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You are here: Home / Open Threads / What If Violence Against Pence Was Actually A Means To An End?

What If Violence Against Pence Was Actually A Means To An End?

by WaterGirl|  May 8, 202311:20 am| 208 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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A week or so ago, I listened to 3 podcasts in one night – I listen in bed as I fall asleep, and that night sleep was not coming!   I don’t recall which podcast was talking about the “hang my Pence” situation on Jan 6, but it got me thinking, and I want to throw this idea out there and see if you guys think it’s possible.

Until now, I have assumed that Trump getting people riled up about Pence on Jan 6 and in the run-up to Jan 6 was because Trump was getting desperate and because he didn’t care about the consequences.  He is, after all, all “id” and is willing to do anything in order to get his way.  So it seems in character for Trump to be reckless and irresponsible; he is definitely awful enough and petty enough to risk danger to Pence and others because the VP didn’t do what Trump wanted.

But could it be worse than that?

It occurred to me that perhaps this could have been a deliberate move on Trump’s part, with a particular end game in mind.  If there had been a successful physical attack on the Vice President, or even worse, he had actually been killed at the capital, surely that would have been seen as a legitimate reason to institute martial law.  Right?

Is that a bridge too far, even for Trump?

Is it crazy to consider that Trump and his minions could be awful enough to have intentionally engineered a situation where the crowd was riled up and would commit violence against the VP – as one last tactic/strategy to stop the process on Jan 6 and allow Trump to stay in office?

If so, that would make him even more appalling than we already know he is – is it even possible to be that awful?.  Not that I think Trump could have thought that through and come up with that plan himself, but certainly Stephen Miller or some of the other awful people he surrounds himself with could have.  Even so, would Trump have been a knowing, willing participant in the murder of his VP?

I’m not saying that’s what happened, but I do wonder if it might have been.  Or is that a bridge too far, even for these deplorable people?  It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

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208Comments

  1. 1.

    Quaker in a Basement

    May 8, 2023 at 11:23 am

    I assumed the worst from the start.

  2. 2.

    Doug R

    May 8, 2023 at 11:24 am

    Especially if they had gotten to Pelosi as well. Then the succession goes to someone in the Senate?

  3. 3.

    Old Man Shadow

    May 8, 2023 at 11:25 am

    Or is that a bridge too far, even for these deplorable people?

    There is no “too far” for these people.

    These are the ideological or sometimes literal descendants of people who used to torture and murder innocent Black people with a clear conscience.

    These are people who look at starving, desperate refugees fleeing violence caused and financially sponsored by American policies and dollars and think of those refugees as invaders and barbarians come to destroy “white” America.

    These are people who see a classroom full of children turned into goddamned hamburger meat and think, “How can we spin this so gun control doesn’t get passed?”

    There is no peak wingnut. There is no “Too Far”. There is no bottom to the depravity and moral sickness that infests these people’s souls.

  4. 4.

    JoyceH

    May 8, 2023 at 11:26 am

    I do think that something hinky was in the works. There was something before Jan 6 when Grassley made some comment about how he would be presiding on the 6th – which would be the case if Pence were unavailable. So there might have been some pre-agreement from Grassley that he would reject the legitimate electors as Trump wanted done.

  5. 5.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    May 8, 2023 at 11:28 am

    @JoyceH: Pence refusing to get in the car driven by his Secret Service team suggests Pence thought there might be a plan to get him out of the way.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 11:30 am

    @JoyceH: I, too, have thought about Grassley’s remarks.

    I think he accidentally spilled the beans about some plan.  Whether it was this particular plan, I do not know.  I think Grassley very likely was in on the insurrection; I just don’t know if he would have been in on a plan to have the VP killed.

  7. 7.

    Doc Sardonic

    May 8, 2023 at 11:30 am

    Is that a bridge too far, even for Trump?

    No

  8. 8.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 11:30 am

    Pretty sure that was the plan. Horrible people in every way.

  9. 9.

    fancycwabs

    May 8, 2023 at 11:31 am

    I doubt that was the plan, because dude isn’t capable of having a plan that complicated, but had Pence (or anyone else at the the Capitol) met with an an untimely end at the hands of Trump’s supporters, I don’t doubt for a second that he would have at least tried to use that as a pretext to stay in power.

  10. 10.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 11:31 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I am a not a grudge holder, way too forgiving sometimes.  But I would definitely be holding a grudge if someone had deliberately put my life in danger.

  11. 11.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 11:32 am

    @WaterGirl: and grassley just got reelected at what, 86? Not one single Republican should say a word about Biden, but the weakest press ever just keeps parroting the BS.

  12. 12.

    jackmac

    May 8, 2023 at 11:35 am

    Nothing is a bridge too far for Trump.

  13. 13.

    Doc Sardonic

    May 8, 2023 at 11:36 am

    @Manyakitty: Grassely is, I believe, trying to engineer a situation for his son or grandson to inherit his position when he retires. The fly in the ointment so far is getting the governor to cooperate.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    May 8, 2023 at 11:36 am

    There’s always someone around Trump thinking up bad stuff– think Miller, Stone, Bannon or whoever… the list goes on and on. Assigning actual responsibility is hard, though. It’s a hall of mirrors, all the minions trying to be little Trumps.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    May 8, 2023 at 11:37 am

    Supposedly TFG wanted to find a way to get Pence off the ticket after announcing that he was the pick for the nomination.  (Remember he originally was saying things like he wanted Oprah.)  He didn’t like him, at all.

    TFG wanted Pence out of the way (wanted him to leave the Capitol, etc.).  He would have been fine with the mob killing him, but mainly he wanted to stop the transfer of power and the certification of the election results.  Since Pence wasn’t going to stop the process, TFG wanted some way to get him out.

    What was supposed to happen was there was supposed to be a huge battle with Antifa and then TFG would declare that an insurrection was happening, so obviously he had to take over and protect the country.  And all the ballots would have to be taken from the close states to make sure that he could change the numbers everything was up-and-up.  And of course, he would “win” the 2nd term (and so forth).

    Anyone in TFG’s way was someone to be squished, if he had his way.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    Scout211

    May 8, 2023 at 11:41 am

    @fancycwabs: I agree with you, for what it’s it’s worth.

    Trump is all about getting what he wants, the hell with all the collateral damage.  That is never his concern. He would take advantage, but set that plan in motion himself? IMHO, no.

    Remember this? The plan may well have been in motion.  But to Trump, it would just be collateral damage.

    Absolutely chilling: On #January6th, members of Vice President Pence’s Secret Service detail were so afraid for their own lives that they asked over the radio that colleagues tell their families goodbye for them. #Jan6Justice #January6thCommitteeHearings pic.twitter.com/kOTDUr3LJ8— Defend Democracy Project (@DemocracyNowUS) July 22, 2022

  17. 17.

    Lavocat

    May 8, 2023 at 11:41 am

    @Quaker in a Basement: Bingo. This is why I have been so strident in my calls for bringing Traitor Trump to justice. The orange manchild is one nasty piece of work.

  18. 18.

    oatler

    May 8, 2023 at 11:42 am

    @Manyakitty:

    ABC opened its Sunday morning show with “Is Biden too old?”

  19. 19.

    SuzieC

    May 8, 2023 at 11:42 am

    I have always thought that.  They erected a noose.  I have no doubt that Trump would have been overjoyed if the mob had located Pence or Pelosi and dragged them out to be executed.  The plan was the mob violence would have been the justification for him to invoke the Insurrection Act.

  20. 20.

    Hoodie

    May 8, 2023 at 11:43 am

    I doubt Trump’s ends were that baroque, but that wouldn’t mean that Trump wouldn’t try to capitalize on Pence’s death.  Generally, Trump tries to cause chaos that undermines normal processes and thus creates an opening for him to grab power.  Because it’s chaos, it’s somewhat indeterminate as to what will actually happen.    Trump was looking for something that could push the system into a degenerate mode, so his thought probably was to scare Pence into doing something stupid or venal to undermine the normal processes for the transfer of power, as Trump knows that people can be weak and act against their own best interests out of fear and/or greed.  Pence’s death could have caused a similar disruption, but I would bet that Trump thought that was a lower probability outcome, i.e., there was no way his goons would actually be able to breach the Capitol.

  21. 21.

    CaseyL

    May 8, 2023 at 11:43 am

    I don’t think Trump himself thought beyond the immediate: staying in power.

    However, he’s been a Russian/Putin asset since the 1980s.

    Many of his Administration toadies were either outright Russian assets or were managed by them.

    His inner circle is dominated by people who have long used political violence as a way to get and maintain power, and by people who were eager to follow their lead.

    Trump was taught by Roy Cohn, shaped by Putinist influence, and managed by Paul Manafort.  He also knows Mob tactics: smash and grab, plausible deniability, destroy evidence, intimidation, and (in the case of Fiona Hill, who had to be evacuated from her post in the dead of night to save her life) assault and murder.

    There is nothing he won’t do, but he is incapable of planning anything.  That he leaves to his inner circle.

  22. 22.

