Nah, I just don't buy into liberal side-shows that matter to no one. If there was even a tenth of the energy invested into, I dunno, Pelosi's insider trading, or the treatment of Julian Assange, or the general political rot that is the democratic party as a whole - things that matter and have widespread, systematic ramifications for people who live real lives and don't magpie themselves to the latest shiny spectacle involving men in camo dress-up - maybe it might be OK to let this shit fly. — StreetlightX

You think Pelosi's insider trading matters but that a violent attempt to prevent the certification of the Presidential election doesn't?

If you think Jan 6 was ever even remotely a genuine threat to the certification of the Presidential election than it deserves to have been one.

By contrast, Pelosi's insider trading is a real thing.

If you think Jan 6 was ever even remotely a genuine threat to the certification of the Presidential election than it deserves to have been one.

By contrast, Pelosi's insider trading is a real thing. — StreetlightX

The attack was a real thing as well. People were hurt. It might not have had a chance of succeeding, but it did far more harm than Pelosi buying or selling stocks with knowledge that few other people had.

Your priorities here really are bizarre.

but it did far more harm than Pelosi buying or selling stocks with knowledge that few other people had. — Michael

Really? You think a conflict of interest that directly plays into how a nation's laws are made - which itself is nothing but one case among others - is a minor trifle compared to a slightly outsized bar-room brawl? Nah, don't talk to me about priorities.

This is what I mean about people being really dumb and being sucked in to spectacle. Pelosi's insider trading is infinitely more harmful, with far broader and far more damaging systematic effects, than anything that happened on Jan 6. That people can't see this is completely wild.

Do you know why GoFundMe is your country's healthcare insurer? Hint: it isn't because of Jan 6.

There's a lot to unpack re the riot; how much of a threat it was, who or what exactly was it a threat to, how it's been used by various elements in both parties for political means, to what extent such use stratifies existing undesirable power structures, to what extent it's justified investigating publically and for how long etc etc. There's a huge number of forces at play and they're not all going in the same direction so much that they can be summed up in a simple idea like, the riot didn't matter and the dems are stupid.

Really? You think a conflict of interest that directly plays into how a nation's laws are made - which itself is nothing but one case among others - is a minor trifle compared to a slightly outsized bar-room brawl? Nah, don't talk to me about priorities. — StreetlightX

I think that the stock market is just a game that rich people play with each other and I don't care if a few hundred of them have advance knowledge to guide their buys and sells.

And I don't understand the connection between insider trading and legislation. I agree that the fact that they can trade at all will influence how they will legislate on certain issues, e.g. if they own stocks in a pharmaceutical company then they might be inclined to vote against anything that would lower the share price, but that's a separate issue to insider trading. I'd be in favour of banning them from trading for that reason.

And, as Baden mentioned, it's a mischaracterisation to describe the attack as a "slightly outsized bar-room brawl". The video above shows that.

Do you know why GoFundMe is your country's healthcare insurer? Hint: it isn't because of Jan 6. — StreetlightX

Not my country, but not because of insider trading either. I suspect it's because the majority of the politicians and/or their donors either don't want to see their taxes increased or because they own shares in health services. Or they just like the idea of poor people suffering.

There's a huge number of forces at play and they're not all going in the same direction so much that they can be summed up in a simple idea like, the riot didn't matter and the dems are stupid. — Baden

It's really not this big complex thing. Jan 6 was never a threat to anything resembling the American political system. Not even a little bit. It doesn't take a genius to know this. The discourse around this has been histrionic because it does nothing but obscure systemic issues in order to shunt them into some one-time event where the Goodies can fight the Baddies and the Goodies can come out on top. You're right that summing it up like this is stupid, but that's exactly its role, and that's exactly the problem.

It's apolitical politics with exactly zero stakes, which is precisely why the dems and repubs can stand hand-in-hand solemnly finger-wagging at a bunch of dressed-up morons while the populace nod slowly along with weighty earnestness. Jan 6 is an excuse for the ruling class to array everyone against a convenient scapegoat, nothing more, and the faster it is treated that way, the better. It was a bit shit and sure they should probably all rot for a bit. Gotcha. Move on. Maybe to, I dunno, actual threats to the American political system. Economy-wide wage strike by employers, anyone? Kind of a big deal right now.

