Never.
The Dangerman
I don’t recall thinking anything; my gob was full on smacked. If anything, I was thinking it was Third World shit and this was the bottom.
Oops.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Thank you, BC. Will check that out.
Hello from Germany. Ephiphany holiday. German stores closed, but some restaurants open with holiday menus. 3:14 p here. Got an unexpected sunny and bright day. Gonna head out to walk more in a bit.
geg6
@Elizabelle:
Based on several articles I’ve read about her, she was always an asshole.
Kevin
I was thinking “I told you so”. This was so obvious you’d have to be blind to the truth to know Trump wouldn’t try something to retain power.
Ksmiami
I remember thinking that if things got bad and Trump was reinstalled, our side would need to fight back on every front. Also that Republicans had gone full metal fascist and America is/was on the brink. I still think this.
Ksmiami
@Kevin: ditto…
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I think one of the big stories of January 6 was that the Senate carried out the certification of the Electoral Count that evening. They knew it was important to get this done without further delay.
Elizabelle
@geg6: I believe that. She was from San Diego area. Local news interviewed her uncle, who was shocked and grieving, but described her with some synonym for “militant” 3 times in the interview. Began with a D; will have to find the link.
Her was an anti-masker, too. And she died before the vaccines rolled out, so we are saved her idiocy on that. LA Times:
Betty Cracker
Well, Biden is reading Trump and the vast majority of the Republican Party that backs Trump’s lie about the election for filth. That’s good. No sugar coating at all.
dmsilev
Good speech from Biden. Not pulling punches.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I remember feeling relieved and grateful that they stayed. That was huge.
Betty Cracker
Wow, Biden is basically saying LOSER LOSER LOSER, and I am here for it!
“Literally defecating in the hallways…”
wenchacha
I texted to my husband at work, oh, a speech, marchers, the Capitol, oh, barriers knocked over. He walls? They are climbing the walls? Horrific.
wenchacha
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. He’s going for it. Lets go, POTUS Joe Effing Biden!
dmsilev
@Betty Cracker: It’s great. I mean, the speech is bigger than that, but may as well jab TFG over and over again since it’s thoroughly warranted.
SiubhanDuinne
Joe is ? bringing it!
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes, he is! “The DEFEATED former president”!
...now I try to be amused
@Elizabelle:
When I read the news that Babbitt had been shot, I felt relief because it turned back the assault. It was a “shit just got real” moment for the insurrectionists, who until then had been treating it as a lark. It’s fortunate that none of them were willing to die for their imagined country.
Matt McIrvin
I was fretting about something like this well in advance, thinking of Hitler taking the Reichstag hostage with SA. On the actual day I was initially relieved it didn’t seem as bad as I expected, then it turned out to be pretty damn bad.
Jeffro
That speech was just. fucking. epic. On every level.
Thank you, Real President Biden! Wow.
Dorothy A. Winsor
TFG is going to lose his mind over Biden’s speech.
So will most of the Rs in Congress
TheTruffle
I remember being PISSED. As in: “How dare they!” And I still feel that way.
Wanderer
President Biden and Vice President Harris are very clear about everything the failed former Oval Office occupant did and tried to do. President Biden is exceptional.
Geminid
@debbie: That’ll really mess with trump’s head. He may decide to have his press conference after all. I hope he does.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And that can only be a good thing!
RandomMonster
I’m enjoying the thought that Biden’s speech was pure torture for TFFG.
japa21
That was an unbelievable speech. I have said before, when people called Biden a dull speaker, that good oratory is not defined only by Obama’s level of rhetoric. This was an inspiring speech. He pulled no punches.
Mrs. Japa and I several times looked at each other and just said “WOW”.
Professor Bigfoot
@Wanderer: Handsome Joe has always had this: they just keep on underestimating him.
That man gets shit done.
sab
A year ago today my husband got a call from a retired policeman friend who was watching horrified as the insurrection unfolded on tv. He had no doubt that it was indeed an insurrection, and he hasn’t changed his minyd since.
debbie
@Geminid:
I’m wondering if he was tipped off about what was going to be in the speech, and then canceled.
Betty Cracker
@dmsilev: You’re right — it’s bigger than just “Trump is a loser.” He put the events in historical context, outlined the duty of elected officials and the people in preserving democracy, etc. But damn, did he ever read the orange fart cloud for lying, losing filth. Imagine the paid sycophants at Disgraceland scattering like roaches when the light comes on…
Jeffro
@Geminid: agreed. They knew that trumpov was (obviously) capable of anything, so they’d better get it done.
The bad screenplay writer in me wanted them to impeach, convict, and remove him minutes after the EC certification, followed by armed guards dragging him out of the WH that night. The Republic could have lived with president Pence for two weeks, and I wouldn’t have minded buying all new “47” gear. =)
Another Scott
@dmsilev: Indeed, very reminiscent of 9/11.
I work in DC, but not downtown. It was mostly a normal day at work, but people were on-edge and distracted and wondering what was really happening and when it would end. Reporting always lags…
I was due to go back into work that evening, but didn’t.
It’s important to remember these events, and learn the correct lessons from them.
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
The speech was repetitive.
I don’t know about poking Trump like this because I am old enough to remember when Trump was embarrassed over being a birther, and then he ran for President.
You can dance on his head when he is sitting in prison, but I am not going to go out of my way to provoke a narcissist.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: here’s hoping the WH plans to beat on the media for the rest of the year, pushing them constantly to get every last GQP official and candidate on record as to whether or not Biden’s election was legitimate. ESPECIALLY the ones who were elected/re-elected on the very same ballots.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Similar to what Garland did yesterday? I thought Garland’s exposition on the scope of extant terroristic threats yesterday was masterful.
Ohio Mom
@Jeffro: I don’t remember that quiz in the NYT but yes, that is almost every Republican I know*, basking in tne delusion that there is such a thing as a “Rockefeller Republican” in 2022, and that they qualify as one.
* The less said about the ones that identified with the Tea Party, when that was the latest, the better.
WaterGirl
This was Biden’s best speech ever. Really impressive. Go Joe.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I remember ranting to my husband that I have been to any number of protests in DC from a slightly leftish perspective, and we gathered in the hundreds of thousands and never did shit like this to the capitol.
japa21
Miss Lindsey has already called it the most political speech he has ever seen.
Woodrow/asim
That’s a really key point. These people did this, and continue to foam at the mouth to do more, because they have seen, time and again, there’s no real consequences to these actions.
They aren’t gonna die, to their thinking.That makes them bold — yet hollow.
This makes them so wholly different in this moment from the Confederates they no-so-secretly mythologize. Say all the horrible things about the Confederate Army, and especially about the slave owners and hangers-on that pressed for War, but they shed their blood for the cause of enslaving my ancestors. Those slave owners had spent decades seeing exactly how cheap human life could be, and they convinced thousands of white folx to spend blood to keep people in chains.
These assholes aren’t there. Yet. They still run scared, when you show up and show them what is right and true. It’s why they push fear 24/7 from every bot and TV blip they can — it’s what they feed on, and their only true weapon, to keep themselves and us who oppose them, scared.
God and all Her Saints help us if they do decide to shed their own blood. That they have not, yet, gives me some hope to pull us back from the brink.
Soprano2
@raven: All I say to the MAGA’s about her is that if she had obeyed the officer she would still be alive. That’s what they always say about every black person who is shot by law enforcement.