    Lacuna Synecdoche

    May 8, 2023 at 11:43 am

    Watergirl @ Top:

    Is it crazy to consider that Trump and his minions could be awful enough to have intentionally engineered a situation where the crowd was riled up and would commit violence against the VP – as one last tactic/strategy to stop the process on Jan 6 and allow Trump to stay in office?

    No, it’s not crazy.

    Obligatory:

    It would be crazy, it would be irresponsible, not to.

  23. 23.

    Wag

    May 8, 2023 at 11:44 am

    Interesting thoughts.  I could see this being true.

    On a different topic, has anyone brought up Kellyanne Conway’s impending divorce from George as s source of the bombshell about her “consulting firm” being a conduit for cash from billionaires to Ginni Thomas?  I follow George on the bird app, and he appears to have NFLTG when it comes to pulling down Trump and his minions.  I wonder if he could be the source for the money laundering story?

  24. 24.

    gvg

    May 8, 2023 at 11:48 am

    TFG and his advisors are mostly underpants gnome planners. They toss out an idea that they say will result in desirable outcome and never examine critically if it will. Trump also tends to fixate on some of the ideas he hears and won’t let go when told the truth if he likes the proposed result too much such as he wins somehow.

    Any of those grifters could have said almost any stupid implausible idea and the group might have run with it. Now the people further way from him tended to be more rational which is why some of his orders just never get carried out. I am pretty sure the armed forces chiefs were trying to keep all their people just far away from Trumps actual fruitcakes.

  25. 25.

    bbleh

    May 8, 2023 at 11:49 am

    @Doug R: yes, the President pro tempore of the Senate, who at the time was Chuck Grassley.

    @Old Man Shadow: exactly what I was going to say.

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: yes indeed, and it also suggests that he didn’t trust his SS detail not to be part of it.

  26. 26.

    Daoud bin Daoud

    May 8, 2023 at 11:49 am

    @MattF:  Germans used to complain about all the little Hitlers swarming around Der Führer.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    May 8, 2023 at 11:52 am

    Can certainly see a Roger Stone or Steve Bannon craft this scheme. Trump’s knowledge and imagination wouldn’t cough it up, but go along with it? Hell yes.

  28. 28.

    Jeffro

    May 8, 2023 at 11:52 am

    @Quaker in a Basement: same here.

    When we say he has no bottom, that means he has no bottom.

    A lot of folks can’t wrap their heads around it, but it’s true.  Just look at his crazy-ass videos he’s putting out for his 2024 revenge campaign.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 11:54 am

    @oatler: And every day Biden grows older, creating a new scandal.

  30. 30.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 11:55 am

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, I think the plan was at the very least to squirrel Pence away in a confined space (for “safety”) if he wouldn’t play ball, so he couldn’t certify the electors, and use that as the justification to institute martial law and postpone the certification–to buy time for whatever fake-elector scheme they wanted to use.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    May 8, 2023 at 11:55 am

    Related to all of this, and alluded to by WG’s initial question…most folks in this country have no idea how close we came to having Pelosi, Schumer, and Pence torn to bits by that mob (if not outright executed on the Capitol steps) on January 6th.  Whether it was officially in the blessed ‘plan’ or not, it’s true.  Those folks were berserk and armed and out for blood.

    All for a psychotic carnival huckster, too.

  32. 32.

    strange visitor (from another planet)

    May 8, 2023 at 11:57 am

    another scott is right on the money: the plan was to have the proud boys, 3%ers and oathkeepers as the vanguard in a heated battle with anti-fascists that would’ve been splashed by the news  and twitter world wide. they would’ve used THAT as their prevaricated precept to declare martial law.

    antifa and assorted fellow travelers fucked that plan up by deciding not to show up and be patsies.

    when that became clear the plan to storm the capitol was conceived in that context by bannon, miller stone and the others in the hotel command center.

  33. 33.

    eversor

    May 8, 2023 at 11:58 am

    It’s a mistake to think a bunch of weasles on acid have a deep plan.

    Trump wanted Pence to over turn the result or be out of the way so someone else would.  He didn’t think much beyond that he’s not capable of it.

    Eastman and the legal loonies had a plan to legaly overturn the election, the Republicans are still working on that and it will work.  The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys had a plan but the require antifa showing up and it turning into a full on brawl and that failed.  The Jesus brigade had a plan and it’s still in progress and it’s working as well and it will win out in the end because freedom of religion.

    Trump and the Q brigade did not have a plan though outside of more Trump.  Their plan, if you can call it one, was to have others do all the hardwork and then ride the wave to glory.  Which is not really a plan.

    I don’t doubt Trump is capable of killing Pence or anyone to get his way.  But Trumps entire MO is sort of using the chaos others create to his advantage.  He’s too fucking stupid to engineer, let alone execute, a complex plan.  Rudy is also a blithering idiot.  There’s only two (insane and damaged) brains in that group.   Bannon and Flynn.  Both of whom are former military intelligence.  They are both deranged religious nutters as well.  Yet even with those two whack jobs I don’t think “kill Mike Pence” was part of any plan.  Of course they could run with it, and they would have, but that wasn’t a plan.

    It should be noted they could have pulled it off, they should have pulled it off, it’s that they screwed it up that’s the odd duck here.  But the reason for that is you had all sorts of groups doing all sorts of stuff and not working together.  But they couldn’t work together, because the guy at the top is a fucking moron.

  34. 34.

    bbleh

    May 8, 2023 at 11:59 am

    @Baud: what really enrages me is that he won’t even compromise, eg by not getting older or younger but taking the nice middle path and not changing for a while.  But noooo…

  35. 35.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:01 pm

    @Doc Sardonic: ew. That makes sense. 🤮 Kinda surprised their worthless governor won’t go along with the plan.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    @bbleh:

    Another example of Washington gridlock.

  37. 37.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    Do I think TFG himself had that as a plan? Not particularly. I do think that the treasonous grifters around him had parts of plans and that they all, TFG included, were just throwing things against the wall to see what would stick.  “We’ll try all these things, and maybe one of them will stop the certification and/or get the fake electors in there; set all the wheels in motion and then we have a bunch of backups.” I do think that Pence’s and Pelosi’s lives were in some danger–some were just jamokes, but not all of them. I do think some of the crazy people–Eastman, Flynn, Clark, Tarrio, Rhodes–were all spinning their own sets of plates, and that TFG thought one or more of the plans would delay things, but I don’t think there was one clear plan. Doesn’t matter–it’s all seditious conspiracy, and conspiracy to interfere w/ official proceedings.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    @Manyakitty: Yes!

  39. 39.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:02 pm

    @oatler: yep. The press will hammer this nonsense because they need a horse race.

  40. 40.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 12:04 pm

    @Another Scott: So you think that, to Trump, Pence was disposable, but that ginning up the Hang Mike Pence stuff was not Plan #57 in their contingency plan, as a last resort, to hang on to the presidency by hook or by crook?

  41. 41.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:05 pm

    @CaseyL: Fiona Hill or the Ukrainian ambassador (Marie Yovanovich?)

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    @Wag: That was my first thought when the news came out.

  43. 43.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    @WaterGirl: If someone had killed him, Trump probably wouldn’t have objected, but the main thing was to have that big pitched battle in the street so that they could put Pence in some position where he couldn’t certify the real electors in the name of security.

  44. 44.

    leeleeFL

    May 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    @Old Man Shadow:  Thank you for saying that out loud!  I have thought this about them for years, but I never read it or heard it before now!  They are the worst kind of people, they couch what they do and think in terms of freedom, patriotism and values.  These words are meaningless to them, except for the cover they derive from them among the less intuitive amongst us!  We are in a dark place folks, and I really am getting more and more worried about what is still to come.

  45. 45.

    scav

    May 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

    One of certainly, but I very much doubt that administration and gravitational objects finally managed to have a coherent single The plan even at that late date on that subject.

     

    ETA Hell, I mean, Toddlers, parallel play at best, and that’s for the coherent ones on a standard developmental arc.

  46. 46.

    Almost Retired

    May 8, 2023 at 12:11 pm

    Of course, I have no idea, but I doubt there was a fully thought-out plan.  Not that he would have minded if Pence was swinging from a rope (the only swinging Pence and Mother would have ever done).  But my guess is that they were counting on some sort of riot with “Antifa” attacking the insurrectionists as an excuse to declare martial law (or “marshall” if you prefer) and invalidate the election.  Alas, the libs didn’t cooperate.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 12:11 pm

    @Jeffro: The more we learn, the scarier it gets.  I think we came this close to a very bad outcome for democracy.

  48. 48.

    phein63

    May 8, 2023 at 12:13 pm

    @Hoodie: They already had a blueprint for success:  Threaten violence, shut down the vote count/recount, and have the Supreme Court declare Trump the victor.

    It worked for Bush/Cheney in 2000 with the Brooks Brothers Riot, why shouldn’t it work for Trump in 2020?

    I think that must gall the former guy the most:  He knows Republicans embrace terrorism (political violence) as a means to an end, why won’t they for him?   It’s like being turned down at a whore house.

