"Other than that one incident, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
The imagined question of Abraham Lincoln's wife is a classic cliche/joke intended to make a simple point. Some incidents define an event, and it is ridiculous to try to change the focus away from it.
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The “coup” story took off with the abject lie that was the murder of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick via a fire extinguisher—he died of natural causes—and has steadily diminished ever since.The comment calls the Capital insurrection "mischief" and says what was "reprehensible" was the location, not its broader purpose of intimidating members of Congress and the Vice President into overturning the presidential election. The comment includes the justification for minimizing a coup d'état: The media is untrustworthy and we didn't really see violence there; that the alternative to Trump is socialist Bernie Sanders so extraordinary efforts are reasonable; that the left moralizes irritating and offensive woke ideas; and that Democrats are unpopular and going to be voted out anyway. Biden's unpopularity means that Trump staying in office, however done, is a reflection of the public will, not an attack on democracy.
A group of Trump louts committed trespass and criminal mischief in a shocking and reprehensible location….and to date that’s the full extent of the connected criminal convictions. It’s a soufflé.
What’s most amusing about the conceit that Republicans have gone crazy Right is that in 2021 the elder statesman and lead negotiator for the Democrats is ersatz communist loon Bernie Sanders.
Unless something odd occurs in the next several months, Democrats will soon lose 40 seats in the House and likely Senate control as well. Most Americans are not ingrates nor moralizing pharisees.
Michael Pence made the same points on Fox last night. He said the media is untrustworthy and Biden is a socialist. The January 6 incident was unfortunate, but he is looking forward, and not fixated on the reality that Trump demanded that he discard electoral votes for Biden. Ignore that. In 2022, Pence said, the GOP will retake the House and Senate and in 2024 "we will take our country back." January 6 was an isolated incident and Democrats are being offensive. Pence said,
They want to use that one day to try and demean the character and intentions of 74 million Americans who believed we could be strong again and prosperous again and supported our administration in 2016 and 2020.
It does not take extraordinary investigative reporting nor the revelation of some "smoking gun" on secret tape recordings to describe Trump's efforts as an attempt to reverse an election to stay in power. Trump claims it, proudly. He predicted it before the election. He did it on election night. He publicly urged legislatures and governors to do it in the weeks after the election. He begged his Justice Department to do it. He publicly urged the Supreme Court to do it because they owed him for appointing them. He does it in rallies currently. The simple reality is that the January 6 was not an isolated incident nor an aberration, nor Halloween "mischief." It was citizens doing what Trump urged them to do, to go to the Capitol and "be strong" and to persuade Republican officeholders to overturn the election. It was part of the Trump's plan, a plan acceptable to tens of millions of Americans today, and therefore a plan officeholders cannot openly condemn if they hope to stay in good Republican graces.
Thoughtful people who write comments here, and officeholders who go on television trying to make sense of January 6 have a messaging problem. The reality is that Trump openly advocated overthrowing the election, a coup d'état. The message they are comfortable projecting is that Trump and his supporters are loyal, upstanding Americans.
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| Distraction flares. |
17 comments:
Forger handbook 101: “stick to the lie, “ except at sentencing before a judge. Why admit guilt then? Because if your still not admitting the truth, your likely to reoffend.
For all other teaching points on how to be a successful liar, model your behavior after master of deceit, Donald Trump.
Peter spells it out well. Trump’s coup attempt is a matter of public record. Besides inciting a riot, he illegally pressured legislators and election officials to invalidate the election results. Some tried, including our own newly elected representative. The GOP is doing everything possible to not only prevent him from being held accountable, but lay the groundwork for actually overturning the next election if they don’t like the results.
Republicans embrace Trump’s sedition and pathological lies because like attracts like. Their contempt for facts is evident right here, from the inarticulate rants of Anonymous to the pompous obfuscations of Low Dungeon.
The good news is that most Americans don’t support a totalitarian takeover. The bad news is that most Germans didn’t support Hitler either. It can happen here.
"Flairs from a fighter jet"???? Peter, that's a C-130 Hercules propeller driven cargo plane!! So much for your military bona fides.
John
First off, I'll hit upon what's least important--me myself. Some credentialing is necessary though, since self-identification midwifes content so much these days.
My name is Low Dudgeon, not Low Dungeon. My brother High is a staunch, lifelong Democrat. I am a lifelong Republican, albeit also a never-Trumper in 2016 and still.