I remember the slowly-dawning shock at what was happening, and what they were trying to do. I was shocked that the Capitol building was so lightly guarded considering how they usually treat any social justice demonstration. I was also terrified that some of the mob would actually get their hands on some members of Congress. It was horrible, but could have been so much worse. Now I find it laughable that Navarro is pushing the “but we had a peaceful coup plan so we can’t be blamed for the violent attempt” line. As if that’s any better than what actually happened. It’s so insane that they believe they should always be in power no matter what.
Betty Cracker
Laura Coates on CNN just made a good point: Biden told the 81 million people who voted for him that the Big Lie proponents are saying they (the 81 million) are the insurrectionists. Coates also highlighted Biden’s framing of the issue as Trump’s “bruised ego” vs. democracy itself.
We know this. Will it reach the people who don’t think about this stuff much, the people who think 1/6 is old news? I have no idea. But Biden did as well as anyone could in outlining the stakes. Kudos for him.
Soprano2
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Like most white conservatives, she thought a police officer would never actually shoot her because she’s “one of the good guys”.
Betty Cracker
@Woodrow/asim: Great comment. That’s the real question.
Gin & Tonic
Uncle Joe brought the heat. Very impressive.
Ramalama
Marcy Wheeler has been schooling Nate Silver on Twitter.
First Nate Silver:
Marcy’s response:
Starfish
Right? At every liberal march, you couldn’t have a stick to put your sign on and had to carry transparent bags, and here were people showing up with bear spray and the type of things people carry into fights.
Kay
Looking thru the “notes” he withheld so he could put them in a book and sell them a year later.
If “timely” is part of their value as reporters, and it obviously is- we already have historians- they’re really tanking that with the books. A year late is all but useless.
Geminid
@debbie: My impression is that trump’s henchman knew he would come out looking like the churl he is. They stay in touch with Republican politicians who were pleading for them to get the event cancelled.
Trump’s people talked him out of the press conference, but that may not stick. I am reminded of how trump walked back his initial remarks on the violent Charlottesville rally. The next day, though, he came out snarling. My Atlanta friend described him as “savage” that day.
Kay
The true volatility that was not imparted to the public, due to personal financial interests of the people who were supposed to be telling us.
“Better late than never” is not actually true. By withholding the severity of the crisis they influenced public perception and the political narrative.
stinger
Like you, WaterGirl, I was thinking “what’s taking so long?” I never thought our democracy would fall to these losers even as I watched them somehow managing to climb walls and push back Capitol police.
Maybe that’s part of why I found Biden’s speech to be so satisfying. Luzer luzer luzers!
Baud
@Woodrow/asim:
They shall run away with their tails between their legs when the see they jabs of vaccine in our fists.
Ohio Mom
As for Ashli Babbit and all who have been since arrested and charged and are serving/about to serve time, I contrast then with the Civil Rights and anti-War protestors of my childhood.
All of them went into what they were doing with the knowledge that that could be arrested, attacked, maimed for life or even killed either by law enforcement or their neighbors. They went ahead, anyway, and did not whine about the harm done to them personally, they kept their focus on their cause.
Quinerly
@raven: me too. By that time l was glued to the tube.
Betty Cracker
Trump put out a statement in response to the speech, according to CNN. It was the usual crap lies about open borders, bad energy policy, etc. Pathetic. Small.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
It still amazes me they didn’t expect to be charged. I can’t imagine smashing one of those windows and thinking I wouldn’t be charged. Hit a cop with a flagpole and then be outraged that you’re arrested? It’s nuts.
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim: They’re willing to die of COVID, for some reason.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: No, they are willing to accept the risk of the disease over the lesser risk associated with taking the vaccine. That’s a far different mental calculation from the risk associated with violent actions against the nation.
No One You Know
I was thinking this was the second coming of civil war. It made me think of 1857.
We are not done. But how do you maintain the principles of freedom to vote and the maturity required to live in a democratic society when one-third of the population doesn’t hold those values?
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
Your comment was a 2:22. Mine at 1:41, was also insightful :-)
In 40 minutes we went from Nancy SMASH does not look happy about some unknown thing TO holy fuck, this is crazy.
...now I try to be amused
@Geminid:
Good point. Trump hates being told what to do, and he loves to put one over on people, including his own.
germy
Brazen! Not the attack (of course) but Biden mentioning it a year later.
No One You Know
@Elizabelle: No, Babbit wasn’t a nice woman. Had a history of menacing, with formal complaints made against her.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I’m glad. The difference between how Trump voters were treated in 2016 and Biden voters were treated in 2020 really bothers me. Trump voters were covered in 2016 when he won and Trump voters were also covered in 2020 when he lost. It’s just bad, biased work.
polyorchnid octopunch
What was I thinking? “America’s going down the tubes.”
Haven’t seen a great deal to disabuse me of that notion since. When the US justice system starts taking down the elite people of that movement then maybe I’ll be disabused, but until then it just looks like a bump on the road to herrenvolk authoritarianism.
Most Americans don’t really grok what the rest of the world is seeing and saying. Here’s a sample from probably the second most conservative (albeit not blatantly reactionarily racist like the Sun chain) newspaper in Canada: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare
ETA: the guy that wrote this is not some wild-eyed lefty. He and his job are about as establishment as they come. You guys are going to have a fight with these people, you should get ready.
the pollyanna from hell
I remember thinking over and over how accurate Adam’s assessment had been here on BJ.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: And then contrast MLK writing his letter from jail with that real estate agent’s claim that her jail time was going to turn out to be an opportunity for lots of yoga.
Putting aside that their cause is a thoroughly rotten one, I don’t think most of them have what it takes to be a committed revolutionary. Sure, they can be swept away in the moment, and that is dangerous. But after that moment passed, we are seeing a lot of them collapse.
I’m still aghast and afraid of their leadership though. And the ones that are long-time members of groups like the Proud Boys. Just not the casual let’s-go-to-protest-it-will-be-a-gas-ones.
Kay
@polyorchnid octopunch:
They think it’s horrific in Denmark too, in frankly kind of a smug scandinavian way.
I was like “it’s not that bad!” :)
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I was following them on Twitter as it was happening.
Quinerly
Let’s stroll down memory lane.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-coverage-during-the-jan-6-riot-was-even-worse-than-you-remember?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
M31
My comment last year:
“can’t wait for the emails between the rioters and Trump and misc GOP shitheels to come to light”
got a few, waiting for the rest
Geminid
@…now I try to be amused: Ironically, trump was supposed to be headlining his infrastructure initiative at that event, a few days after Charlottesville. It was an opportunity for trump to change the subject, but he blew up instead.
Jeffro
@Ohio Mom: here’s the quiz
Suzanne
I was shocked but not surprised. I was sitting where I am right now, in my home office, hitting REFRESH a lot.
Maybe I just have a lower opinion of society than many of y’all, but I totally expected something bonkers and trashy and undeniable before TFG was actually gone and I felt oddly good to be proven correct.
Woodrow/asim
They aren’t. They have been convinced this COVID pandemic is as much of a Lie, as the Election. It’s not until someone they know, personally, dies in horrific pain and suffering that there’s any hope, at all, of piercing that, in most cases.
Even Trump himself can’t override the Lie that’s been shaped around that. That’s because it’s easy to ignore something you can’t see, can’t touch, can’t sense.
That’s much different than getting into a shooting war. It shouldn’t be, yet that’s where those folx are, at the moment.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think they believed TFG would pardon all of them for the insurrection, for standing up for him.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
It is really common in my practice for middle class or upper middle class (white) people to be angry that they are arrested or prosecuted- so common that I expect it. To a man or woman they want police to go after the “real criminals”.
I guess I had just not encountered a huge group of defendants like this all in one place at the same time. Hits you right between the eyes. Privilege. There it is.