I think that the stock market is just a game that rich people play with each other and I don't care if a few hundred of them have advance knowledge to guide their buys and sells. — Michael

It's a game rich people play, yes - but the stakes are the lives of ordinary people. Unlike some inconsequential fracas by the Potomac.

I'm British. — Michael

Ah right, well, you'll be there soon then, right after the Tories are done with your NHS.

I took a rare look on Twitter yesterday just to analyze the cringe and I wasn’t disappointed. True believers and CNN talking heads were practically begging people to believe the narrative, speaking about their trauma, pretending those who died that day were not all Trump supporters.

They had a remembrance ceremony in Congress, of course, because a show must be made of it. Crypt-keeper Nancy Pelosi brought in musical guests during her remembrance of January 6th. The cringe makes it hard to watch.

I think that the stock market is just a game that rich people play with each other and I don't care if a few hundred of them have advance knowledge to guide their buys and sells. — Michael

It's a mistake to characterize it in this way. The conflicts of interest should be hammered over and over again, and they aren't. I've heard more about the death of Betty White.

The events of January 6th is interesting in that it shows just how desperate, angry, and misinformed people have become in the US. What Democrats don't care to ask in any serious way is why these conditions exist. Why, for example, are so many working people now loyal followers of a New York billionaire? It is certainly connected to the stock market.

It's apolitical politics with exactly zero stakes, — StreetlightX

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily.

The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected — and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic — StreetlightX

During the anniversary, Jan 6 has been represented as no less important than 9/11 or Pearl Harbour. It was not simply a stupid exaggeration or a misleading deception. On the contrary, it was an impressive demonstration and expression of an overwhelming mobilizing power achieved through spectacle. The prevailing narrative does not need ‘real facts’; the displayed effects entirely enact it. Further, the system would direct the accumulated force against Trump as its current real threat. Similar campaigns were organized before the appointment of Mueller as a special counsel, the two impeachments, and before the 2020 elections. Will Trump be indicted? Or, at least, will he be prevented from running in 2024? If Trump can launch his new social media platform, the struggle against him again will become the focus of US politics.

Similar campaigns were organized before the appointment of Mueller as a special counsel, the two impeachments, and before the 2020 elections. Will Trump be indicted? Or, at least, will he be prevented from running in 2024? — Number2018

That's what's nuts. There are plenty of reasons that Trump should hang from his neck until dead: his treatment of migrants, his persecution of Assange, his loosening of environmental controls, his enabling of white nationalism, his being a tool of corporate power, literally a hundred other things. But what does he get pinged on? "Russia", some stupid riot, saying dumb things. The truth is that if they actually went after anything substantial, they'd all have to hang too because the democrats fundamentally share the same policy positions as Trump with minor rhetorical changes. The kids are still in cages, the oil platforms are still being drilled, the genocidal state of Israel is still being showered with money, and the capitulation to corporate power has not changed one iota.

Jan 6 is an effort to draw a pseudo-bright line in the sand because if anyone looks too closely, they'd recognize that there is little too distinguish these power hungry fucks whose existence is harmful no matter what stupid colors they wear. The reason for the disproportionate hysteria over a three-hour nothingburger is because without this shit there is nothing to distinguish them and Americans might be in danger of actually recognizing that fact.

Like I'm sorry but anyone not embarrassed or outright laughing at this pseudo-gravitas ought to jump down a well and stay there forever. It's like something you find in a cheesy video game.

Will Trump be indicted? Or, at least, will he be prevented from running in 2024? — Number2018

His power over Congress stems from his popularity, obviously. Republican congressmen can't condemn him because he'll retaliate.

It's democracy.

Like I said - he's corrupted the entire electorate through his lies. He's using the powers of democracy against democracy, for his own interests.