Ongoing Democratic preoccupation with Trump is defensive projection. His rise is/was a symptom of their own diseased worldview, objectionable to most Americans.
Trump's sins are also the subject Democrats would must like to emphasize in the continued wake of perhaps the worst first year of any president in modern history.
Yes, the location of the 1/6 travesty underpins my use of "reprehensible". The very House was defiled, and our elected representatives endangered by a brutish mob.
The systematic, months-long looting and burning of cities by anarchic, police and America-hating BLM/Antifa hordes, however, was much more an existential threat.
Initial official lies notwithstanding, the only person killed on 1/6 was an unarmed vandal smashing windows with armed officers feet away on BOTH sides of a protected divide.
An attempted coup or insurrection by definition requires the intent to achieve the extralegal takeover of legitimate government by force or at least threat of force.
But Trump himself was desperate to implement any method by which his office could LEGALLY be extended. Attorney John Eastman concocted it, and Mike Pence demurred.
Had he not, the attempted "coup" (read: legal gimmick) would have lasted as long as it took the military to arrive and then SCOTUS to rule. Maybe an extra hour?
The dread "insurrectionists" left their guns in their cars for fear of punitive D.C. laws. Not a single mob gun was taken inside the Capitol. No double-parking either.
That small delusional cadre which was not just larking opportunistically had been infiltrated by the FBI, as with the Michigan governor kidnappers.
That's why the DOJ cannot bring or is dropping more serious charges. They cannot prove specific, coherent intent at "coup" or "insurrection", from Trump on down.
Mature American leftists should recall COINTELPRO, the Black Panthers, etc. You folks trusted establishment news reports of FBI/CIA activity then, right?
Did you folks trust the NYT, WaPo and CNN as Officer Sicknick's body lay in state at the Rotunda that he'd been brained by a fire extinguisher during a "coup"?
Comparison/contrast is not ipso facto distraction or "whataboutism". It's how we assess events and priotiies. Trump, like COVID, thankfully appears mostly history. Unless people of whatever stripe really need that not to be true...
Buried in the verbiage is Mr. Dungeon’s assertion that Trump’s attempted coup wasn’t what it was. A coup, by definition, is the seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction, the military, or a dictator. There’s no question that Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election, however clumsy, fits that description.
The odd thing about the 1/6 riot is that it wasn't the beginning of a wider series of similar events. This makes it easier to downplay the broader significance. It makes one wonder if a "stand down and stand by" order was transmitted afterwards. If we were seeing attacks at statehouses and elsewhere, Republican talking points would be blunted.
The other peculiar thing was that the rioters didn't use guns to attack the capital. I have not read that any of them are being charged with gun crimes. This suggests that some of them at least knew the risk of an armed assault. The absence of guns also makes it easier to muddle the intent after the fact.
Republicans put their toe over the line and now advocate violence and intimidation.
Given the opportunity they will again.
I removed a post that was attributed to Janet Stevens. It was written in the style of Curt Ankerberg, the persistent Republican office-seeker who a federal Tax Judge ruled was guilty of fraud, notwithstanding Ankerberg's defense that he was mentally impaired due to his brain damage. If in fact there is a real "Janet Stevens" who posted her comment in the Ankerberg style, she can contact me directly and identify herself and I will consider allowing her comments to remain published.
I'm sick of the constant "whataboutism" from you DG Republican Trumpists that mollycoddle every stinking thing that your GD party does. Your behavior is worse than treason. It is a cancer on our Republic. I suppose you've signed onto the idea that it's better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.
Burning cities is not the same thing as storming the Capitol on January 6th. All of these events in the past where property was destroyed by mob violence never rose to the level of a threat to the republic. Saying those events in the summer of 2020 are equivalent is a propagation of the Big Lie from Trump that somehow in the most secure election proclaimed by Trump's own cybersecurity expert, somehow he was cheated. But everything we have seen, including the Cyber Ninja showpiece in Arizona shows that Biden WON by even more votes than the initial report. Every single case taken to court by Trump was turned away. Not once was evidence ever taken before a judge showing voter tampering. It's a lie to say there was.
Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the 2024 Championship Presidential bout.
In this corner at 6'3", 77 years old and weighing in at 320 plus pounds is the former Presidential champion and conspirator, Pretty Boy Dic-ta-tor Don, leader of the easily fed and led MAGAs!
And in this corner at who knows how tall and at a younger age, weighing in at much less than his opponent De-mo-cra-tic X Factor, leader of the all too often silent majority.