  49. 49.

    sukabi

    May 8, 2023 at 12:13 pm

    I’m surprised it took you this long to come to that conclusion Watergirl….that’s exactly what trump wanted to happen…Pence, Pelosi and a few others get whacked and he declares martial law, declares himself president for life…

     

    trumps team had been floating martial law and postponing the election during the George Floyd protests…they were looking for any excuse…

  50. 50.

    CaseyL

    May 8, 2023 at 12:13 pm

    @Manyakitty:

    Sorry – Marie.  Got my Foreign Office heroes mixed up.

  51. 51.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 12:14 pm

    @Almost Retired: The two big things that went wrong for them was that the antifa people didn’t show up to fight the insurrectionists (thanks to word going out on Twitter and elsewhere that it was a trap), and that Pence refused to get in the car.

  52. 52.

    BellaPea

    May 8, 2023 at 12:16 pm

    I think that for whoever organized that riot at the capitol, the desired outcome was for Pence and Pelosi to be killed so there was no clear line of succession and TFG could declare martial law and decertify the election results. Flynn and Bannon are just sick enough and devious enough to come up with that kind of plan.

  53. 53.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:18 pm

    @CaseyL: easy to do! I am pretty much always willing to admit I’m wrong at this point, too. 😁

  54. 54.

    pat

    May 8, 2023 at 12:23 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    And we are getting closer.  The latest polling has trump (or desatan) beating Biden by 7 points.

     

  55. 55.

    randy khan

    May 8, 2023 at 12:24 pm

    I’m inclined to think that, to the extent there was a plan, Plan A was that the insurrectionists would disrupt the proceedings in a way that would (implausibly) lead to Congress rejecting the results.  But Plan B might well have been to hope that some important people in Congress would be killed as an excuse to declare martial law.  Pence wouldn’t have been a specific target, but certainly would have been part of the group that they would have had in mind.  (I expect that any rank-ordered list would have had Pelosi, Schumer, and a few other people who are Republican hate objects – AOC and Omar in the House, Elizabeth Warren in the Senate, for instance – way ahead of Pence and McConnell.)

  56. 56.

    Miss Bianca

    May 8, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    To me, the Occam’s Razor suggestion is that Trump is simultaneously too impulsive and too wily to commit himself to any actual plan, much less outright assassination of his VP – but that he would have been completely prepared to take advantage of it if someone *else* had managed to arrange it.

  57. 57.

    Another Scott

    May 8, 2023 at 12:25 pm

    @WaterGirl: I dunno what was rattling around in that empty head of his.  The guy who built the rickety toy gallows seemed to be some peripheral yahoo (of course I can’t find a link).  Presumably anyone the mob caught would have been in danger of being beaten (and worse) by the mob and wouldn’t have made it to the gallows (which wouldn’t have worked anyway).

    TFG didn’t put things in writing, and did the mob-boss stuff of “take care of this problem for me”, so I don’t think there was any sensible “plan” as such.  He figured, as I take it, that “his people” would find a way to keep him in power.  The “wild” stuff on January 6 was part of the scheme, but he didn’t care about the details.

    Dunno.  FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  58. 58.

    Miss Bianca

    May 8, 2023 at 12:27 pm

    @pat: I honestly don’t think polling is in any way accurate any more – and that media just commission polls and use them for their own purposes anyway.

  59. 59.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 12:29 pm

    @pat: It’s a huge drop from another poll taken just a few days ago, a period over which Biden’s aggregate job approval didn’t change much and not much of significance to the election happened, which makes me suspicious of the fluctuation.

  60. 60.

    SpaceUnit

    May 8, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    @pat:

    If I’m not mistaken that poll is being hawked by The Hill so you might want to take it with a dump truck full of salt.

  61. 61.

    Eunicecycle

    May 8, 2023 at 12:30 pm

    @Manyakitty: I think she wants the job.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 12:32 pm

    @pat: Red wave!

  63. 63.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:32 pm

    @Miss Bianca: right? Polls are no longer remotely useful.

  64. 64.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:33 pm

    @Eunicecycle: oh, ok. Is she getting term-limited?

  65. 65.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    May 8, 2023 at 12:33 pm

    I keep thinking about how desperate he was to be physically present when the mob stormed the Capitol, that whole business about him hysterically trying to wrestle steering wheel away from the Secret Service and force them to take him there.

    I think he envisioned himself literally standing on top of bodies of Pelosi, Pence, and who knows who else, cheering on the triumphant army and declaring himself king.

    I don’t find that far-fetched at all.

  66. 66.

    scav

    May 8, 2023 at 12:34 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Plus, all the someone elses are predisposed to be competing with their own special sauce plans to present him with victory and thus assure their own careers. Added to the video-game and movie inspired cosplay fantasies assembling as praetorian guards.

  67. 67.

    JaneE

    May 8, 2023 at 12:34 pm

    First, nothing is a bridge too far where Trump is concerned.  I don’t know any more than any other person who does news, but I suspect that any or all of the possible ways to keep Trump in power had been thought of, and considered.  Plans A-Z, if you will.

    Best case, Pence counts the wrong elector slate and Trump wins “legitimately”.

    Worst case may be martial law.

    In between you have (not necessarily in order) Pence gets whisked away to an base somewhere and cannot preside, his replacement (if that happens) goes to best case scenario.  Or electoral ballots get compromised, tampered, replaced, destroyed by rioters and the congress orders a redo of ballots giving Trump supporters a chance to tamper at the state level, or throws it to the house and Trump wins there.

    One thing I am quite sure of, there will be no principled Republicans standing behind the voters of their states in the next election.

  68. 68.

    brantl

    May 8, 2023 at 12:36 pm

    Once Pence said he wasn’t going to throw out the ballots, he was useless to Trump, unless he could be coerced. Trump thought that he would be either coerced, or dead, and he was good with either one.

  69. 69.

    Roger Moore

    May 8, 2023 at 12:37 pm

    I doubt that the plan depended on violence against Pence specifically.  An angry mob is a very blunt instrument.  Yes, you can whip the mob up against a specific target, but once it’s turned loose you really don’t know what’s going to happen.  Unless you’re going to use the mob as cover for your assassination squad, you shouldn’t count on it for anything more than generalized chaos.  Trump may have been madder at Pence than anyone else, and he may have tried siccing the mob on him, but I doubt his death was an important part of the plan.

  70. 70.

    Ksmiami

    May 8, 2023 at 12:39 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: that poll was hugely overweighted with Republican voters. It’s trash to generate headlines

  71. 71.

    GoBlueInOak

    May 8, 2023 at 12:40 pm

    Meanwhile, the periodic reminder that the fate of U.S. democracy is in the hands of swing voter morons:

    https://www.vox.com/policy/23710432/independents-abortion-democrats-midterms-2024-election-voters

    https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/broad-doubts-bidens-age-acuity-spell-republican-opportunity/story?id=99109308

  72. 72.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 12:41 pm

    @Ksmiami: I acknowledge that Trump or DeSantis could win based on the electoral college, but I find it hard to believe that 2024 will be only the second time since 1988 when the Republican nominee wins the popular vote, which is what national polls are aimed at.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 12:43 pm

    @GoBlueInOak: Those morons helped us get the best mid-term outcome in recent history.

  74. 74.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 12:44 pm

    @Ksmiami: It’s also got a huge number of don’t know/undecided, so they probably weren’t pushing leaners to state a preference. Trump’s fanatics are going to be undeterred which gives an advantage in these questions.

  75. 75.

    snoey

    May 8, 2023 at 12:46 pm

    The January 3rd WAPO op-ed signed by all the former defense secretaries didn’t come out of the blue. Occams razor says somebody had to have been sounding out the military on martial law or similar, and the military then alerted Cheney.

  76. 76.

    pat

    May 8, 2023 at 12:46 pm

    I hope that these polls are all wrong, but if the MSM doesn’t start reporting some of the things Biden and the dems have actually done for the country and for the people, there will still be many who can believe “the economy was better under trump”, etc.

     

    And Biden too old and senile?  trump is what, 76 and clearly in some sort of mental decline…

    That said, I am a bit worried about a President Biden reaching his 86th birthday in office.

  77. 77.

    Old School

    May 8, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    It seems to me that if declaring martial law would have been the plan, it would have been tried whether Pence was killed or not.

  78. 78.

    Miss Bianca

    May 8, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    @GoBlueInOak: The one thing I always wonder is why Biden’s age at 80, when he’s demonstrably trim and fit, is a HUGE PROBLEM, but Trump’s, at 77, demonstrably unfit both mentally and physically, is just…not an issue, somehow.

  79. 79.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 12:48 pm

    @Miss Bianca: again, see Chuck Grassley.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    May 8, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    When asked about the hang Mike Pence sign, trump blamed it on Pence.   Yeah he wanted Pence out of the way dead or alive.   As long as he was out of the way, he was happy.

  81. 81.

    Quinerly

    May 8, 2023 at 12:50 pm

    @Wag:

    That’s what I thought as soon as that story broke.