Baud
@Soprano2: He would have, if the insurrection would have succeeded.
germy
Headline from upstate NY:
New Canajoharie town supervisor creates cryptocurrency protesting vaccine mandates
https://dailygazette.com/2022/01/05/new-canajoharie-town-supervisor-creates-cryptocurrency-protesting-vaccine-mandates/
These are the up and coming young people in the GOP. This is their deep bench.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@japa21: A pro-democracy speech is only political if one of your two parties (hint: the Rs) is anti-democracy.
Jeffro
Dare we say…boring? Low-energy? Definitely not going to get ratings. =)
LOLOL
Ramalama
@japa21:
I’ve heard that too. But then I think back to Biden’s bloody evisceration of Paul Ryan in the VP debate. Laughing, arguing the most damning points, humiliation.
Brilliant when he gets revved up. Like he did this morning.
Yarrow
Man, that was some speech. Good for Biden!
mrmoshpotato
I was watching this shit in TV thinking “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT?!”
schrodingers_cat
What was I thinking? It reminded me of the events of Dec 6 1992. The people who staged the Jan 6 insurrection lost that battle. We must make sure that they lose the war too. Success is in no way guaranteed but fight we must.
And those glibly writing epitaphs of the United States we see you and your smug takes.
frosty
@Kay: You’re right that “Better late than never” doesn’t apply to these book-writing “reporters”. A more appropriate saying is “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Jeffro
@Jeffro: for what it’s worth, I took it and was very close to the lower-left corner, ie, the Progressive Party.
The quiz itself doesn’t have a “Rockefeller Republican” party among its six options, but that’s what my dad and brother anointed themselves after landing slightly above the ‘Growth and Opportunity’ party.
...now I try to be amused
@Ramalama:
Yes! I thoroughly enjoyed that debate, and that was what convinced me that Biden would do fine as a presidential candidate. What’s more, the bigger a dick his opponent is, the better Biden skewers them. Depressingly few Democrats campaign like that.
Kay
@frosty:
It just pisses me off that they pretend this doesn’t have some political impact. Of course it does. Timing is everything. Put your giant fucking thumb on the scale to make 10 million, no one can stop you, but stop lying about it and stop trying to have it both ways- you don’t get to be a public trust if you’re also all angling for a book contract.
Woodrow/asim
I’m laughing, and not for the reason you think.
America’s already had authoritarianism. Just What the Hell do people think Jim Crow was? It was so bad, that the Nazis studied Jim Crow to build the Nuremberg Laws.
But. BUT. My Dad, and many, many others gave Blood, Swear, Tears — and, all too often, their Lives — to break down that system. To give me, and a lot of others, a chance at true equality.
So yeah, I’m worried. I look at these issues, and I stress.
I know I say this a lot, here, and apologies for those who’ve read this from me, a dozen times before.
But I look to him, and people like him — or people who’ve studied and lived it, people like Coates, or bell hooks, who just left us — to understand the risks of the times. I pay a lot of attention to people like Stacey Abrams, or Rev Barber of Moral Mondays, people who’ve been fighting this fight for years and decades, on the front lines.
NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN UP. They don’t see American democracy as hopeless.
If my ancestors — people who in many cases lived during a no-joke authoritarian regime right here in the US of A — still see hope? Why should I listen to you, or this author you linked to? Seriously?
You may be right. But it’s gonna take a lot more than “Garland’s too slow for my tastes” to get me scared up, thanks.
delk
There has been an ad running on Fox News today of a supercut of all the republicans blaming trump for Jan 6 before they chickened out and kissed trump’s ass. Including Lindsey. Bonus: it ran during Fox and Friends.
Kay
I just want everyone to imagine if Hillary Clinton and her supporters had done what Trump did. There wouldn’t be any bleating about politicizing that.
No one should accept the extent of this double standard. It’s bullshit. It shouldn’t happen.
Eunicecycle
@geg6: I sat and cried, too. It was very reminiscent of 9/11. I remember wondering what was taking so long for police to get it under control. It was both terrifying and maddening.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Excellent point.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty Cracker:
When you’re right you’re right.
Baud
@Kay:
We would have succeeded, on account of her passion for being overprepared.
RaflW
So Ted Cruz gave a speech last night calling Jan 6th a ‘terrorist’ event, and this a.m. Karl Rove has a WSJ op-ed trying to push some distance between the GOP and Trump.
If these two morally vaporous cretins are pivoting like this, I gotta wonder what their internal polling is signaling.
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
I think all the law enforcement agencies should have to explain why there was a complete black out of statements or information to the public for so long. It was bizarre and I would like to know why we weren’t addressed directly, like in every other crisis. I personally think it was due to Trumpist influence in law enforcement and if so, those people should be held accountable. WTF was that? Getting their story straight?
debbie
@…now I try to be amused:
Because he always knows better than anyone else. //
I’d like to see this come down to his not acting for 3 hours. Let his deafness to advice be his final downfall.
Kay
@Baud:
lol
stinger
@Woodrow/asim: You can’t say this too often.
topclimber
@Woodrow/asim: You got too much to lose, so you can’t walk away. Lots of pale faces still think they will be exempt if the fascists win.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@stinger: Also, I’d say that by definition an attempt to violently overthrow an election is a political event. To talk about it is to talk politics.
RaflW
@Ksmiami: “Republicans had gone full metal fascist and America is/was on the brink. I still think this.”
Lindsey Graham (who, we remember, called the GA s.o.s. to try to ‘find’ Trump votes) had a twitter aneurysm after Biden’s speech, so yeah the full authoritarian movement is still afoot.
Kay
PBS and propublica have a good documentary on 1/6 that focuses on Right wing extremist activity. There’s an (updated) section on the violent crimes that were committed (including a murder) by the far Right that were committed specifically to discredit BLM.
The murder is especially interesting because Donald Trump took it up as a cause, blaming it on BLM and Antifa and when the far Right extremist was captured the entire Right just dropped it as if it had never happened. The capture is wild too. Ordinary people grabbed and held him. A man and woman.
delk
Going to be some serious flooding with all the meltdowns happening.
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim: The problem with the Nazi analogy is it works great as a cautionary example but not as a guide to remedies. Because the only effective remedy for the Nazis was the Allied forces invading Europe, and there is nothing like that in this case.
The Jim Crow analogy, though… that has the advantage of being much closer to the actual case. And the fight against the regime was homegrown.
It took a long time though.
bluepizer
I have been a lurker for past few years and will probably continue lurking
I was terrified when tffg was elected, absolutely terrified watching 1/6/21 and remain so now. I pray I live to see this country continue to strive to be something to lift hearts and minds. But I mainly want to thank everyone here for everything.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@RaflW: Lindsey Graham, one year ago tonight
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
Completely agree. And we had more reason to be pissed than just “Hillary lost! ?” Some terrible shit was about to happen to the country at the short-fingered hands of the Kremlin’s orange fascist shitstain.
Mike in NC
Millions of us understood that once Putin installed his puppet in the White House, he had no intention of ever leaving. It would become another of his shitty “Trump Properties” to be fought over by his criminal children after he died.
schrodingers_cat
@Woodrow/asim:
I don’t think it is hopeless either. If I did I wouldn’t have sent in my naturalization application on the day before the beast took office.
I don’t share your ancestry but some of my ancestors fought for India’s independence against the mighty British Empire with nothing but their conviction to guide them. They were beaten and jailed. They didn’t give up. They were also told that they would never succeed.