Like I said - he's corrupted the entire electorate through his lies. He's using the powers of democracy against democracy, for his own interests. — Wayfarer

The danger I see in your thinking is acceptance of the notion that politicians don't usually lie.

obviously. Republican congressmen can't condemn him because he'll retaliate. — frank

Or Tucker Carlson will. Poor Ted...

Yep.

the capitulation to corporate power — StreetlightX

Less a capitulation than an expansion of government into the corporatosphere. A fourth, checkless and balanceless - Constitutionless - branch of government.

there is little too distinguish these power hungry fucks — StreetlightX

Bannon, with Gaetz and Taylor Greene, called it, on Bannon's 1/6 podcast, the "uniparty."

No, Michael Flynn insisted Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the voting machines and exactly what happened in swing states. — NOS4A2

Wrong, NOS, he specifically said to use the military.

You simply cannot deny that he asked for the military to be used do this, to confiscate the voting machines. Oh but you desperately think this is an counterargument:

Martial law has been instituted 64 times, Greg. So I'm not calling for that. We have a constitutional process."

Constitutional process where the military is involved in the election process...HAHAHA!!! :lol:

It seems more and more evident that there certainly was an attempt to stop the peaceful transition of power, and that that effort was coordinated on many levels, all of which were/are based upon false claims about the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. Those claims were the basis of over 60 different court cases, none of which survived the disclosure/evidentiary stage. Claims made. Evidence asked for. None offered. Case dismissed. Some of those attorneys have been found to have broken the ethics of the BAR and have been recommended for being disbarred as a result of knowing that there was insufficient evidence for the charges prior to wasting the courts' time.

Those claims are still being made as a means to manufacture public consent for all sorts of things.

The power of belief has been known by myself for quite some time. The Trump years have put it on display for all to see. For a half century, America has slid away from the importance of truth and truth telling, while having simultaneously exonerated, rewarded, and even glorified blatant deception and the telling of falsehoods...

Trump was not and is not the problem. He is a symptom.

He is a symptom. — creativesoul

I agree.

One huge example of the kind of "I'll see you in court"-type of American.

And this is the difference between Trump and the kind of leaders that do a (successful) self coup and snatch the power with force: Trump assumed he could use lawyers to do this, just as he has wiggled away from personal bankruptcies. Or basically, the people around him sold him the fairy tale that without evidence election results could be changed. The most telling example of Trump is the famous phone call where he pressures (or begs, basically) a state official "to find" 11000+ votes. That's the Trumpian version of a self coup.

I think the positive outcome of this debacle is that Americans have been now subjected to the possibility of a self coup or simply a leader rejecting election outcomes. This means that they won't be taken off guard like a "deer in the headlights" anymore if it happens again.

This means that they won't be taken off guard like a "deer in the headlights" anymore if it happens again. — ssu

More likely Americans now see how powerless they are against the force of a Big Lie when properly buttressed by the media and Facebook.

He lost the reins of power but inducted tens of millions into his ludicrous simulacrum.

ssu - “Yeah, just an ex-National Security Advisor (and former US general) of Trump insisting that Trump should use the military to confiscate the voting machines.”

NOS4A2 = “No, Michael Flynn insisted Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the voting machines and exactly what happened in swing states.”

ssu - “You simply cannot deny that he asked for the military to be used do this, to confiscate the voting machines.”

General Flynn - “The things he needs to do right now is he needs to appoint a special counsel immediately; he needs to seize all of these dominion and these other voting machines we have across the country; he needs to go ahead and prioritize by state and probably by county—Fulton county and Maricopa county for example—exactly what they did up in Antrim county, Michigan, and what they discovered; I think if he looks at probably a couple of random sampling of these counties he’s going to find exactly the same problem.”

https://www.newsmax.com/amp/politics/trump-election-flynn-martiallaw/2020/12/17/id/1002139/

Why won’t you state exactly what he did insist, instead of making it up?

Perhaps there will be less of a surprise.

The problem is that Trump and his supporters in the House and basically the entire right wing conservative media apparatus have convinced a very large portion of the American population that the election was stolen. That belief is false, yet it is no less a powerful one.



