• Benkei
    7.8k
    Likely. Nevertheless, I do think it would be the smart move for Republicans to support impeachment of Trump and convict him not to every hold picnic office to avoid a possible split of the Republican vote in the future.
  • Benkei
    7.8k
    Also Giuliani needs to be prosecuted with his "trial by combat" comment.
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    With Trump banned from Twitter and Facebook, shall we invite him to TPF?
  • Wheatley
    2.3k

    Nah, I think he'd be better off at Infowars.
  • Wayfarer
    22.8k
    They probably won't allow him a computer in prison.
  • Michael
    15.8k
    Police found a pickup truck full of bombs and guns near Capitol, feds say

    US Capitol rioters with zip ties

    Also from the Snopes link, 'Jim Bourg, a Reuters news pictures editor who was at the Capitol that day, tweeted that he heard at least three rioters say they “hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor.”'
  • Benkei
    7.8k
    Well, that didn't take long.

    https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-biden-cites-goebbels-and-nazi-propaganda-techniques-when-asked-about-hawley-and-cruz-1.9436593

    He could've made the point without mentioning Goebbels because Hawley and Cruz are scum.
  • Benkei
    7.8k
    There will definitely be some convictions of regular folks soon and those fucking charlatans in Congress and the White House won't notice a thing, when we all know real culpability resides there.
  • ssu
    8.7k
    That's the disgusting part of this. As I said, Cruz has already referred to his former supporters as terrorists. Yet on the other hand, there of course will be absolutely no "healing", no rapprochement, nothing of that sort what Biden earlier talked about.

    And of course for the conspiracy theorists, the reaction from the government will be the proof that "they were all along right".

    I think the next phase is that we will really start to see a dose of true terrorism as the delusional fringes of the Trump crowd believe that the civil war has already started in Weimar America. Terrorists live in their hallucinations. It's only going to get worse, actually.

    Wonder what the Covid-era, post Trump insurrection-era inauguration will look like. Talk about security then.
  • FreeEmotion
    773
    While we all seem to agree that Trump voters made an exceedingly poor choice in voting for Trump, there are ample good reasons for voters to be reaching beyond the traditional political class.Hippyhead

    That is absurd. 80% or more were approving of him after 4 years. Does that sound like a poor choice? Not from their point of view, and your point of view is just your opinion. Check out who won most admired person of the year, yes I cannot believe it myself.
  • Hippyhead
    1.1k
    In this we share delusional thinking with people who think that through hard work and inspiration they will become rich, maybe as rich as Elon Musk or Bill Gates.Bitter Crank

    Just quibbling with this a tiny bit. In 1995 I was hanging wallpaper for a living, making just enough to pay my modest bills and that's it. By 2000 I'd created a net startup and sold it to a "big dog", and have been retired since. Nothing vaguely close to Elon Musk or Bill Gates, just rich by wallpaper hanger standards. :-) To be accurate, I then tried to repeat this success and utterly failed.

    Point being, there is a lot of opportunity in America, and hard work and inspiration does sometime pay off. NPR has a show called "How I Built This" with many come from nowhere stories similar to mine, except far more successful.

    The American dream is not dead. There are LOTS of people who started off as a plumber's helper and then went on to own their own plumbing company with a hundred employees.

    As rich as Bill Gates? Yea, that's a fantasy 99.99% of the time.
  • SophistiCat
    2.2k
    It seems like the only two plausible outcomes are that Republicans let their party be completely consumed by insane Trumpers, or else the party splits.Pfhorrest

    Party members at a gathering of the Republican National Committee endorsed President Trump as the man to lead the party forward, ignoring the turmoil in Washington.NYT

    There was the Tea Party (remember the Tea Party?), there was Trump in 2016, who at the outset was opposed by many in the Republican establishment - the party persevered. I don't see that changing now.