Oh and Canada is plenty racist and those Scandinavian countries that our progressive betters like to cite are liberal havens only if you are white.
VeniceRiley
@Betty Cracker:
“Literally defecating in the hallways…”
That’s why I’m going to start calling them The Qman Centipede.
Sure Lurkalot
@germy:
In the front page story on Wapo, a reporter asked Biden if the speech was divisive even if he didn’t mention trump by name. No link because they’re continually changing their lead but FFS. If the stenographer thought the SPEECH was divisive, what about the event?
Scout211
@Kay:
I mentioned that Frontline in the previous thread. It is very well done and worth watching.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I wish there were more recognition that there are two tracks- there is events like 1/6 and the far Right terrorist/threatening displays but there is ALSO an elite Right legal track that seeks to legalize anti-democratic actions, like a state legislature refusing to certify a Democratic win. It’s kind of easy to dismiss the rioters and actions like that- they’ll never take the Capitol, etc but there needs to be a recognition that the next attempt will be under color of law. That’s both harder to fix and harder to explain.
RaflW
Interesting shortish piece up by Maggie Koerth (usually a science reporter, I follow her re climate issues). Excerpt:
Betty Cracker
Schumer is giving a pretty good speech recounting his 1/6/2021 experience too. He says he came within 30 feet of the rioting Trump goons and that one of them said “there’s the big Jew.” He called them racists and bigots. Good for him. They are.
Kay
@Scout211:
It was. I was kind of shocked how little attention the far Right murder of the police officer got. Trump publicized it as BLM and Antifa and then it just disappeared when it turned out to be far Right violence.
They were driving around in a van with weapons hunting police. This seems like news to me.
mrmoshpotato
@delk:
Haha, well done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Sure Lurkalot:
I haven’t seen the reporter named yet, but by this evening twitter will be full of “hysterical tweeters harrassing my magnificent colleague for asking Biden a tough question…”
geg6
@delk:
Some bunch of Never Trumpers (I think Bill Kristol’s crew) bought up commercial time every hour on FOX to run this commercial.
Hilarious.
Citizen Alan
My clearest memory of 1/6 was calling my boss who was about to fly back from her vacation and advise her that there was an attempted coup underway because I was genuinely worried the airports might be shut down.
lowtechcyclist
Exactly. I had told my wife early that morning not to worry, they’d have a couple thousand cops guarding the Capitol. I only became aware of what was going on fairly late in the day, and I just couldn’t piece it together, how it could have happened.
I still want to know who made the decision that the Capitol would be so lightly guarded on that day. How high up was that call made? Did it come from Trump or one of his insiders?
Kay
@Scout211:
Ultimately with police though I just feel a kind of annoyance. I know it isn’t all of them, but so many of them are fellow travelers with the far Right on guns and such that I just can’t have that much sympathy for people who seem bound and determined to make their own work more dangerous.
WTF did they think was going to happen with all their gun cheerleading and supporting Right wing causes? Now everyone they stop is armed. How’s that working out for them?
Suzanne
I remember watching this video and feeling glad that someone actually named the perpetrators accurately.
WaterGirl
@bluepizer: Welcome to commenting!
Your first post has to be manually approved, which I did, so now future posts will show up for everybody right away.
Don’t be a stranger. :-)
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s not a real question. It’s a statement of opinion with a question mark at the end.
They should try to ask real questions.
Woodrow/asim
Um. I did not present Nazism as an analogy. In saying that “Jim Crow […] was so bad, that the Nazis studied Jim Crow to build the Nuremberg Laws.” I presented evidence of Jim Crow’s intensity of effect, via noting how it was studied by Nazis.
Jim Crow is the analogy, the only analogy, I present. The Nazi reference is only here to explain how deep the rot of Jim Crow goes, because it’s oft-downplayed in American thought.
As that very article I linked to note, there are serious and critical differences between Jim Crow and Nazism, and I thus strive to never directly compare the two, lightly.
I hope this clarifies my intentions.
zhena gogolia
@Woodrow/asim: Thank you.
Betty Cracker
Schumer is calling bullshit on McConnell’s ECA gambit. Good.
UncleEbeneezer
Today is a great day to remember that Blue Lives Matter has always been a racist, fascist, piece of shit movement that has nothing to do with police or public safety.
“The insurrection left a Capitol Police officer dead and 140 other officers injured. Two additional Capitol Police officers died by suicide in the days following the Jan. 6 attack.
Dunn, speaking only on behalf of himself, said that officers were beaten with “Blue Lives Matter” flags. The Blue Lives Matter slogan was adopted in recent years by supporters of law enforcement and as a rebuttal to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has rallied to eradicate racism from policing.
“I got called a [N-word] a couple dozen times today protecting this building,” said Dunn. “Is this America? They beat police officers with Blue Lives Matter flags. They fought us; they had Confederate flags in the U.S. Capitol.”
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: And the two tracks are connected but the Republicans are pedaling as hard as they can to try to separate them in the public imagination.
geg6
@Kay:
Exactly. And apparently wasn’t all that hard to answer.
These assholes think so highly of themselves. All I can say is that whatever it is they do for a living, it’s not journalism. I haven’t quite figured out what it is yet, but it’s definitely not journalism.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I would have liked him to have said that at the beginning when he first enumerated the events that day, but I’m glad it got in the speech later.
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim: Sure, I wasn’t referring to you, more to others out there (myself included). Echoing your point.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Thank goodness. This is one where nothing really is better than that. It makes it worse. Democrats would be passing a law that would then be used to justify a state legislature overturning state results- to bring the lawsuit.
mrmoshpotato
Via Dana Houle
Chris
@geg6:
They’re courtiers. Whatever the fuck the useless aristocrats hanging around Versailles all day gossiping were doing, that’s what our media does.
Eunicecycle
@Kay: I’ve probaby said this ad nauseum but I don’t understand why police in general aren’t for more gun control. It means that every traffic stop, every DV call has even more potential for gun violence. But they are either silent or for more guns.
lowtechcyclist
Appalling, but sadly, not surprising.
‘Enemy action’ is exactly the right phrase. They are traitors. They are enemies of our democracy, and the Democratic Party needs to make no bones about this.
For the GOP, it is rule or ruin. They will undermine our democracy if that’s what it takes to rule, they will light the fires of a civil war if they think that will do the job. And they will do their level best to ruin this country for the rest of us if they fail.
Kay
@geg6:
Oh, God Biden could answer the fake “question!” on division is his sleep. He has been answering fake questions a LONG time :)
So what’s the point of them? To express an opinion and set a narrative.
Matt McIrvin
@Eunicecycle:
I seem to remember a time when they were. I think the elevation of guns to a huge partisan shibboleth eventually overrode it, since police are mostly right-wingers.
Woodrow/asim
That was a tough fight, as well, on many levels, from what I know. I know for certain India’s fight for independence helped inform many, directly and indirectly, who fought Jim Crow. That connection is one of many examples of how fighting for freedom can have positive impacts, well outside the immediate battles.
Eunicecycle
@Matt McIrvin: You’re probably right; just another example of people being against their own interests, for the sake of politics.
UncleEbeneezer
@Eunicecycle: Because they buy into the same Good-Guy-With-A-Gun nonsense that most gun-owners believe. Also, despite Covid being the #1 cause of death for police, they don’t support vaccine mandates. Like most humans, they aren’t rational and are guided by political and ideological identity.
Kay
@Eunicecycle:
Some of them are. They have spoken out. It’s always AA police chiefs.
