You "think" the end goal is domination? This is someone who incited an violent insurrection to try and override a presidential election and has called king, posted illustrations of himself wearing a crown, and has (again) openly talked of not leaving office.
This is a shameful false equivalency. In the puppet president scenario you outline, the blast radius is, at worst, 4 years? In the case of an insurrection to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, there is a generation or more of democratic order lost.
That depends entirely on your context and frame of reference.
You're describing the blast radius of what was possible in the past assuming that one president was willing to usurp power but only for one term.
In reality, we did go 4 years with a president who wasn't in charge, at least for part of that term, specifically because the public was lied to about his health and some small number of people his the truth. We did not go through 4 years of a presidency after one very much seemed to attempt to take the office despite having lost the election.
In both cases I take huge issue with the intent and the potential outcome. In one case, though, the outcome was real and I lived, for a time, in a presumably democraric society ruled by someone(s) who weren't elected while the one who was elected decreased mentally and physically beyond the ability to rule.
They’re different orders of magnitude. Biden was elected legitimately. Parties can nominate whoever they want, so shenanigans with primaries, while distasteful, are completely legitimate. Likewise, keeping Biden’s mental state from the public is ugly but legitimate. Voters can, and did, punish these actions.
Trump tried to cheat his way to keeping power. Even if you don’t blame him for the violent attempt, it’s well established that he made major efforts before that to change the outcome by more peaceful means that were just as illegitimate.
Playing stupid games within the system means you lose elections and either reform or get replaced. Playing stupid games subverting the system means you don’t have to worry about elections anymore if you succeed. I’m about a million times more concerned about the latter.
Do you not believe Trump was elected legitimately? I totally understand and share many of the concerns over the insurrection and what happened around it, but Trump didn't take office in 2020 and wasn't reelected until 2024.
I must have misread you last comment. I read this as a comparison implying that Biden wasn't legitimately elected but you just meant it to set up the point.
If it’s not an insurrection what it is? What is the organization of thousands of individuals to invade the capital building in protest of election results?
Just because it failed, doesn’t mean it wasn’t an insurrection.
Words like "protest" or "riot" leap to mind. It is more comparable to something like CHAZ in 2020 which could technically be called an insurrection or rebellion, but realistically was more of an unruly protest.
An insurrection would traditionally involve a little planning and a little more seriousness in the attempt. Maybe a plan that could conceivably lead to a change in government.
Obviously. All riots are technically insurrections. They're synonyms. And they are usually protests too; it'd be unusual to have a riot while agreeing with the current direction of the government.
> A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people.
> Uprisings which revolt, resisting and taking direct action against an authority, law or policy
See? Riots are by definition rebellions. They're both words for resisting legitimate authority. How do you expect there to be a riot that isn't an insurrection? That's why the lefties aren't getting much pushback on calling it an insurrection. Its a riot. Everyone agrees. Insisting that it use a specific word instead of the usual one is playing a bit of a game to pretend that it is some sort of special riot which is where the pushback starts; but there isn't any question that it is technically an insurrection - all riots are small insurrections.
Try as I might, I really can't understand this mindset. What drives some very reasonable and intelligent people to keep trying to deny and deflect that J6 was not an attempt to prevent a peaceful transfer of power?
Please stop. This is a topic that people have been saying the same things about for over four years. It's not a good topic for HN as people only bring it up for the purpose of ideological battle, which is against the guidelines.
Please stop. This is a topic that people have been saying the same things about for over four years. It's not a good topic for HN as people only bring it up for the purpose of ideological battle, which is against the guidelines.
So you're saying giving a speech with war-like symbolism ("if you don't fight like hell", "we will never give up. We will never concede" "we will stop the steal", "we are going to the capitol") to a crowd which he knew contained people ready for violence, is escalation? Where is the proof that there were federal agents inciting violence (I thought it was Antifa agents? The story changes all the time...).
Does similar Democrat language around BLM at the time of CHAZ/CHOP mean Democrats encouraged insurrection?
Unlike Jan 6th, the CHAZ rioters brought rifles, organized a standing militia, and murdered someone to assert control of the area they seized — which seems distinctly more violent.
Why is the president of the US trolling his own citizens that he will ignore the constitution and act as king a desirable thing, exactly? What is the desired outcome of doing this?
Trump is the one who started it by refusing to acknowledge Biden won a fair election. He whipped his supporters into a frenzy believing the election had been stolen. The reason he didn't use the military is he didn't think they would obey him. It's different now as loyalists have been put in charge.