    The Right are authoritarian by their nature. All their rhetoric notwithstanding, they have no higher principle than Power. They will support anyone who manages to seize and consolidate power - be it Trump or Putin or...
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    I spent the evening glued to the news and was disappointed with the reactionary response to the protest, which not only condemned the violence, but also the spirit. All that hogwash about an assault on “the citadel of liberty” and "democracy" was laughable, especially given that for the last 4 years we’ve been taught that violent protest was the surest expression of the voiceless.NOS4A2

    I'm guessing there's no point pointing out that a) an election not going your way is not comparable to your friends and family and neighbours being murdered by the people sworn to protect them in terms of a cause, or b) the hypocrisy you're alleging is precisely your hypocrisy, insofar as you condemned BLM protests following another swathe of lethal police brutality against black people for violating the rule of law and now proclaim the spirit of using lethal and destructive violence to halt democracy as somehow beyond judgment.
  • Kenosha Kid
    3.2k
    The Right are authoritarian by their nature. All their rhetoric notwithstanding, they have no higher principle than Power. They will support anyone who manages to seize and consolidate power - be it Trump or Putin or...SophistiCat

    Agreed, and I think what concerns me more than Trump, who might just have been an anomalous evil blip, is the trajectory of Republican leadership, from Nixon, through Reagan, through the Bushes, to Trump. In the orange light of Trump, Dubbya seems such a decent, grounded, competent guy, buddying with Obama and Biden on pro-vaccine and anti-Trump publicity that it's easy to forget what an appalling President he was.

    One can hope that the two benefits of Trump's abject Presidency were: 1) the ending of the backroom neo-con power he would never have accepted, not because it was wrong, but because it wasn't about Trump, and 2) the villification of Trump and anyone like him. But it just seems hard to swallow that after over half a century of backing corrupt, authoritarian, backward morons, the Republicans are suddenly going to present anything like a sane, competent leader anytime soon.
  • Tobias
    1.1k
    I spent the evening glued to the news and was disappointed with the reactionary response to the protest, which not only condemned the violence, but also the spirit. All that hogwash about an assault on “the citadel of liberty” and "democracy" was laughable, especially given that for the last 4 years we’ve been taught that violent protest was the surest expression of the voiceless. Perhaps if the Trumpers burned down innocent people’s businesses and looted Target the politico-media class would paint a different picture.

    For once it was aimed at the guilty. Seeing the picture of lawmakers cowering behind their benches and their armed guards reminded me that these are the people that send young men and women to war. (“Lawmaker” is a specious term. They do not write our laws—hell they don’t even read them—they just sign whatever lands at their desk, more evidence that this “citadel of liberty” is a citadel of incompetence and corruption). And until now, our lawmakers have been mostly insulated from the pestilence they’ve let loose upon the country.
    NOS4A2

    I agree partially with you NOS actually. There are multiple levels of analysis here. At the highest level (the level of spirit ;) ) one may say that the BLM protesters and Trumpers share similarities. It is a backlash against a system that is stacked against both groups, albeit in different ways. The working class, even the middle class have legitimate gripes against the system that governs currently. It is actually a bloody shame that even during a pandemic the amount of millionaires has risen whereas a great many people see their livelihood in danger. And well that increasing gap is partially due to the policies that come from the Capitol and the government buildings of other places. So yes, there is a legitimate outpouring of anger and maybe a revolutionary spirit, Streetlight also alluded to that in earlier posts. Indeed the situation is so polarized that angered groups turn to violence. Now violence of course has indeed always been the means of the masses to effectuate social change. Libertte, egalite and fraternite did not come about in the ballot box, indeed even universal suffrage is the result of violence.

    Indeed the reporting on such events is by and large 'conservative' and anti-revolutionary, also here I agree with NOS. Especially when such revolutionary attempts have a chance at succeeding one will see that vested interests in the status quo will vilify them. I was rather amazed with CNN's reporting of the event. In every sentence the name Trump was mentioned, they also had to mention what a terrible person he was, lest we would not get the message. In my view that is not needed and only plays into the hands of those saying that 'the media' is against them.