Honestly I think it’s that they’re ideological Republicans and they accept the whole package, so akin to “I’m not getting a vaccine to own the libs”. It’s a horrible cycle though right? Because they know everyone is armed so they respond to that with excessive fear and force. They didn’t used to just routinely throw people on the ground and restrain them just to speak with them, even over the span of my legal career. They’re responding as if everyone has a gun and will kill them.
Soprano2
It really, really has proven to me that the only voter’s opinions they care about are those of white conservative people. All the rest of us are “other” voters. They aren’t curious at all to find out why people voted for Biden unless those people are white, and even then they don’t care that much.
polyorchnid octopunch
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t see where I said anything different. But whataboutism is pretty much the default reaction of Americans when someone says something about them that’s less than complimentary.
Scout211
@Kay:
That particular case of the murder of the police officer in Oakland was more well known here in NorCal, where it occurred. The news about the shooting of the officers who tried to apprehend him in the Santa Cruz mountains was all over the media here.
What did strike me was the way this follow-up Frontline was filmed (the Pro Publica investigative reporter’s personal account of his investigation, with interviews, etc.). It highlighted the many times that the violent groups were signaling their intentions to violently overthrow the government. It was not hidden, it was not subtle. But because they weren’t part of BLM or Antifa, the law enforcement failures to investigate the the potential for violence in these groups was stunning. Even after the siege of the Michigan state capitol, they did not see that this would escalate and eventually lead to the US state capitol.
The reporter clearly connected the dots to Tr*mp without having to actually state it. He showed how Tr*mp used them for his own purposes and egged them on.
The thing that was scary to me was the interviews with the members of the groups like the Boogaloo boys, Proud Boys, etc., not one of them could actually verbalize what they were fighting for. They just used slogans and catch phrases like, “take back our country,” “fighting for our freedoms,” etc. It just seemed to me that revving up for violence was the what they intended all along. Scary.
Chris
@Eunicecycle:
I don’t think there’s any way to understand the police anymore except as a completely political militia consumed by its obsessive war on The Left.
Kay
@Scout211:
It was great work. My sense listening to them was the Proud Boys are not a real threat- the boogaloo people are the violent nutjobs with the really deep ties to white supremicist groups. They’re terrorists under any ordinary definition of the term. The Proud Boys are a traveling entertainment group, like a white power “club” that is mostly dress up and march around.
jnfr
Harris was very good as a starter, and Biden was epic. I enjoyed every minute of hearing the truth, unvarnished, out loud.
Kay
Tim Ryan is having a meet and greet here for his senate run. I will attend but I can only stay 15 because I have a hearing but I can get people there, I think. He has a very good campaign. If Ohio can be won he’s trying to win it.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Kay: You’d be wrong about that. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WXE3YZx69-g
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The weirdest thing about the Boogaloo Boys is that in summer 2020, some of them considered themselves pro-BLM. They initiated some of the destruction at the rallies that got pinned on BLM, and in some cases, it may not have even been intended as a discrediting false flag, just somebody being violently stupid.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
I listened to Jen Psaki’s first press briefing for 2022. That describes nearly every question that was asked.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: They are stenographers for the party of the default demographic.
Chris
@Scout211:
Something I’ve realized over the last year is that fascism is the path to power that’s most forgiving of idiots. Far from seizing power because they’re good at their job, fascists only seize power if the authorities are not only asleep at the wheel but literally throwing the game. Be it Hitler, Mussolini, or Trump, they get to power despite blunder after blunder that would absolutely have gotten them killed if they were a left-winger or a minority.
This at least partly explains the hideous incompetence when in power, too.
Something I’ve been saying since the start, too: if this had been a planned BLM or Antifa protest, the police would never have left the Capitol undefended, and any orders from on high to stay away from the Capitol would never have been obeyed. On the day of the event, several hundred “off-duty” cops would just “happen” to stroll by the Capitol and loiter there all day, and they wouldn’t have waited for the protesters to do anything before throwing the first punch. That’s if they were even pretending to follow the orders of those on high: more likely they’d simply have shown up in force anyway, and then dared their civilian superiors to fire them for it.
This was a tremendous failure on the part of DC’s police agencies any way you slice it.
schrodingers_cat
@polyorchnid octopunch: You are writing our obituary when we are not dead. Do you expect cookies for that?
Ksmiami
@RaflW: I think the recent op Ed from Matt Lewis that basically says the GOP is a mix of loons, freaks and fascist scum is starting to freak out the normies and the hippies today are rich well dressed and educated most likely rocking Warby Parkers, not patchouli.
RaflW
@Kay: Far right accelerationists played a role in several of the worst nights in Minneapolis last summer. There are occasional reports of charges or trials, but it mostly flies below the public’s radar.
Hopefully the FBI is watching much more closely now. But they miss so much deadly shit.
bluegirlfromwyo
I had taken a break from work when things started unfolding and never went back to work that day. I was thinking three things:
Who was responsible for the Capitol Police being so outnumbered? Unlike some folks, I wasn’t at all surprised by it. My only question was why. Still is.
I was remembering all the times Repugs told me after 9/11 that Muslims just hated us and there was no possible thing they could be angry at America for, that we were just a bunch of soft lefty traitors wanting to give the enemy therapy. JFC, no Muslim can be angry about actual events in the Middle East but white conservative America can be angry enough about made up fraud to storm the Capitol?!?! Racial privilege indeed.
If the election isn’t certified tonight, America is done as a functioning country. So thankful that Nancy Pelosi apparently thought that too.
Ksmiami
@Kay: can you lmk how it goes: I want to seriously support his campaign. In fact I’m targeting these senator races:
nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia. Yes we can.
polyorchnid octopunch
@schrodingers_cat: You should watch that tendency to put words in other people’s mouths there.
danielx
@Kay:
O yes – there is a piece of legislation under consideration in my fair state to eliminate concealed carry permits, meaning any bozo could carry a gun without a background check as to whether they have a felony conviction, domestic violence issues, etc etc.
The county in which I reside has a population of roughly 275,000 and (offhand) half a dozen law enforcement agencies, county and local. So not one of the rural counties where it might well take twenty minutes to a half hour for cops to show up in an emergency, not that there is any connection between that and the issue of concealed carry permits. The incumbent sheriff had this to say about the pending legislation:
A couple of questions for the good sheriff –
– Has he taken a poll of his deputies on this issue?
– If he truly believes this, why are my tax dollars being spent on his agency for anything other than running the county jail, responding to natural disasters, etc? Come to think on it, we have fire departments for those.
– All kinds of people have concealed carry permits, roughly 13% of the state’s total population as best I can tell. Without making any judgment about the wisdom of people being issued permits at all, the rate of violent crime amongst permit holders is infinitesimal compared to that in the general population at large, because permit holders have to be 21 or older, are vetted against databases of felony convictions, court orders and the like. Wouldn’t the sheriff prefer any means that cuts down on the number of people carrying firearms illegally?
I could go on, but it’s too irritating when I think my money is being spent paying this guy’s salary.
James E Powell
@mrmoshpotato:
Several senators who had announced their intention to object to certification changed their minds after the insurrection. Kelly Loeffler was one. Could the NYT or WaPo ask them to explain why they changed their minds?
horatius
@Elizabelle: No. She was crazy as they come. She had multiple restraining orders from a woman whose husband she was cheating with. She rammed her vehicle in the middle of the highway and kept on ramming her until the police were called.