Generally speaking about one deeply embedded problem in American government...

Trump benefitted from the fact that America has the best system money can buy, and he did so from both sides of that corrupt reality. He bought politicians, and publicly bragged about it on national television in front of some of those who he had previously bought, in their presence no less. That happened during the public debate during the primary season of the election

The fact that were no objections to that was astonishing to me at the time.

Plutocracy is not the representative form of government set up by the Constitution. It is closer to what we have than one of officials who represent what's in the best interest of all Americans.

We no longer have a government that places the best interests of the overwhelming majority of Americans at the top of the priority list when making policy decisions. We legalized government bribery in the seventies by changing how it is described, in the guise of characterizing unlimited campaign contributions by very rich individuals as an exercise in an individual's first amendment rights to "free speech". Now there are all sorts of counterarguments that outright reject that argument and do so convincingly, but this is not he place or time. I digress, the SCOTUS set the precedent for legalized bribery to manifest with that decision. Then, president Nixon placed the attorney who argued that case on the court itself. A few years later the court then expanded the ability to bribe elected officials to include a corporation's ability, because corporations are people too. Then, of course, Citizen's United not that long ago...

The current American government is tremendously corrupt, and that is well known and out in the open. That common knowledge is part of what allowed Trump to rise in power amongst all those American citizens who've suffered the results of the aforementioned court cases.

Conflict of interest be damned...

The interests of very large corporations and wealthy donors took and are still currently taking precedent over the overwhelming majority even now. Look at the government response to the pandemic, or look at what has happened to legislation that would have tremendously improved American's lives and livelihoods in all sorts of ways that was completely funded by taxing the richest corporations and Americans(those making over half million per year.)

"It was no heroic storming of the Bastille. January 6th was a massive LARP that got out of hand. Trump has been around long enough for us to know his pattern as a serial line-crosser. Like a comedian, he’s always trying out new material, and if he gets the right reaction, he comes back with a bigger delivery next time. January 6th was Trump dipping a toe in the lake of strongman politics. The reason it wasn’t worse is because Trump has also been constantly mislabeled as a Hitler, Stalin, or Pinochet. The man has no attention span, no interest in planning or strategy, and most importantly, no ability to maintain relationships with the type of people who do have those qualities (like Steve Bannon). Even if he wanted to overturn “democracy itself” — I don’t believe he does, but let’s say — Trump has proven over and over he lacks the qualities a politician would need to make that happen.

Which brings us back to Cheney. All those things Trump is rumored to be, Dick Cheney actually is. That’s why it’s so significant that he appeared on the floor of the House yesterday to be slobbered over by the Adam Schiffs and Nancy Pelosis of the world. Dick Cheney did more to destroy democracy in ten minutes of his Vice Presidency than Donald Trump did in four years.

...It was under Cheney’s watch that we turned into a country that snatched people off the streets all over the world, put them in indefinite detention in an archipelago of secret hell-holes, threatened to rape their family members, and resorted to techniques like “rectal feeding” so often that one Guantanamo Bay prisoner had to bring a special pillow to sit in court. The core principle of Cheney’s politics was protecting his new bureaucracies of murder and open-ended detention from legal challenge. That meant creating structures that were legally invisible. Are you on a watch list? Has the FBI sent out a National Security Letter to your telecom provider? Have you been approved for “lethal action” and put on the “distribution matrix,” a.k.a. the kill list?."