    Where I disagree is the ease with which you equivocate one protest with another. As Praxis pointed out, the Trumpers proclaimed the Capitol to be 'their house!'. Now would a BLM protester do that and what would we think when he/she would. If he would I would find that a hopeful sign because it means she still saw himself a part of mainstream society and did feel that the representatives ruled in her or his name. My hunch is she he would not. In a sentiment I would totally understand, he might well consider it a long standing symbol of oppression. The point is that where white working and middles classes have legitimate bones to pick, the black working and middle classes have those to a much greater degree. The system is much more stacked against them than against Trump's supporters.

    That partially explains the different types of violence and the different targets. Looting is a sign that one wants stuff that one cannot have but others do. The stores for the rich are just as much of a legitimate target as is the Capitol because in the eyes of many protesters they are just as guilty. They benefit from the unequal opportunity structure. (That is not saying I approve of it, I am merely trying to understand) The opportunities is what the Trumpers have more than the BLM protester (of course not all, it is a generalisation as you have underestood I guess). What the Trumper wants is direct influence on government and he is actually against the new government because he fears for his advantaged position. That makes the Capitol the prime target. The Trumper is afraid of losing a certain position and entitlement. On the level of spirit it might well be a revolution, on the level of ideology where these different groups fight for the Trump storm is actually a counter revolution. Trumpers intend to stop the wheel of change, which as they rightly perceive is not running in their direction.

    The difference is actually starkly seen in the difference in deployment at BLM protesters and Jan 6. The level of oppression perceived as needed to quell BLM protests is far higher than at Trump rallies apparently. Could it be that that is the case because the Trumpers are still seen as people still benefited by the system whereas the BLM protester is not? They were wrong, they underestimate the level of fever and anger that can be instilled by national populists, but essentially that is the difference. That also explains why BLM protests lingered on and these will not. Trumpers still have far more to lose.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k

    Exactly what in the Biden administration would take away the advantaged position? Public health care? Immigration?

    I'm not sure your theory of their gripes is really the case. It's more about some weird cultural identity for the Trumpers. The moderate repubs just think taxes will be kept lower (which they won't.. just be more deficits as happened under Trump). So, it's actually a lot of bullshit based on bullshit for what exactly hardcore Trump fans want.. It's a lot of conspiracy theory perhaps and fantasy but not much to do in reality with what you said.

    If the Trumper movement was about anti-corruption.. Trump is more corrupt than all the insider politicians so don't know what that's about either. My theory is people like leaders that act like dicks. They want an idiot boss that just rules by force of personality and not reasoned understanding.
  • _db
    3.6k
    My theory is people like leaders that act like dicks. They want an idiot boss that just rules by force of personality and not reasoned understanding.schopenhauer1

    From Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism:

    I believe that the ideas that underlie fascist actions are best deduced from those actions, for some of them remain unstated and implicit in fascist public language. Many of them belong more to the realm of visceral feelings than to the realm of reasoned propositions. In chapter 2 I called them "mobilizing passions":

    • a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond the reach of any traditional solutions;
    • the primacy of the group, toward which one has duties superior to every right, whether individual or universal, and to the subordination of the individual to it;
    • the belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action, without legal or moral limit, against its enemies, both internal and external;
    • dread of the group's decline under the corrosive effects of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;
    • the need for closer integration of a purer community, by consent if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary;
    • the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's historical destiny;
    • the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason;
    • the beauty of violence and the efficacy of will, when they are devoted to the group's success;
    • the right of the chosen people to dominate others without restraint from any kind of human or divine law, right being decided by the sole criterion of the group's prowess within a Darwinian struggle.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    Besides the identity politics I had no problem with the anti-police protests, many of which were justified, many of which were not. My problem was with the riots, especially wherever they were directed towards the innocent. The arson, looting, and violence towards fellow citizens and their property is obscene to me. 25 Americans lost their lives and there was over a $1 billion in damage, all of which the tax-payer must pay for. It is possible that many cities will not be able to recover. So much for justice.

    The simplest explanation for the disparity between the police response to BLM protests and the Trump protest is that the anti-police protests have long proven to get violent and lead to riot, whereas Trump protests have not. There is nothing wrong with being prepared. The attempt by the DNC and the gutter press to mix race into it is specious at best. After the Trump protest in Washington the disparity will completely reverse.