    Plus, this story from a few months back.https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/20/trump-conway-leonard-leo-00074690

  82. 82.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 12:51 pm

    Never mind

  83. 83.

    Geminid

    May 8, 2023 at 12:51 pm

    If there was a plan to invoke martial law, I bet Kash Patel would have been involved. In November, 2020 Patel was made chief of staff for acting Defense Secretary Cristopher Miller, who had replaced the fired Secretary Esper.

    Patel was a Trump loyalist who previously was COS to Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell. Before that Patel was on the National Security Council staff starting February, 2019. He worked for Rep. Devin Nunes in the previous two Congresses and according to Wikipedia “played a key role in helping Republican attempts to fight investigations into Donald Trump and Russian interference into the 2016 election.”

    Aside from his probable role in coup planning, Patel was also caught up in the Mar-a-Lago documents matter. On June 19 of 2022, Trump named Patel and quasi-journalist John Solomon as “representatives for access to Presidential Records of my administration” in a letter Trump sent to the National Archives administration.

    In October of last year Patel appeared before the DC grand jury investigating the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago. Reports are that he would not talk but instead invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

  84. 84.

    Annie

    May 8, 2023 at 12:52 pm

    Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo used to say that if you wondered why Trump did something, think of the stupidest thing you could imagine, and that was why.

    Here is Annie’s Corollary:  think of the worst thing you can imagine.  That’s why Trump did something.

    Works in all situations.

  85. 85.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 12:52 pm

    I find it interesting that so many of us reached essentially the same conclusion–that there wasn’t A plan, in the way that we would plan an event, but there were many simultaneous things in motion that TFG could use to stay in power if they worked. Which means–in my fantasy trial–it will have to be an interesting case for the prosecution to put forward. They cannot say that there was a single plan, or even many plans, directed by TFG, and then lead the jury (and the nation) through the steps of the plan: that did not happen. When does a disparate set of activities, coordinated by a disparate set of actors, become a conspiracy? THAT is the heavy lift, I think.

  86. 86.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 12:52 pm

    @Baud:

    This

  87. 87.

    SpaceUnit

    May 8, 2023 at 12:53 pm

    @Miss Bianca:

    Also, no one has seen his fat ugly face without makeup in at least twenty years.  Heavy makeup.

    Dems should point that out at every occasion.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    May 8, 2023 at 12:54 pm

    WG,

     

    Love you, but, you’re too old to be this naive.

     

    It occurred to me that perhaps this could have been a deliberate move on Trump’s part, with a particular end game in mind.  If there had been a successful physical attack on the Vice President, or even worse, he had actually been killed at the capital, surely that would have been seen as a legitimate reason to institute martial law.  Right?

     

     

    Of course, he was willing to see Pence killed.

    Never forget two things:

    1. THE CODE FOR THE LOCK ON PENCE’S OFFICE IN THE CAPITOL WAS CHANGED.

    Who do you think had the authority to change the code?

     

    2. That tweet from Grassley the day before.

    Made no sense, unless he didn’t believe that Pence was going to be around to proceed with things.

    Trump absolutely intended for Pence and Pelosi TO DIE THAT DAY.

    That was going to help his excuse for calling Martial Law.

  89. 89.

    Tony G

    May 8, 2023 at 12:54 pm

    My personal opinion is that this scenario is very possible.  Throughout his life — long before he ran for president 8 years ago — Trump has demonstrated that he is a man with no concept of morality at all.  I could see him even sacrificing his own kids if doing so would benefit himself.  And the sickening thing is that tens of millions of Americans worship him.

  90. 90.

    djwid

    May 8, 2023 at 12:56 pm

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: And that the Secret Service is corrupt.

  91. 91.

    Eunicecycle

    May 8, 2023 at 1:00 pm

    @Manyakitty: Iowa doesn’t have term limits, but if she has an eye on the Senate this would be a great way to get there-just appoint herself! Pretty sure Grassley won’t retire in that scenario, but the choice may be taken away from him.

  92. 92.

    Kelly

    May 8, 2023 at 1:12 pm

    The Jan 6 insurrectionists were not gonna hang anyone from the gallows they built in front on the Capitol. Like everything the conspirators tried else it was flimsy and too small to be of use. They had plenty of evil intentions and the fight could easily been much bloodier, many more good people killed and injured but those haphazard assholes wouldn’t have taken the Capitol.

  93. 93.

    RaflW

    May 8, 2023 at 1:13 pm

    Did Trump plan to have Pence assassinated? I very much doubt it. As others have said, he sets a goal, and makes various threats that can be interpreted in different ways, and lets the chaos get him where he wants to go.

    The key was for Pence (and probably other leaders in Congress – no love lost between TFG and McConnell, for example) to be in such grave threat of danger that martial law would need to be imposed. At which point the junta gets set in motion and becomes immoveable

    If overzealous semi-autonomous zealots offed Mike, Nancy or Mitch in the processes, Trump as a sociopathic narcissist wouldn’t care one iota.

  94. 94.

    Old School

    May 8, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    @rikyrah:

     

    THE CODE FOR THE LOCK ON PENCE’S OFFICE IN THE CAPITOL WAS CHANGED.

    I don’t recall this being mentioned during the 1/6 hearings.

    Google doesn’t turn up anything for me.  Do you have a source?

  95. 95.

    dww44

    May 8, 2023 at 1:14 pm

    @WaterGirl: Re Grassley, I think this is a case where some senility redounded to our benefit.

    I have never had any doubt that Trump’s intent was to foment/create a situation that would have enabled him to declare martial law and refuse to leave the Presidency and too many in the Secret Service and even the military would have been on board with this, along with usual political allies.  The authoritarian bent  in conservatives runs strong.

  96. 96.

    Miss Bianca

    May 8, 2023 at 1:20 pm

    @dww44: I’m not at all sure the military would have gone along with it. Military coups are not a notable part of our history. Secret Service…? I dunno.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    May 8, 2023 at 1:21 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I’d love to see somebody (okay, several bodies) drag Trump out of the golf cart and hand him a bicycle to ride for a couple miles.

    Guessing young Donny, if he had a bike, hired other kids to ride it.

  98. 98.

    MaryLou

    May 8, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    @Miss Bianca: Bingo.

  99. 99.

    cmorenc

    May 8, 2023 at 1:23 pm

    IMO you are over-thinking Trump’s intentions toward Pence – had the Trump-incited crowd actually captured and killed Mike Pence, how would that have created a successful basis for him to assert martial law?  More likely is that Trump reacted impulsively to Pence’s refusal to go along with halting the electoral college certification,  with bullying and vengeance in mind, rather than any coherent plan.  The military hierarchy (generals, admirals) would need to have gone along with him, and whether they would have done so (especially had Pence been killed by the mob) is a very different issue from whether a contingent of rank-and-file soldiers (including some lower-level officers) might have been supportive of Trump and his election fraud claims.  Trump’s coup-by-martial-law attempt would also have been undermined by the inarguable (even on Fox) fact that Trump had directly incited the crowd to kill Pence.  Had Trump had the kind of support within the military for a coup, it would have happened irrespective of the fate of Mike Pence – Trump could have simply ordered the military in to halt Congressional election proceedings pending investigation of ballot counts and voting machines.

  100. 100.

    BeautifulPlumage

    May 8, 2023 at 1:24 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Unless you’re going to use the mob as cover for your assassination squad, you shouldn’t count on it for anything more than generalized chaos 

    This right here. This is why the tours were given on Jan 5 and the PB, 3%, etc were brought in. There were teams who went to places not listed on the public information about the capitol. I forget which office it was, but I remember the person saying it was very targeted.

  101. 101.

    Almost Retired

    May 8, 2023 at 1:25 pm

    @Miss Bianca:  Right.  Henry II in the Trump Tower.  Will no one rid me of this troublesome Vice President?

  102. 102.

    BeautifulPlumage

    May 8, 2023 at 1:27 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage: but this would have been Stone, etc planning this. I agree that Trump uses mafia talk to remain distant from the actual planning.

  103. 103.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 1:29 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage:This right here. This is why the tours were given on Jan 5 and the PB, 3%, etc were brought in. There were teams who went to places not listed on the public information about the capitol. I forget which office it was, but I remember the person saying it was very targeted.

    Ding-ding-ding! One of the things that discourages me is that even if Jack Smith brings TFG to account, even if there are trials and convictions, WAYYYYY too much of the bullshit will just slip beneath the service. Too many members of Congress were IN ON THE PLANS. Was anyone aware of everything? No. But Congresspeople KNEW. They GAVE TOURS. I fear that they will never be held to account (see the earlier thread about SCOTUS corruption . . . .), and will continue their ongoing undermining of the democratic project.

  104. 104.

    patrick II

    May 8, 2023 at 1:30 pm

    @Doug R:

    Then to Pompeo, sec of state.  That was the goal.

  105. 105.

    BeautifulPlumage

    May 8, 2023 at 1:32 pm

    Are Stone & Manafort buddies? We know Manafort engineered the stalled plane that got Trump to talk to Pence & ultimately choose him for VP. Would Stone see this as a way of shiving Manafort if they were rivals?