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/a-tale-of-two-authoritarians?r=5mz1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

---

I'll say it again: the only reason why anyone gives a shit about Jan 6 like they do is class snobbery over the fact that a bunch of dirty rednecks dared to set foot into some marble halls, and the fact that Democrats, who are otherwise indistinguishable from Republicans except for flying rainbow flags and being more effective at ruining things, need some kind of differentiating signal to pretend that they aren't - and it is apparently working.

the democrats fundamentally share the same policy positions as Trump with minor rhetorical changes. — StreetlightX

On the contrary, there are substantial differences: in climate change and the energy sector (Trump’s withdrawal from Paris agreement), in foreign policies (termination of Iran Nuclear Deal, relations with allies), open vs. closed border policies (Trump’s construction of the wall, remain in Mexico programs), trade policies, and so on. Yet, likely, the discord between Trump and the elites is not entirely based on concrete policies. He has been met as a wholly alien and disastrous factor from the beginning. Thus, his presidency and popularity have been explained and displayed primarily through negative and affectively charged schemes. Trump’s populist strategies have been mirrored and used to accelerate the affective economy of resentment and rage, enacted with varying degrees of emotional and discursive brutality and violence. It has placed a bipolar ultimate distinction of superiority and inferiority, of true and false, good and evil, granting no space or legitimacy to the other side. In principle, both Trump and his enemies
operate the same dispositions of the contemporary political landscape.

There are plenty of reasons that Trump should hang from his neck until dead: — StreetlightX

an 6 is an effort to draw a pseudo-bright line in the sand because if anyone looks too closely, they'd recognize that there is little too distinguish these power hungry fucks whose existence is harmful no matter what stupid colors they wear. The reason for the disproportionate hysteria over a three-hour nothingburger is because without this shit there is nothing to distinguish them and Americans might be in danger of actually recognizing that fact. — StreetlightX

Jan 6 anniversary entirely enacts the dispositions of the current politics of affect. But to what extent your (supposedly critical) discourse here is different from the current dominant rhetoric? It also presupposes the existence of the ultimate truth behind the spectacle; it also aims at “the enemy” and appears as a decisive action.

the discord between Trump and the elites — Number2018

There is no discord between Trump and the elites, and the policy divergences you mention are minor blemishes backed up more by rhetoric than by action. What discord there has been is nothing other than intra-elite power struggle over who gets to sit in the shiny chair. Biden has been objectively worse on both immigration and select aspects of climate policy, and American foreign policy is contemptible no matter which imperialist goon is in charge. As someone else said, if Trump supporters were actually ideologically consistent and not brain-dead morons, they would all be Biden supporters, insofar as the latter can and has been delivering on Trump promises.

But to what extent your (supposedly critical) discourse here is different from the current dominant rhetoric? It also presupposes the existence of the ultimate truth behind the spectacle — Number2018

It presupposes that one is able to make judgements without being a sophist and a bore. If you have anything of interest to say, say it.

NOS4A2 = “No, Michael Flynn insisted Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the voting machines and exactly what happened in swing states.” — NOS4A2

"Within the swing states, if he wanted to, he could take military capabilities, and he could place those in states and basically rerun an election in each of those states. "

Flynn

But what does he get pinged on? "Russia", some stupid riot, saying dumb things. The truth is that if they actually went after anything substantial, they'd all have to hang too because the democrats fundamentally share the same policy positions as Trump with minor rhetorical changes...

Jan 6 is an effort to draw a pseudo-bright line in the sand because if anyone looks too closely, they'd recognize that there is little too distinguish these power hungry fucks whose existence is harmful no matter what stupid colors they wear. — StreetlightX

:100:

Jan 6th is, like Russia and Ukraine, a shiny object to distract Democrats and hopefully centrist/independents from the fact that the Democrats are continuing down Trump's ruinous path towards runaway climate change, white nationalism, militarization/colonialism, corporate welfare, and increasing wealth inequality and socioeconomic stratification. Without a useful enemy to prop up to rally the troops, people might start turning on the Dems.

Also a useful way to head off any burgeoning radicalism or revolutionary sentiment. By opposing the hated Trump (and Trump is scum, make no mistake) to things like the FBI and the national security apparatus, our absolute joke of a "democratic" electoral system, and so on, you've got liberals cheering for and supporting the sorts of things that, in a sane world, they'd be clamoring to tear down (like our batshit intelligence, law enforcement, and military programs).

Its just disappointing how easy Democrats and liberals have turned out to be to dupe and distract. Like, we all already knew conservatives were morons, but you would have liked to think at least some Dems were slightly less gullible.