Ladies and gentlemen, if this fight goes the full 15 rounds, the votes will be counted, recounted, tabulated, calculated, regurgitated, and confabulated twice before the winner is announced.
This fight is for all the marbles, ladies and gentlemen. May God help us all, every one.
Just one more small point. Low Dungeon attributes Trump’s rise to Democrats. For those unable to follow such convoluted logic, it goes something like this:
If Democrats hadn’t elected a black guy, white nationalists wouldn’t have gone berserk, taken over the Republican Party and made the biggest blowhard in the racist Birther movement its party leader. Therefore, Trump is all the Democrats’ fault.
It's crazy, but still a popular delusion.
Mr. Sage—
Corrections appreciated. You’ll also want to change “flairs” to “flares”.
Mike—
Not buried in your rejoinder is any indication that you grok those pesky legalities. Specific intent to overthrow illegally must be proven, and with more than the circumstantial assumptions of political opponents, however well-founded in a general sense. Rick W. despite himself sees this. A smoking gun could still be out there, but every month that’s increasingly unlikely. Trump was prepared to believe just about any spurious theory of fraud and election challenge—but that’s by definition not a coup, as in conscious awareness and purposive illegality. The DOJ 1/6 cases are rapidly diminishing, not staying form or expanding. Congressional Democrats themselves didn’t even have the guts or evidence to make the attempted “coup” one of the second impeachment’s specifications.
John F—
Of course the Floyd riots and 1/6 are not identical. Federal courthouses and police stations and mayoral residences are not identical to the Capitol, no. Otherwise, any comparison/contrast would be superfluous. If anything, though, the former are (to me) far worse and more widespread an assault on the rule of law and our institutions and traditions in American civil society—not exactly a high priority for leftists anyway in recent years. Finally, I made no claim about the election. Trump and his people had every chance to present their supposed evidence of fraud in courts, and they failed miserably.
Unknown—
Your own preoccupations with race, including it appears your own primary reason for voting Obama, is not binding on me. Obama did poke the vain monkey with that well-wrought and delivered roasting of Trump at the Correspondents’ dinner, but that’s not what I meant. Trump was Democrats’ fault because most Americans still believe, correctly, that this is easily the greatest nation humanity has produced. An uber-patriotic demagogue was predictable when most modern Democrats locate their supposed moral superiority not just by rejecting American exceptionalism but replacing with the childish canard that America is exceptionally bad. How many of the silly, overheated critics of Republicans haven’t a clue about the power words bandied about such as fascism, totalitarianism and authoritarianism, especially actual life under such regimes. Hannah Arendt should be required high school reading.
Mr. Dungeon has some interesting points:
Trump's coup attempt was no big deal because who cares.
Rioting in city streets is worse than terrorists, incited by a so-called president, attacking our Capitol.
Republicans aren't responsible for electing Trump - Democrats are.
If you can't dazzle them with your brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
Thank god, the cops did not do their duty and shoot the shit out of the trespassers . Most lone invaders of the WhiteHouse grounds find the bullet of the secret service. Firing live ammunition would have brought out all the concealed weapons in the crowd. Understaffed the cops experienced over 1000 injuries, missing fingers, eye loss, brain injury, permanent back injuries, and PTSD.
Actually, it was a nothing burger, a bad “B” movie with flags, chants and costumes without an ending to the plot to bring Big D back to power; it got all messed up because the suits ran and hid like pussies and finally the big boys galloped in with heavy weapons. The racist weenies sped home to watch their cellphone footage, pound their chests and have multiple orgasms while staring into their bathroom mirrors. Hawley thought he gave the Proud Boy salute but instead shot up a “black power” fist. Oh well, Republicans can’t tell a white sheet with a hood from a urban hoodie these days.
Low Dudgeon, thank you for your comments, and demonstration of critical thinking skills.
I'm neither a Trump supporter nor hater. I like many of thing he accomplished, and dislike many others.
We simply do not know how to deal with that type of political person.
I'd advise others that party registration doesn't always label what we believe or the policies we support. Because of all that labeling, there is a growing NAV segment that is important to watch. Some are single issue voters, while others can process the policies and promises made during the campaigns, as well as while serving.
No candidate can make everyone happy.
Republicans who claim not to like Trump (also known as Whackos In Name Only) seem to think that absolves them of any complicity in his madness. Newsflash: He's your party leader, which means that his party (that would be you) is as crazy as he is.
Mike--
Vis a vis M2inFLA's description and your latest effort, Q.E.D.
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