  106. 106.

    Suzanne

    May 8, 2023 at 1:33 pm

    @Hoodie:

    I doubt Trump’s ends were that baroque, but that wouldn’t mean that Trump wouldn’t try to capitalize on Pence’s death. 

    Yeah, this is where I am. I would be surprised if he actively took steps hoping for Pence’s death, because I don’t think he’s smart enough…. and if he was smart enough, I think his plan would have been better. I do think he’s craven enough that, had it happened, he would have immediately tried to turn to his personal advantage.

    I think he honestly thought that the mob would be so significant, and his weird sense of personal loyalty so strong, that Pence would just do what he wanted and “overturn it somehow”.

  107. 107.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 1:34 pm

    @SpaceUnit: @pat:

    First, polls this far out are worthless.

    Second, a lot of these polls aren’t intended for any use other than to give the right talking points.

  108. 108.

    The Moar You Know

    May 8, 2023 at 1:35 pm

    Pence was always expendable, but I think you’re giving these people credit for brains that they just don’t have.

    If they’d wanted Pence killed by the mob, that easily could have been arranged.  It wasn’t.

  109. 109.

    sdhays

    May 8, 2023 at 1:40 pm

    The VP is protected by the Secret Service, so I figure even Trump and his “brain” trust would assume that Dense would get away. I do suspect there was a plan to get him out of the way and keep him out of the way.

    And if the mob overwhelmed the SS by moving too fast somehow, well, just lucky I guess.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 1:41 pm

    @rikyrah:

    Never forget two things:

    1. THE CODE FOR THE LOCK ON PENCE’S OFFICE IN THE CAPITOL WAS CHANGED.

    Who do you think had the authority to change the code?

    I did not know the lock had been changed.  Should be easy enough to follow the paper trail the go the workman to show up and do the work.

    edit: It still haunts me that the emergency buttons in the chamber (or whatever they were called) were cut ahead of time.

  111. 111.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 1:42 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Pence was always expendable

     
    Not to the flies.

  112. 112.

    SpaceUnit

    May 8, 2023 at 1:42 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Yup.

  113. 113.

    Noskilz

    May 8, 2023 at 1:45 pm

    Trump seems to have a really difficult time following a coherent plan for any length of time, even for the duration of an interview, so I suspect it was his usual recklessness and desperation.

    I have no doubt one of his underlings, like Eastman, would have piped up with the idea had it happened, but aspiring cheap mobster that he is, I think the plan was to intimidating congress into fudging the vote. He probably didn’t have a clear idea of the mechanics of that and didn’t care about the details in any event.

  114. 114.

    Miss Bianca

    May 8, 2023 at 1:48 pm

    @Baud:

    Not to the flies.

    Hmmm…Lord of the Flies…

  115. 115.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 1:53 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Exactly. Plus, I remember it was discussed here that a lot of those polls are done by right-wing outfits trying to game polling aggregators like 536 and RCP

  116. 116.

    Nelle

    May 8, 2023 at 1:56 pm

    @rikyrah: I have a vague recollection that Pelosi was described as particularly grim the morning of Jan. 6, before anything started.  Was that a dream?  Anyone else remember that?  What did she know and how did she know it?

  117. 117.

    boatboy_srq

    May 8, 2023 at 1:56 pm

    On the one hand, it’s a truism that a VP is both standing by in case POTUS is incapacitated or killled and insurance against the opposition trying to oust POTUS (because VPOTUS is less palatable to them than POTUS).

    On the other hand, the next after VPOTUS is Speaker, and in 2021 that person was Pelosi. I cannot imagine the Reichwing would risk a President Pelosi.

  118. 118.

    lowtechcyclist

    May 8, 2023 at 1:57 pm

    @eversor:

    It’s a mistake to think a bunch of weasles on acid have a deep plan.

    Nominated!

  119. 119.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    I think I agree with those saying that the planning is largely beyond Trump and that it was largely left to his underlings; he’s too impulsive to arrange it himself. As others have said, he’d definitely try to leverage different scenarios arising from the chaos to his benefit to stay in power

    He just wanted Pence out of the way, but probably didn’t care how

  120. 120.

    Hoodie

    May 8, 2023 at 2:00 pm

    @Suzanne: Killing Pence might have been one of the goals of the Oath Keepers/Proud Boys crowd. However, his death would have been counterproductive to Trump, as it would have made Pence a martyr and convinced several GOPers that Trump was too dangerous to have around.   Remember, a lot of GOPers were initially pretty shaken by the sacking of the Capitol, only to revise history and characterize it a tourist excursion several days later.  Trump wanted to motivate Pence and other GOPers to break up the normal certification process, which required either Pence going along or Pence hightailing it out of the building before the count.  The relatively rapid success of the insurrectionists breaching the Capitol worked against that plan.

  121. 121.

    BeautifulPlumage

    May 8, 2023 at 2:01 pm

    @WaterGirl: the call buttons were in Sen Presley’s office as reported by her chief of staff.

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pressley-panic-buttons/

    What I didn’t realize is that the chief of staff had “used them before and hadn’t switched offices since then”. What was the threat those previous times?

    ETA corrected quote

  122. 122.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 2:03 pm

    @Hoodie:

    Remember, a lot of GOPers were initially pretty shaken by the sacking of the Capitol, only to revise history and characterize it a tourist excursion several days later.

    When I really think about this, it’s deeply disturbing they were able to do this. Right up there with Steve Scalise nearly dying because of a mass shooter and still being a gun nut

  123. 123.

    Skepticat

    May 8, 2023 at 2:03 pm

    Is that a bridge too far, even for Trump?

    There. Is. No. Such. Thing. I almost expected him to invoke martial law just because he felt like it.

  124. 124.

    zhena gogolia

    May 8, 2023 at 2:03 pm

    @Baud: I feel like, unlike her e-mails, this story is not going to have “legs.” There just isn’t any room for any “new developments” (barring, God forbid, any health issues on his part, but that’s true of everyone, see for example Fetterman).

  125. 125.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 2:06 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    And Fetterman was elected by a ton despite the stroke. It didn’t matter to PA voters

  126. 126.

    JWR

    May 8, 2023 at 2:06 pm

    @pat: That said, I am a bit worried about a President Biden reaching his 86th birthday in office.

    Haven’t you heard? Biden plans to have a “medical emergency” early in his 2nd term so he can gift the remainder of that term to Hunter. /s!!!

  127. 127.

    The Moar You Know

    May 8, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    This is all CT speculative bullshit and some of the responses are even worse.  Balloon Juice should be better than this.

    Looks like it’s not.

  128. 128.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 8, 2023 at 2:07 pm

    @Tony G:

    Throughout his life — long before he ran for president 8 years ago — Trump has demonstrated that he is a man with no concept of morality at all.  I could see him even sacrificing his own kids if doing so would benefit himself.  And the sickening thing is that tens of millions of Americans worship him.

    Trump is living their dream: a life free of consequences. On one level I think it’s just as well they’ve shown themselves for what they really are. On the other hand, we need to drive them back under their rocks. I wish I knew how.

  129. 129.

    dww44

    May 8, 2023 at 2:08 pm

    @Miss Bianca: I should have clarified that elements within the military might have gone along with it.  I don’t think the upper leadership would have.  Remember Mike Flynn’s brother, also a general, who kinda put the kibosh on sending in the National Guard to quell the insurrection?

  130. 130.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    May 8, 2023 at 2:08 pm

    @The Moar You Know:

    Well, it would be irresponsible not to speculate

  131. 131.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 2:09 pm

    @Hoodie:Killing Pence might have been one of the goals of the Oath Keepers/Proud Boys crowd. However, his death would have been counterproductive to Trump, as it would have made Pence a martyr and convinced several GOPers that Trump was too dangerous to have around.

    That’s kinda what I meant above–there were multiple players, with multiple aims, all of which were generally aimed at keeping TFG in office, and of which many of the people around TFG were aware, but no one person or group was pulling all strings. Keep Pence from certifying, either by him making the decision not to certify OR by getting him out there; have fake electors on hand; declare martial law because Antifa; unleash enough armed assholes to cause chaos and have Members of Congress show them where things/people were and cut the emergency buttons; have TFG go to the Capitol because they were “his” people; have various lawyerly strategies in place; etc.

    I truly don’t think any of them thought about how bad it would look to the rest of us–and I don’t think they cared, as demonstrated by the “OMG” on day-of and “it was tourists” a few days later.

  132. 132.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 8, 2023 at 2:09 pm

    @phein63:

    They already had a blueprint for success:  Threaten violence, shut down the vote count/recount, and have the Supreme Court declare Trump the victor.

    It worked for Bush/Cheney in 2000 with the Brooks Brothers Riot, why shouldn’t it work for Trump in 2020?

    They wanted the Brooks Brothers Riot 2.0, but they got the Cabela’s Riot instead.