Ksmiami
@RaflW: the good news is that they’ve hardened ppl like my dad against them forever. There’s no coming back from fascism and insurrection except for utter, smashing, complete annihilation. That is what we need to prepare for. At every level, the Republican Party needs to be destroyed
Kay
@Ksmiami:
I will. You should support his campaign. They’re good. It’s the Sherrod Brown plan. They try to limit losses in red counties like mine and pump up gains in blue counties. It’s not fancy but it works- but it is hard work. Sherrod doesn’t carry my county but he loses by less than other Democrats. That’s the plan.
RaflW
Oh, and reading this David Leonhardt piece from this morning
I just want to send a giant FUCK YOU to Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and the other couple of handfuls of Republicans who we all fully aware know better, but have no courage, no convictions, and no willingness to do what has to be done to keep this country whole.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: and that’s why we must destroy them; take away their funding sources, bankrupt their supporters. Total fucking destruction or ours.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
It would be an upset too- a long shot- because Ohio is trending so red, and those are fun.
I think he got good opponents. Vance and Mandel are just not appealing people. They’re horrible.
Ksmiami
@Kay: thanks. If we control the Senate we can limit the house damage in the event the GOP controls it. Feels like a good investment
Geminid
@Eunicecycle: At least some police organizations lobby against legislation loosening gun safety laws. An example:
The law removes previous requirements for carrying a concealed weapon, including a duty to inform law enforcement officers if one is carrying a concealed weapon. The Ohio House passed a similar bill, but a final version has not made it to Governor DeWine’s desk. DeWine knows how awful an idea this is, but I don’t think he can see past his next primary so he’ll probably sign the bill.
Ksmiami
@Kay: Vance and Mandel seem too psychotic for the Midwest- Johnson in Wisconsin is a traitors idiot but those two are repellent
WaterGirl
Today feels like a very important day. Not just a day that those who value our democracy want to be important, but the way it’s shaping up seems to be that it is important.
is it just me, or does anyone else feel that way?
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Well, do a proportion. Put more in better bets. He’s a long shot. But I think it’s a good campaign and they won’t waste your money.
debbie
@Kay:
Have you seen any of the ads his GQP opponents are running? Each stupider than the other.
schrodingers_cat
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Your words not mine.
Jeffro
Yup. I was soooo glad to hear President Biden note this, specifically. It’s important.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
The Right wingers here think Vance is a phony, and he is. Mandel is just awful, like, not an appealing person generally, besides all the Right wing nuttery.
Betty Cracker
@polyorchnid octopunch: I read that Globe & Mail piece yesterday. Pretty sobering stuff. It would be irresponsible for Canada’s leaders not to have a contingency plan for a fascist takeover of the US. We’ll do the best we can to prevent that outcome, but anyone who says victory is certain is overly optimistic, IMO.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Betty Cracker:
Schumer was all over that at length on (I think) Lawrence O’Donnell’s show last night. He knows what the danger is.
Kay
@debbie:
No. Since my youngest left home I don’t even watch local news anymore, and I always did. It’s ridiculous. Like I don’t have to monitor as defensively anymore :)
I’m transitioning into free wheeling empty nester! Honestly it’s disconcerting. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, debbie :)
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: I’m kind of half-listening to the CNN coverage and am pleasantly surprised by their tone.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack (phone): I was encouraged by that. I was going to do a post about it yesterday because I think it’s the biggest obstacle to getting voting rights done. But focusing on anything for more than 2 minutes is difficult these days. Maybe later.
jnfr
@Woodrow/asim:
Thank you for putting this all into the long context. The struggle stretches back a very long way, and if we’re lucky we’ll be able to keep the struggle alive in the future.
sab
@Kay: Yes. Jim Crow was almost 100 years under color of law.
James E Powell
@Ksmiami:
I would not treat Pennsylvania as a lock. And no, I will never get over 2016.
Geminid
@debbie: Ohio’s Republican Senate race looks funny from 300 miles away. I call it the Crab Bucket Challenge. I’m hoping that who ever wins goes into the fall election missing a leg or two, maybe even a claw.
Woodrow/asim
@polyorchnid octopunch: You’ve had an extended refutation of your point.
As a result: You’re coming off as someone engaging in bad-faith discussions. What use is your opinion, except to say “I told you so?”
Kay
@sab:
We do this all the time. “Look at those zany Tea Partiers!’ Then..WHOMP. The state laws. OMG these are LAWS now?
cain
@Woodrow/asim: The amount of pain that black folks have endured over the centuries in this country and still be hopeful while still driving progress is a blueprint for others to follow when struggling against forces that are constantly working against you. It’s humbling.
Chris
@Kay:
I’ve thought from the start that Vance has a huge problem of not understanding who his audience is.
He didn’t get famous for being a hillbilly, he got famous for being a hillbilly whisperer, that one special person who could Redsplain the heartland to his friends from Yale and Silicon Valley. The kind of people who take him seriously are disproportionately naive schmucks from deep blue states, often from the left or center, who eat up the Cletus Safaris in the New York Times and ate up Hillbilly Elegy the same way.
But the actual Cletuses who form the Republican primary electorate? They don’t give a shit about any of that! They’re not looking for that one special guy with a foot in both worlds: they want a pure undiluted howler monkey who appeals to them and repels everyone else. To his credit, Vance has realized that and it’s what he’s trying to give them, but he’s not good at it and it shows.
sab
@Kay: My husband has this discussion at least monthly with his retired cop friend, who spent his entire career on an urban police force and never fired his gun in the line of duty, and was fired at once.
Paul in KY
I was watching it in a Mexican restaurant while watching a soccer match & stopped watching the match & was just gobsmacked/full of murderous rage about it. Wanted the police to shoot a bunch of them. Probably would have made it worse, but that’s where I was that awful day.
The POS with the confederate flag I wanted to lynch right there.
polyorchnid octopunch
@schrodingers_cat: Are you taking the position that if you don’t do anything to the leaders of this little imbroglio up to and including sitting Senators that everything’s going to be fine?
debbie
@Kay:
LOL. Well, they’re ridiculous. “Liars” “Cheats” “I’m a legal immigrant” etc. What a bitch fight.
Betty Cracker
Deleted.
debbie
@Geminid:
Oh, they’ve already got a head start on that. No brain to be found anywhere.
sab
@Chris: Courtiers is really it with modern DC reporters. They all went to the same elite private colleges and worked their way into hanging out in DC with the same sort of people. And their bosses look at their degrees and think that 23 year old is reading for the big time on the national stage.
Jeffro
@Paul in KY:
And here I thought I was the only one.
J R in WV
We were horrified. I thought we were screwed when the military never showed up to fulfill their oath to defend the Constitution from “all enemies, foreign and domestic”… but they did finally show up, later than usual, but they did get the job done.
We were also disappointed that the insurrectionists weren’t directed onto buses to be taken directly to jail, so that the FBI wouldn’t have to spend the next year rounding up those bastards. Great planning, but of course it was Trump’s people in charge, so any real planning had to be undercover work.
Will read the comments now. Wife is watching the Biden speech, which got good reviews so far. Being retired, we don’t plan to view news events live at 9 am… not impossible, just unlikely.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Woodrow/asim: Here’s the thing. You guys are all super happy about a good speech. Now, I like good speeches, and they’re better than not having good speeches, but as DOA has it, “talk – action = 0”.
This is reminding me of the reaction you folks all had to Adam saying basically the same thing a few weeks ago.
You’re all coming off as ostriches.
I also don’t see where I claimed that America has never had herrenvolk democracy before, which makes the refutation not much of a refutation unless you’re hearing things I’m not saying… but that does seem to be a thing here, and is a big chunk of the reason I don’t really spend much time here any more.
The inability of Americans to hear anything that their neighbours are telling them is not a new thing; see Chretien and the Iraq War, for example.