    But the most obvious disparity is in the cultural response. Trump has already been banned from social media for “incitement to violence” whereas BLM, its leaders, its countless enablers have not. In fact, they received corporate donations in the countless of millions, and support from virtue signallers world wide. (We cannot know whether companies like Apple donate because they believe in the cause or because they didn’t want their apple stores looted). The one Trumpist riot is panned as violent rebellion while a wide variety of euphemism is used to explain away the hundreds of BLM riots.

    I just don’t get it.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    the need for authority by natural chiefs (always male), culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnating the group's historical destiny;
    the superiority of the leader's instincts over abstract and universal reason;
    darthbarracuda

    Yeah those seem to fit.. Though Trump is more of a loud-mouth idiot boss-type. Emperor has no clothes, etc.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k

    President/executive branch dog-whistling to known fanatic followers to march on the legislative branch..

    If you can't tell the difference between that an other type of protest/riots, then you are indeed the trolliest of trollers.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    President/executive branch dog-whistling to known fanatic followers to march on the legislative branch..

    If you can't tell the difference between that an other type of protest/riots, then you are indeed the trolliest of trollers.

    You’re shown so-called dog-whistles while his talk of peaceful protest is omitted, then you carry on in faith.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    You’re shown so-called dog-whistles while his talk of peaceful protest is omitted, then you carry on in faith.NOS4A2

    When the consequences are closer to home.. he does some self-preservation, like a little bitch. Then he goes back to being a dick again.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Besides the identity politics I had no problem with the anti-police protests, many of which were justified,NOS4A2

    I agree. I have no problem with protesting the systemic police brutalization and harassment of Black Americans, but once you add identity politics to the mix, count me out!
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    I’m not racist enough to limit justice to this or that racial group.
  • Maw
    2.7k
    Just racist enough to ignore disproportionate injustice then
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    No, I limit injustice to individual cases of injustice, which doesn’t involve any reference to a racist hierarchy within Maw’s mental apartheid.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k

    So.. the civil rights movement wasn't about a group of people that were being discriminated against because of a category called race? And because some (liberal) legislation was passed in the US, do you think that stopped racism? Poof! It just went away by the Civil Rights and Voting Rights act (that's assuming you at least believed that legislation was necessary)? Centuries of Jim Crow, red lining, and de facto discrimination was just wiped out?

    It's easy to pretend history doesn't matter.. as if there wasn't hard won political events that led to someone like you pretending everything is just about individual acts of discrimination.
  • NOS4A2
    9.3k


    They certainly were being discriminated against, and this discrimination was compelled by racist superstition. So I see no benefit in carrying this same racist superstition into the future, especially after the hard-fought battles against it.
  • schopenhauer1
    11k
    They certainly were being discriminated against, and this discrimination was compelled by racist superstition.NOS4A2

    Phew.. at least you agree with that.

    So I see no benefit in carrying this same racist superstition into the future, especially after the hard-fought battles against it.NOS4A2

    This is vague troll-speak. Don't know what you are saying. You didn't address what I said... especially this part:
    And because some (liberal) legislation was passed in the US, do you think that stopped racism? Poof! It just went away by the Civil Rights and Voting Rights act (that's assuming you at least believed that legislation was necessary)? Centuries of Jim Crow, red lining, and de facto discrimination was just wiped out?

    It's easy to pretend history doesn't matter.. as if there wasn't hard won political events that led to someone like you pretending everything is just about individual acts of discrimination.
    schopenhauer1
  • tim wood
    9.3k
    The one Trumpist riot is panned as violent rebellion while a wide variety of euphemism is used to explain away the hundreds of BLM riots.... I just don't get it.NOS4A2

    Here you have it, folks. Again, of course, but pretty obviously this time. Nos4 cannot tell the difference between BLM demonstrations and Trump's whatever you care to call it. Stupid, ignorant, vicious. Not often that's so well blended.
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