  133. 133.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 2:11 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The one referred to is a mainstream-media poll (Washington Post?)–I recall it’s pretty reputable. But we’re so early in the cycle and most people are not really paying attention to the election yet; it’s not as if a majority is saying they’ll vote for Trump, just that most of them aren’t that satisfied with Biden and a lot are saying “don’t know”.

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    @The Moar You Know: We KNOW there was an actual conspiracy to overthrow Constitutional government in this case. The question is just how far it went and what the details were.

  135. 135.

    dww44

    May 8, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    @WaterGirl: ​
      I do think there’s an element of Biden testing the lay of the land with these early polls. Seeing how much a problem his age will be in the election. The ability of Democrats to hold on to the Presidency is paramount, even if Trump miraculously disappears some GOP stand-in is likely to be just as infected with the authoritarianism and better able not to telegraph his intent.

  136. 136.

    Paul in KY

    May 8, 2023 at 2:15 pm

    @eversor: Miller is pretty evilly competent, IMO.

  137. 137.

    Geminid

    May 8, 2023 at 2:18 pm

    @dww44: General Milley was riding herd on the generals that day, and was keeping a close eye on acting Secretary of Defense Chistoper Miller. And I think he knew that Kash Patel, Miller’s chief of staff, was up to no good.

    I expect Milley to write a book that will cover these and other events. Milley’s had a lot of shit dumped on him by Trump and his minions, and I think he is going to fire back. It will be his side of the story, but I still want to see what he has to say.

  138. 138.

    Roger Moore

    May 8, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    @narya:

    That’s kinda what I meant above–there were multiple players, with multiple aims, all of which were generally aimed at keeping TFG in office, and of which many of the people around TFG were aware, but no one person or group was pulling all strings.

    This is a really good description.  I think this general kind of thing is way more common than a single mastermind being behind everything.  Every group has its own angle and its own plan.  Big things happen because a bunch of those plans are pointing in more or less the same direction.

  139. 139.

    prostratedragon

    May 8, 2023 at 2:22 pm

    My two cents on the main question is, yes that was the plan. It is not a very complex idea relative to his mental capacity, and as others have said, the man truly is an abyss. Not only did Pence refuse to get in the car, but I think that’s why he had his family there: to be witnesses, and so he’d know where they were.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    May 8, 2023 at 2:27 pm

    It occurred to me that perhaps this could have been a deliberate move on Trump’s part, with a particular end game in mind.  If there had been a successful physical attack on the Vice President, or even worse, he had actually been killed at the capital, surely that would have been seen as a legitimate reason to institute martial law.  Right?

    No.

    Trump incorrectly believed that there was some way that he could stop the election and remain in office.

    Declaring martial law would not automatically stop the mechanics of electing Biden president.

    Trump is a strange dude. So far he has been too much of a coward to suspend the Constitution when he theoretically had a chance and to directly call for potential opponents to be arrested or killed.

    But who knows what he might do in 2024. Worse, the GOP and various state officials are moving the pieces to permit theft of the election.

  141. 141.

    Dangerman

    May 8, 2023 at 2:28 pm

    Trump doesn’t have very deep thoughts. He leaves the details to others.

    He wanted to be President (big plane, big fat ass kissed bigtime, etc).

    He wanted more money.

    He wanted more sex.

    If he could ride in the plane, rolling around with bunch of hookers in a pile of Benjamin’s and KFC, he woulda stroked out from ecstasy.

    That’s the depth of his thinking.

  142. 142.

    Paul in KY

    May 8, 2023 at 2:29 pm

    @Tony G: He would definitely sacrifice the boys (especially Ewic) if it would assure something great for him.

  143. 143.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 2:30 pm

    @Eunicecycle: fair enough. I have zero perspective on Iowa. Thanks!

  144. 144.

    Paul in KY

    May 8, 2023 at 2:31 pm

    @Kelly: You can use the rope & loop it over a lamp post. Didn’t need the prop gallows. Just a rope…

  145. 145.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 2:34 pm

    @WaterGirl: what??? I never heard that, either. Holy cow.

  146. 146.

    NotMax

    May 8, 2023 at 2:35 pm

    @narya

    throwing things against the wall to see what would stick

    This.

    Italian satellites!
    Chinese thermostats!
    Venezuelan ghostware!
    Iranian dildos!
    //

  147. 147.

    Maxim

    May 8, 2023 at 2:37 pm

    Trump is well known for demanding absolute loyalty. Pence was not on board with the plan to refuse to certify the results, which of course put him on the shit list. Did Trump then say “Let’s get the crowd to kill him?” Unlikely. But would he have uttered various id-driven “will no one rid me of this troublesome VP” rants that then led someone like Roger Stone to suggest to the Oathkeepers that Pence was a traitor who deserved punishment? Abso-fuckin’-lutely.

  148. 148.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 2:38 pm

    @Hoodie: Interesting take!

  149. 149.

    Barry

    May 8, 2023 at 2:38 pm

    @The Moar You Know: “If they’d wanted Pence killed by the mob, that easily could have been arranged.  It wasn’t.”

    As has been pointed out, mobs are blunt instruments, especially so because this was not a Putin style mob, where they would have actually had a written plan.

  150. 150.

    WaterGirl

    May 8, 2023 at 2:39 pm

    @BeautifulPlumage:  Thanks!  I thought it was a bunch of them, but I may be remembering wrong.

  151. 151.

    NotMax

    May 8, 2023 at 2:41 pm

    @Paul in KY

    Not since they switched to them commie lamp bulbs that radiate beams which sap our Purity of Essence.

  152. 152.

    Roger Moore

    May 8, 2023 at 2:42 pm

    @Brachiator:

    Trump incorrectly believed that there was some way that he could stop the election and remain in office.

    He was correct; it’s just that such an attempt would be a coup d’etat no matter what fancy justification was offered.  I don’t think that bothered Trump in the least.  He wanted to stay in power enough to accept whatever means it took.  All the other stuff- declaring martial law, legalistic reasons for not counting the electoral votes, etc.- was just a way of making the basic element of staying in power after losing the election more palatable.

  153. 153.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 2:43 pm

    @NotMax: And the advantage of that approach is that everyone gets to ride their own favorite hobby horse! And, at least as important, it generates a ton of squid ink, splattering everywhere. it’s an amorphous blob of grifters, coup enthusiasts, assholes, etc., which makes it hard for normies to get any kind of handle on it. I’ve been heartened, a little, by the sedition trials, tbh, especially this last one; no telling what would happen outside of DC, of course, but I suspect we’ll find out soon enough . . . and hopefully so will the defendants.

  154. 154.

    Paul in KY

    May 8, 2023 at 2:43 pm

    @Almost Retired: Thank God Henry II was not in TFG’s position and had wanted to do that. Henry II was so much more competent than TFG, it’s not even funny. We are lucky that TFG is such a fuckup, IMO.

  155. 155.

    Roger Moore

    May 8, 2023 at 2:54 pm

    @Dangerman:

    I think all the stuff you mentioned is secondary.  Trump wants to win, to be seen winning, and to receive the accolades granted to a winner.  All that other stuff- the trappings of office, money, and sex- is really just a way of keeping score to show how much of a winner he is.

    The sex is a great example.  Trump cares about sex as a way to show his dominance far more than he cares about enjoyment of the act of sex.  He can dominate by having sex with women who it’s prestigious to have sex with or by forcing himself on unwilling women.  The point of having sex with Stormy Daniels was to have sex with a porn star.  The point of raping E. Jean Carroll was to prove he could have his way with a stranger despite her not wanting it.

  156. 156.

    Tony Jay

    May 8, 2023 at 2:55 pm

    I’m reminded of two separate scenes in an alt-history novel about America under a 1930’s Klan regime.

    In one, the Anglo-American SOE agent who has infiltrated the Vice-President’s household is having dinner at the White House and wondering how the hell the collection of jeering snobs and craven bootlickers sitting around him managed to take over the USA.

    In another, the same agent is sent to the FBIS building (the last two letters stand for Internal Security, Hoover’s idea) to provide legal advice to some Administration staffers and is chilled to the bone by the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which these sharp young men discuss dismantling the Constitution and dumping the Bill of Rights.

    So, yeah, Trump’s circle of yapping jockstraps might not have been capable of coming up with an actual plan to murder specific political figures, but there are a lot of people behind the curtains of the International Right who certainly could and wouldn’t blink twice.

  157. 157.

    NotMax

    May 8, 2023 at 2:59 pm

    @Roger Moore

    “Wanting it” or not is irrelevant. The point is the mindset convinced all other people exist solely to service his needs/desires/whims.

  158. 158.

    Mike in NC

    May 8, 2023 at 3:00 pm

    Trump’s goons like Flynn and Stone and Lindell definitely were angling for an excuse to impose martial law. Fortunately, Trump was too lazy, stupid, and incompetent to execute the plan.

  159. 159.

    JWR

    May 8, 2023 at 3:02 pm

    Back to the TX mall shooter, (From ABC live updates)

    Suspect terminated from Army after 3 months

    The mass shooting suspect, Mauricio Garcia, joined the U.S. Army in June 2008 and was terminated three months later, according to an Army spokesperson.