I’m sorry you’re feeling butthurt, but maybe just maybe the people on the outside looking in and saying things like https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-the-american-polity-is-cracked-and-might-collapse-canada-must-prepare/ should give you folks some pause.
Kay
@debbie:
Oh, now I have to watch. Ryan’s will be positive and moderate, I’d guess. He needs the D base plus some graduate-degreed white suburbs plus what he probably hopes will be a good, solid section of labor voters. They’re not that numerous but they’re important because of where they live. They’re also just really good Democrats because they don’t have the obsession with individuality – they can play on a team.
Eunicecycle
@Jeffro: my husband wanted the police to start picking off the guys who were climbing the walls. They were sort of easy pickings.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: They may not have intended it but they did succeed in shutting BLM down, because BLM people were too responsible to keep on demonstrating once things got really violent. They knew they’d be blamed.
Chris
@sab:
The French movie Ridicule about the Court of Versailles shortly before the Revolution is still the best movie I’ve seen about the Village, even if that’s ostensibly not what it’s about. Its basic premise was that Versailles basically ran on middle school rules, that the people there were obsessed with being clever rather than good or smart, and not to put too fine a point on it, that those were all unbelievably shallow, stupid, and terrible people fiddling away while their country burned.
I don’t know if the writers ever saw that article about how political media is obsessed with savviness, but they’d have understood exactly what it was talking about.
schrodingers_cat
@polyorchnid octopunch: Now you are putting words in my mouth.
The people who did this must be brought to justice. There must be a reckoning. And not just the foot soldiers but the man in WH orchestrating the insurrection along with the elected toadies of the Republican party.
Chris
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Yarp.
Geminid
@James E Powell: Both Ohio and Pennsylvania reelected Democratic Senators in the 2018 midterms. Sherrod Brown won Ohio by 300,000 votes, and Bob Casey won Pennsylvania by 650,000. Both states are winnable for Democrats this year; Ohio is the heavier lift.
Pennsylvania Republicans will probably nominate a hedge fund manager, David McCormick. Like Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, McCormick is a wealthy political newcomer with no record, so he has a blank canvas to color in for voters. This worked well for Youngkin, but as Youngkin’s strategists pointed out after his win, the Governor’s race turned on state, not national issues. Pennsylvania’s Senate race will be different.
Suzanne
@Ksmiami:
It’s because the Deplorables turned out to be this giant seething mass of dumb crazy people who behave like animals in public. Yeah, the country club types are grossed out.
I read this piece about Ashli Babbitt, who was apparently banging some other woman’s husband and she started fighting with her, in, like, broad daylight. Just total drama queens.
Were these people raised by wolves?
Steeplejack (phone)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Puh-leeze. Enough with the willful misinterpretation. It’s clear that S_C was calling you out for “America’s going down the tubes. [. . .] it just looks like a bump on the road to herrenvolk authoritarianism.”
Miss Bianca
I remember being at work that day, but not getting very much work done. Just obsessively following the news, and praying that the certifying vote was going to go through on schedule.
Frankly, it’s mostly a blur, just from the being shocked as shit. Outrage came very soon after.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Puppies are a total joy. At the same time, the early days are totally exhausting. And time-consuming. Not to mention sleep-depriving.
It’s amazing to me that you and TaMara are managing to post at all!
sab
@RaflW: Add Rob Portman to your list. He isn’t even running for reelection but he still can’t bring himself to do anything but support his goonish party.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Steeplejack (phone): You’re redaction changes what that means significantly.
I was asked what I thought a year ago. I answered. You guys are all going “you’re wrong”.
This is why America is going down the tubes. But you know, head, sand etc.
Jesus.
RaflW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lindsey has always, desperately needed to be on whichever team seems to be in the lead at that moment. He’s just pathetic and transparent.
But S.C. voters buy his bullshit.
RaflW
@sab: Betting against democracy because the retirement benefits (speaking fees, TV hits) are better. :/
WaterGirl
@polyorchnid octopunch: I think you are making the same mistake that a few other people are making.
Do you really believe that the people who are fighting for democracy – the people who are not giving up on democracy, the people who also believe that the results of the elections in 2022 and 2024 are not predetermined – do you really think that we do not understand what the stakes are here? That we don’t understand the perilous position our democracy is in?
It would be quite foolish for you to think that.
Miss Bianca
@frosty:
@Kay:
I’ve taken to saying, “Better NEVER than late” when it comes to these kinds of hot takes gone ice-cold from being fridged for their inevitable books.
Steeplejack (phone)
@polyorchnid octopunch:
Your willful misinterpretation was to suggest that S_C was disagreeing with the other part of your quote.
She was clearly not taking that position but you used it to deflect the conversation.
Betty Cracker
@polyorchnid octopunch: FWIW, I think I understand what you meant and was not offended by it. Living through an ongoing fascist coup attempt — with the outcome still uncertain a year later — is stressful, and people react in different ways.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: And angry! Very, VERY angry!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker:
Was it hard for you not to laugh? It’s important to their sense of dignity that we not laugh out loud while they are doing things like that. But watching the video, I laughed. Such sweet indignation!
Do you know what you had done to deserve that talking to?
debbie
@Kay:
My hope is that Ryan’s campaign or some other group is conducting oppo research on the GQPers and will expose the lies they’re saying about themselves. They’re emulating TFG’s pathological need to lie non-stop.
Gravenstone
@Geminid: Here’s hoping he literally strokes out in rage whilst trying to arrange some sort of press appearance in rebuttal.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
No. Because if they had been, they would be hunting cooperatively, and looking out for the young, sick, and elderly – and their pack leaders would be as well, or they wouldn’t be pack leaders for long.
#wolf_fan
Woodrow/asim
I’m not “you guys”. I didn’t mention the speech in any comment, here or elsewhere. I spoke directly and specifically to your comments.
I’m on the record as disagreeing with Adam on how he speaks on these issues, as well. I respect 100% his experience, yet that doesn’t mean I have to accept his judgements.
Again — I’m questioning you. If you’re going to disagree, stop putting my concerns raised into some bucket of “general disagreements from the commentatrit(sp),” esp. as Betty cracker just agreed with you. And she’s a Front Pager here!
Your entire comment lands on the “Americans don’t know when they are on the road to ruin” side of the house. How else to take not only your OG comment, but the recent reply “Are you taking the position that if you don’t do anything to the leaders of this little imbroglio up to and including sitting Senators that everything’s going to be fine?”
I refuted by pointing out there’s a whole group of Americans who have direct awareness of the very powers currently pushing to dismantle American Democracy. And frankly, I’m past tired of having discussions in this vacuum where people come in and discuss the current situation without awareness of that past experience — and what people might have learned from it that may impact the current fight.
The win in GA happened, too. Black voters and organizers matter, too, and show that we’re not ignorant nor unable to fight these threats. Treating us — on this blog or as a country — as such is ignorant, in fact. It ignores how margalizined America have helped this country course-corrected in the past, and may well do so, again.
It risks — risks! — treating authoritarian regimes in this country as a threat, only when they impact White people.
There’s nothing wrong with an outsider perspective. I remember “freedom fries,” to take just one ugly example. I’m not saying that Americans have a monopoly on understanding American situations; the insights of de Tocqueville still resonant to this day.
There is a lot wrong with taking it as gospel that it’s right, esp. when it’s pointed out to you there are people with explicit awareness of these forces, who have spent lives in American-based authoritarian (or are seeing it play out in other countries right now) and who have different opinions on these situations.
I’m not butthurt. I’m angry that those lived experiences are being ignored in a mad rush to declare the End of American Democracy.
That you can’t tell the difference, is not the fault of my clear and detailed writing today.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: He was just tired. Is now sleeping like a log and will wake up happy! :)
Miss Bianca
@Woodrow/asim: If I’ve never thanked you before for your great commentary, allow me to do so now.
J R in WV
@Jeffro:
nope! There were a lot of us, obviously.
After that woman was shot inside while penetrating a broken window, the “action” inside there stopped. If even just a few people outside were shot, the action outside would have stopped cold. Wall climbers, chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” whoever. Would have stopped the whole cluster-f right there, and would have slowed down other similar action elsewhere in the nation.
Those people aren’t brave warriors, even the few vets were mostly non-combat folks. If they thought for a single moment that they would be shot down by the cops, they would have never crossed the river into DC ~!!~
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: That was so sweet, I have watched it 3 times. Just adorable.
Puppy is mad because he’s tired. :-)
Betty Cracker
@Woodrow/asim: To clarify, I’m not endorsing every comment PO made in the entire thread — I think several of y’all are all talking past each other in various ways, and I’m not interested in getting into the weeds on that.
But I agree with the original comment about the necessity of holding elite coup planners accountable to address the threat. That doesn’t strike me as even controversial. As to whether Americans in aggregate perceive the magnitude of the danger, IIRC, most of the data is on PO’s side.
The good news is that most Americans do believe democracy is under attack. The bad news is that most of the Americans who believe that are Republicans who believe Trump’s lies. I’m hoping today’s commemorations and the upcoming 1/6 hearings change that — that the normies get a clue. We’ll see.
J R in WV
And now it’s dark, gloomy, and starting to snow for realz. We’ve had snow in the air a couple of times already, but never with any accumulation. But it’s been pretty cold at night the past few days, so the ground isn’t warm.
Winter is here.
More on topic, Polyorchnid-nonsense shows up rarely, but is always going to piss a lot of people off, just like today. Woodrow, I admire your contributions to B-J, don’t let Ployorchnid-nonsense get your goat. I’ve had him in the pie safe before, not sure why I ever let him out… I do read many folks by toggling when I see their precious pastries.
catclub
@J R in WV:
I am not sure. I think the reason the cops outside held fire was they knew they were outgunned.
Warblewarble
Friends across the aisle,friends across the aisle,friends across the aisle.if I say it three times will that make it true?
Woodrow/asim
That’s fair enough. I didn’t mean to drag you into my disagreement; I was just frustrated by the implication I read that the aggregate on this blog was unaware — the ostrich comment.
Ksmiami
@Kay: they are both pretty strange as far as types go for Ohio senate candidates… I’ll help Ryan make inroads against those choads.
Ksmiami
@James E Powell: you’re right. I’m planning to support the Dem candidate there as well. Basically once you reach the point where you realize Republicans are the terrorists, you do anything to defeat them.
sab
@Chris: Years ago I read Mark Liebovich’s book Our Town. What an utter lack of self awareness. He was sort of sneering at the DC shallow cynicism while being a glaring embodiment of its worst aspects. He’d reached the pinnacle of his profession so he can sit around making a lot of money,writing pointless uninformative articles and hanging around for the rest of his life with people just like him.
Kathleen
@Woodrow/asim: I am not a Black person but what you said in your comment is what keeps my hope alive. US has had fascist governments. Domestic terrorism is not new to US. If Black people can keep on keeping on then this sheltered white person most certainly should not lose hope.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: Sycophantic stenographic hacks.
Uncle Cosmo
Who were for the most part already in Europe (the eastern fringe of it anyhow) long before the first Yank parachuted into France.
Pisses me off to no end how many Anglo-Saxon imbeciles think “we” won WW2 all by “our”selves. The threat of invasion from the West was by & large a minor irritant to the Third Reich – it kept a few dozen divisions near the Channel when the great bulk of the Wehrmacht was fighting desperately on the Eastern Front. Had Hitler not been so stupid as to invade Russia in the first place, the Western Allies arguably could not have forced the Nazis’ surrender short of nuking der Vaterland until it glowed.
Agreed.
...now I try to be amused
@Chris:
I’d flip that: Idiots are drawn to radical politics because they can’t make it in mainstream politics. It’s a wonder that otherwise competent mainstream politicians would work with idiot radicals, but as we’ve seen, it’s because they think they can use them. I suppose the “idiot” fascists who gained power had to have some con man in them.
Jesse
@WaterGirl: yes, I do. I’m on Twitter trying to get Americans abroad (like myself) to vote. Normally I would never post anything explicitly political there.
WaterGirl
@Jesse: Glad it’s not just me.
Chris
@…now I try to be amused:
I don’t think that’s true. At least not necessarily. There will always be plenty of idiots in all political movements, but it takes talent to succeed as a radical with left wing politics, and the more authoritarian the country you’re operating in, the truer that is. That doesn’t mean you’re not still a loony in some ways, maybe a lot of ways, but you have to be competent at something in order to seize power when your message is “fuck the elites, let’s overthrow them” (and you mean actual elites like the rich or the aristocracy or the king, not “a college professor who looked at me funny”).
Fascism, on the other hand, lives or dies entirely based on whether the system will allow it. If the cops, the courts, and the people above them decide to let you run amok, turn a blind eye to what you’re doing, and even help you do it, you’ll succeed. If they don’t, you won’t.
evodevo
@debbie:
Yep…same here with our Cincinnati Sinclair clone…I was amazed when they began detailing how many locals were involved and their current arrest status…usually they follow the Fox party line and totally ignore uncomfortable news involving right wingers…
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Uncle Cosmo:
Geminid
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch: Stalin had reason to be grateful for the assistance tge U.S. gave him through Lend Lease. All the trucks we shipped to the Soviets were especially useful. He may have been speaking diplomatically, though, when he said the Soviet Union would have lost the war without Lend Lease. They stopped the German armies before Western assistance really flowed in quantity.
Stalin wanted more aid in 1943, but what he really wanted from us in 1943 was an invasion of France. He got that in 1944, despite Churchill’s misgivings. The Soviets might still have crushed Germany without this second front, but only at a terrible cost. Hitler’s last strategic offensive was in the west, the Battle of the Bulge that started Dec.16, 1944.* Germany’s defenses started to crumble three months later, and U.S. and Russian forces met in central Germany in May 1945.
*The Battle of the Bulge was a violent, grueling ordeal for those who fought it, but here is a fun fact: on December 14, 1944, Marlene Dietrich sang for U.S. soldiers as part of a USO troup, in a town in southeastern Belgium. It was considered an especially quiet part of the front. The Germans launched their Ardennes offensive 30 hours later, and by December 19 the town of Bastogne was surrounded.
Ancient Atheist
So, here’s the deal. May on this thread seem surprised at what happened Jan 6th, 2021. There are some of us who knew exactly what was to happen. I am confused that so many people failed pick up the threads of Trump’s plan.
Chris
@sab:
Never heard of it. Just read the Amazon summary out of curiosity:
Washington D.C. might be loathed from every corner of the nation, yet these are fun and busy days at this nexus of big politics, big money, big media, and big vanity. There are no Democrats and Republicans anymore in the nation’s capital, just millionaires. […] And how an administration bent on “changing Washington” can be sucked into the ways of This Town with the same ease with which Tea Party insurgents can, once elected, settle into it like a warm bath.
Oh good! Yet another “both sides do it,” “there is no Democratic Party and Republican Party, just the Money Party” ode to the writer’s savviness. Yeah, that definitely sounds like a source of penetrating insight.