    “He was separated under the 2005 edition of Army Regulation 635-200, paragraph 5–17, Other designated physical or mental conditions,” an Army official said.

  160. 160.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 3:03 pm

    WaterGirl

    is it even possible to be that awful?

    Yes. It is absolutely easy for some humans to be that awful, and even worse. When I worked in professional sports I met more than one human that qualified as that awful. Every single one of them thought that their shit didn’t stink, and that the world revolved around the stick stuck up their ass. SFB is just a slightly richer (in that he likely owes more than what he’s credited with having) asshole than they were. But on the scale from normal to SFB, they were far closer to the wrong end than most of us.

  161. 161.

    rikyrah

    May 8, 2023 at 3:05 pm

    @WaterGirl:

     

    edit: It still haunts me that the emergency buttons in the chamber (or whatever they were called) were cut ahead of time.

    Also,

    1. Why didn’t Pence want to go with the Secret Service? Why fight them at all? He did not trust them. He’s stupid and without a spine, but, he’s not THAT stupid.
    2. They knew where Clyburn’s PRIVATE OFFICE was. Not the one for the public. But, the Private one was, where you would actually have to know the building.
    3. Why was Congresswoman Pressley’s emergency button disabled?
    4. WHY did it take over an hour and a half for the National Guard to be called, considering that Steny Hoyer called the Governor of Maryland MINUTES after they were taken to their secure location to request the National Guard. WHO refused to take the Governor’s call at the Pentagon?
  162. 162.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 3:05 pm

    @Ruckus: Re-upping the request from a few days ago for you to produce your autobiography. Hell, I’ll ghostwrite it for you, just to get to hear allllll the stories!

  163. 163.

    Paul in KY

    May 8, 2023 at 3:07 pm

    @NotMax: I fergot bout that! Tarnation! Sortee ironical that Dense would be saved by them commie light bulbs…

  164. 164.

    cain

    May 8, 2023 at 3:18 pm

    @GoBlueInOak: Given that Trump is not that much younger – I think we can just dispense with these articles by the media looking to create a conversation where they can drive a horse race.

  165. 165.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    @JWR:

    What happened to reports of a second shooter? Debunked?

  166. 166.

    CliosFanBoy

    May 8, 2023 at 3:19 pm

    I can see them doing that.  No hesitation whatsoever. After all, since he refused to go along with trump’s scheme, Pence was a “traitor.”

  167. 167.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 3:20 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Guessing young Donny, if he had a bike, hired other kids to ride it.

    He would have scammed them to ride it, because pay money?

    He’s too cheap, always has been, ain’t changing now.

  168. 168.

    CliosFanBoy

    May 8, 2023 at 3:20 pm

    @rikyrah: WHY did it take over an hour and a half for the National Guard to be called, considering that Steny Hoyer called the Governor of Maryland MINUTES after they were taken to their secure location to request the National Guard. WHO refused to take the Governor’s call at the Pentagon?

     

    I can see that happening if they were worried about who could approve the Maryland NG going into DC.

  169. 169.

    cain

    May 8, 2023 at 3:22 pm

    @Old School: I think she means this:

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/9/2063310/-VP-Mike-Pence-And-Staff-Locked-Out-Of-Capitol-Offices-On-Jan-6-Access-Badges-Had-Been-Deactivated

  170. 170.

    NotMax

    May 8, 2023 at 3:23 pm

    @trollhattan

    That’s what Weisselberg’s son was for, silly.

  171. 171.

    Brachiator

    May 8, 2023 at 3:23 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    He was correct; it’s just that such an attempt would be a coup d’etat no matter what fancy justification was offered.  I don’t think that bothered Trump in the least.  He wanted to stay in power enough to accept whatever means it took.  All the other stuff- declaring martial law, legalistic reasons for not counting the electoral votes, etc.- was just a way of making the basic element of staying in power after losing the election more palatable.

    Trump lacks the courage to actively stage a coup. He is a coward who likes to talk tough about the military. His equally cowardly sideways statement of support for January 6 insurgents is typical of him. Trump would never step up front and lead a coup.

    And as far as we know right now, he never approached any general to get military backing.

    Trump was no longer president as of election day. Everything else was about the formal transfer of power, which Trump refused to accept. He was, and is delusional and got a few suckers to feed his fantasies. But he was too much of a chicken shit to actually do anything to seize power.

  172. 172.

    Geminid

    May 8, 2023 at 3:25 pm

    @rikyrah: Last year Cheryl Rofer linked to a story in the journal Just Security that examined questions about the DC National Guard that day. The authors said that Milley and company may have been inhibited by the possibility that if the DC Guard was activated, it would have been under Trump’s command.

    The authors did not cite any inside information, but based this analysis on a reading of the law pertaining to the DC Guard. This is one of the reasons I want to hear what General Milley has to say.

  173. 173.

    TriassicSands

    May 8, 2023 at 3:26 pm

    @phein63: It worked for Bush/Cheney in 2000 with the Brooks Brothers Riot, why shouldn’t it work for Trump in 2020?

    Very different elections. Very different vote totals. The SCOTUS called the election in W’s favor when W was ahead of Gore. That was never the case with Trump — even in the closest key state, he was more than 10,000 votes behind Biden.

    There seems to be strong evidence that Trump wanted to be at the Capitol. Would he really want to have been there if Pence (and others?) were being killed? I don’t think anyone believes Trump has an ounce of courage. If he were hoping Pence would be killed, it wouldn’t be ideal for him to be present when that happened.

    I am a long-time believer that there is no bottom to the Trump barrel. He will always get and be worse. And thinking the worst of him is natural. But I’ve never been impressed with Trump as a planner and thinker. There were far too many variables on January 6 for me to believe Trump had a fixed plan. Yes, under some circumstances he would have been willing to declare martial law. But there was no way to know how things would work out at the Capitol. If he truly did want to be present at the Capitol, then I doubt the existence of the murderous plots some here have suggested.

    In the end, I doubt we will ever really know the answers.

  174. 174.

    JWR

    May 8, 2023 at 3:29 pm

    @Baud: A second shooter? This is the first I’ve heard of a second shooter.

  175. 175.

    NotMax

    May 8, 2023 at 3:30 pm

    @TriassicSands

    “Damn traffic. Missed the hanging by that much.”
    //

  176. 176.

    Baud

    May 8, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    @JWR:

    Yeah I thought I heard of social media accounts of two shooters on the day of.  Those types of reports usually don’t pan out, and I guess that’s the case here.

  177. 177.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 3:33 pm

    @narya:

    Mostly it was just being in the wrong place at the right time or in the right place at the wrong time, and I really didn’t have a lot of choice other than quit the job. Which, when the shit got too deep for waders, I did.

    Some of it was funny, if it hadn’t been happening to me, and some of it was just assholes being assholes. My stories are not as many as one might assume, what I tell are the lowlights. Mostly because the highlights were fewer and far, far between. The day I gave notice and the last day were absolute highlights. I never thought it would be that much fun to tell someone “I’M FREE, FREE AT LAST. Boy was I wrong. It was better than my last day in the Navy, and that was a great day. It must have been better, I got paid a lot more. Of course getting paid more I should have expected more shit. Silly me…

  178. 178.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 3:38 pm

    @Ruckus: Yeah, but here’s the thing: you appear to have done a LOT of different things, as have I. When it comes out that I’ve done x, and y, and z . . . it can be amusing, but your stories–and not just the ones w/ famous people–are fascinating. I’m re-listening to “The Good Place” podcast, and many of the people who worked on the show were self-taught, or trained in a wildly different area, or something like that, and those are really the interesting tales. And it sounds like you have more than a few of those! But that’s partly because I’m just generally interested in what people do, kind of like the old Studs Terkel book, “Working.”

  179. 179.

    JWR

    May 8, 2023 at 3:41 pm

    @Baud: Just browsing the headlines, I see one story from two days ago that mentioned the possibility of a second shooter, but that’s it. Meh, one’s more than enough.

  180. 180.

    Old School

    May 8, 2023 at 3:42 pm

    @cain:

    Thanks.

    I wonder if the 1/6 committee looked into that.

  181. 181.

    Gretchen

    May 8, 2023 at 3:44 pm

    @Roger Moore: Amanda Marcotte made a good point about Trump’s motive for raping Carroll. Things were fine until she teased him about putting the women’s lingerie on himself, it’s his color. All of a sudden he turned on her. She questioned/teased about his masculinity, and he can’t abide that. He took revenge because she dissed him.

  182. 182.

    Sister Golden Bear

    May 8, 2023 at 3:45 pm

    “Who will rid me of this troublesome obsequent VP?”

    Seriously, I’ve thought that was the plan for a long time. Get Pence out of the way (by being taken to an unclosed location for his “safety” and keeping him there, or worse). Get Pelosi out of the way (use your imagination, and then Chuck Grassley becomes the VP, at least long enough to turn over the Electoral College vote. Yeah, it’s illegal as fuck, but in a Trump dictatorship that wouldn’t matter.

    Sure Trump isn’t that clever, but Miller, Bannon, etc are.

  183. 183.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 3:46 pm

    WaterGirl

    Even so, would Trump have been a knowing, willing participant in the murder of his VP?

    He is rather simple minded so he’s likely to always get in too deep and then have to buy or step on others to get his head above water. And for all his claims about money, I’d bet his debt to equity ratio is crap. He is barely above moron, on the scale of moron to minimal IQ to not cross against the red light, he’s closer to the first level than the last. And he keeps proving this over and over, and has been for his entire life.

  184. 184.

    artem1s

    May 8, 2023 at 3:48 pm

    not only do I think it’s possible, after hearing the testimony about how desperate he was to ‘march’ down to the Capitol with the rioters, I think he had even worse things in mind. Once the Proud Boys kangaroo court had sentenced Pelosi to death and carried out the sentence, they would take control of the Capitol. And TFG would declare martial law and demand loyalty oaths from whoever was left. Killing Pence probably was optional and may have been dependent on whether he held up his end of the deal on the vote. After taking the Capitol, whose to stop him from declaring a national emergency and demanding Roberts drag his ass down there to give him the oath of office right then and there? Maybe Ginny and Clarence were on call to fill in if Roberts couldn’t bear to make himself available. But yes, the ketchup temper tantrum was what sold me on how serious they were to get it done that day. No more asking please to the courts. And more than a few of the inner circle knew about it – probably at least a couple of SS agents. Pence’s detail was right to be afraid. Too bad they were such cowards about letting the Capitol and DC police know what was going down.

  185. 185.

    JWR

    May 8, 2023 at 3:52 pm

    @Baud: Oh wait. I remember some eyewitnesses who spoke of a guy wearing white who they presumed might be the shooter, but he was apparently a murdered security guard?

  186. 186.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 3:55 pm

    @narya:

    I’ve worked in 6 possible different careers. And only one of them was what I went to college for. And that’s the one I ended up not doing.

    I like where you are going with this, maybe I will at least start and see how it goes. I started my first real job 61 yrs ago. In the same field as the job I retired in. Full circle is a funny way to get through 6 different possible careers.

  187. 187.

    ...now I try to be amused

    May 8, 2023 at 3:55 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Sure Trump isn’t that clever, but Miller, Bannon, etc are.

    I call them Trump’s evil viziers.

  188. 188.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2023 at 3:58 pm

    Rhiannon Giddens just won a Pulitzer Prize for music.  Barbara Kingsolver, for fiction, with Demon Copperhead. Fiction seems to have had two winners.  And I think the New York Times only won two Pulitzers.  Will double check that. The LA Times and Miami Herald did well. WSJ won one for explaining … something.

  189. 189.

    Fair Economist

    May 8, 2023 at 4:03 pm

    “If”?

  190. 190.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2023 at 4:04 pm

    The WaPost won three Pulitzer Prizes.   OK, one is a nonfiction book that arose from a series of reported articles about George Floyd.

    Always rooting against the FTF NY Times.

    Did you know that Biden is getting old? He is doing it again today. And will probably do it again tomorrow.  We can’t have that.

  191. 191.

    Old School

    May 8, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Yes. Two fiction winners:

    Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

    Trust by Hernan Diaz

    Full list.

    Edit: It appears the Post only won two awards.

  192. 192.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 4:05 pm

    @Ruckus: Oh, I would love it . . . because one of the things that occurred to me, late in the game, was the actual thread in my life that tied together a disparate array of jobs. But it wasn’t possible to see that thread, or consciously act on it, even 20 years ago; seeing it came about because I had to explain what tied these things together. That is, one of the things I love about your stories is that it’s clear that you have a perspective NOW that likely wasn’t possible at the time, and you learned from each thing you did, in ways you were able to apply later, even if the field was very different. Maybe we should write a BJ book, because, while you are by far the most varied in your jobs, it seems, we are not alone in our adventures. Every time I turn around, someone pops up in the comments with a completely unexpected, but relevant, experience

    ETA, but please, DO start writing!! I know someone with experience as a copyeditor and proofreader (me) if it gets that far.

  193. 193.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2023 at 4:07 pm

    @Old School: thank you. I am on my phone, and don’t know how to cut and paste like that. Appreciate it.

  194. 194.

    Princess

    May 8, 2023 at 4:08 pm

    I think if the One Weird Trick with the electors didn’t work, they were looking for an excuse to impose martial Law.

  195. 195.

    Elizabelle

    May 8, 2023 at 4:10 pm

    @Old School: Tecnically, yes.  But they are trumpeting three, because the George Floyd book started out as a series of Washington Post articles. I’m sort of OK with that.

  196. 196.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 4:14 pm

    @narya:

    Maybe we should ask WG to connect us by email so we don’t continue this on the front page…..

  197. 197.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 4:19 pm

    @Princess:

    I think that as well. It was their end hope to take over and likely sell off as much as possible. I can’t imagine that SFB would do anything that he didn’t expect to profit from, even if he pretty much failed at, well everything. The 400 million he started with would have been worth 16-17 billion if he had just put it in a major mutual fund, instead of the 3+ he’s supposedly worth. IOW he’s cost himself around 12-13 billion dollars just being himself. That’s a lot of stupid he purchased.

  198. 198.

    Manyakitty

    May 8, 2023 at 4:20 pm

    @Ruckus: always love a good full circle story.

  199. 199.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 4:23 pm

    @Ruckus: Works for me! I’ll email her!

  200. 200.

    Brachiator

    May 8, 2023 at 4:24 pm

    @Princess:

    I think if the One Weird Trick with the electors didn’t work, they were looking for an excuse to impose martial Law.

    Martial law would not have kept Trump president. He would have had to destroy the Constitution, and Congress would have to go along. Unless Trump magically developed enough courage to imprison Congress.

  201. 201.

    Roger Moore

    May 8, 2023 at 4:37 pm

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    It wasn’t actually about Pence being first in line to the Presidency; it was that he was the presiding officer in the Senate.  The idea, as I understand it, is that Trump’s people had cooked up some kind of procedural way of invalidating the electoral count, but it required the connivance of the presiding officer in one house of Congress.  The House was obviously out, since Pelosi was never going to go along, and even if she were gotten out of the way her successor would also be a Democrat.  The Senate looked more favorable because Pence was the presiding officer there.  When he refused to go along, they could still succeed by getting him out of the way because Grassley, as President Pro Tempore, would become the new presiding officer.

    Note that “getting him out of the way” isn’t necessarily a euphemism here.  He really only needed to be physically absent from the Senate chambers for Grassley to take over for him.  If he were taken to an undisclosed location for his safety, that would be good enough.

  202. 202.

    Nelle

    May 8, 2023 at 4:40 pm

    @narya: And I am a retired writing tutor/composition teacher.  Let me know if you want to connect for some writing ideas.

    We’ve lived in seven states and two countries.  We’re also trying to articulate the thread that ties it all together.

  203. 203.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 4:43 pm

    @narya:

    Every time I turn around, someone pops up in the comments with a completely unexpected, but relevant, experience.

    We are after all, human. Sure some of us are going to go through life on a set stage and others are going to be bit players and others are going to play a lot of roles. We’ve played a lot of roles, but that’s what it is, things we do to eat regular and things we do because we enjoy them (or at least think we will….) It makes life a bit less boring because when we fall down we look for a different path to get us back on a track, rather than the same ole, same old. How many of your paths did you make an actual conscious choice of, or hop on whatever train was rolling by? I look at life as an experience to enjoy, and to change if you don’t. So, jobs, or time off, partners, or not, listen to the birds, enjoy the sun and the rain or even snow. Life can actually be that cabaret if you let it, or boring or short or whatever. We get one chance at it, as far as we know, and I see no reason to sit in a too small box because someone else told us that’s all there is.

  204. 204.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 4:43 pm

    @Nelle: Oh, please contact WaterGirl and ask to be connected to me & Ruckus! I already jotted down some questions, but I bet you would add a lot to that.

  205. 205.

    Ruckus

    May 8, 2023 at 5:00 pm

    @Nelle:

    The thread is the life you lead. It can be one color, one weave or it can be many colors, from fishing line to mooring line for a container ship. Some think one line is enough, some think there is no limit other than the next breath and whatever is in front of you.

  206. 206.

    narya

    May 8, 2023 at 5:16 pm

    @Ruckus: And some think they have identified the line, and then someone/something cuts that line. I added your comment’s sentences to the document I opened, btw . . .

  207. 207.

    Matt McIrvin

    May 8, 2023 at 5:23 pm

    @Roger Moore: The Vice-President is the presiding officer over the actual electoral count in the joint session of Congress to count the votes. I think the idea was originally that Pence was simply going to assert the authority to substitute Trump’s fake electors for the real ones in the count, but Pence correctly realized that was bullshit and wouldn’t do it.

  208. 208.

    SuzieC

    May 8, 2023 at 6:02 pm

    @Matt McIrvin: The fake elector scheme was stupid bullshit from Day One and now almost all participants find themselves in danger of criminal indictment.

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