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A police officer friend with 20 years of crowd control experience told me that the preparations looked criminally negligent. I believe that this was done on pu

A police officer friend with 20 years of crowd control experience told me that the preparations looked criminally negligent. I believe that this was done on purpose with full knowledge that these events were likely to occur. If crowd control and security are your job, there are only two explanations: you are horrible at your job, or, you did this on purpose with bad intentions.

Ericson2314 6y ago
Yes! The police are overrun with right wingers. With competent policing, this would have been just an ordinary protest. Everyone needs to ignore the mob and look at the cops. That's where the story is.
- mistermann 6y ago
  The right wing racist meme is one possible explanation, but not the only one. I say let's see if any journalists have any curiosity and do some investigation, or if we instead just get a coordinated full court press of the right wing racist narrative.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    Right now the full court press, if any, is the centrists agape at trumpists and bemoaning the collapse of norms. I see a lot of "gross hoi polloi" vs "those decent bipartisans who will restore the good old times". That's not investigating the cops either. That's self-serving uncritical thinking looking at the outcome and ignoring what we know about the inputs.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  I think that's basically true of the all the triple letters too - partly why the idea that the FBI investigating the trump's being a liberal stitch-up is so vacuous.
- disgrunt 6y ago
  Let's go with that theory. Did these right wing cops help the right wing cause by allowing this incident to get out of hand?
rmrfstar 6y ago
I also understood this as an instance of the security state threatening Congress. The police were saying, "Don't even think about de-funding or reforming us." DC police spend $210k/employee. 80% of its 2500 employees are "sworn officers," whatever the heck that means.
conanbatt 6y ago
As someone that has experienced a civilian coup in argentina, this is my first question. Trump has all to lose and nothing to gain from this event. But the opposition, and the anti-T republican party gains everything. The concerted Goog, facebook and Twitter censorship, something that would have been impossible to do 6 months ago now clamored if not sanctioned politically. Civilian coups are very different from military coups. Military ones are easy to understand: the guy with the gun did it. Civilian coups happen when a majority or at least a great amount of people agree with what is happening so are willing to go along with the situation. Trump is an idiot and gave a massive opening here. But the fact that there is so much consensus on what's happening next is not a defense of institutions, specially if this was sparked.
Spooky23 6y ago
You could see that the Capitol police were left hanging — they didn’t have the force necessary to protect the Congress and the building. Obviously POTUS was doing whatever was necessary to maximize the drama. But there should be a through investigation to identify collaborators in government. We’re fortunate that many of the more ambitious people (the guy with the goat horns, etc) were obviously pretty crazy and disorganized. I hope puts together an independent commission and prosecutor to make defense of the district more robust against this sort of threat. Maybe investing governor-like powers or elevating DC to statehood or some other form of government would be a start, so that the city administration could override a madman like POTUS.
noodles_nomore 6y ago
The most interesting thing about this incident is that it's a repeat of what happened earlier, late last year, in Germany.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Yes! The police are overrun with right wingers. With competent policing, this would have been just an ordinary protest. Everyone needs to ignore the mob and look at the cops. That's where the story is.

mistermann 6y ago
The right wing racist meme is one possible explanation, but not the only one. I say let's see if any journalists have any curiosity and do some investigation, or if we instead just get a coordinated full court press of the right wing racist narrative.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  Right now the full court press, if any, is the centrists agape at trumpists and bemoaning the collapse of norms. I see a lot of "gross hoi polloi" vs "those decent bipartisans who will restore the good old times". That's not investigating the cops either. That's self-serving uncritical thinking looking at the outcome and ignoring what we know about the inputs.
mhh__ 6y ago
I think that's basically true of the all the triple letters too - partly why the idea that the FBI investigating the trump's being a liberal stitch-up is so vacuous.
disgrunt 6y ago
Let's go with that theory. Did these right wing cops help the right wing cause by allowing this incident to get out of hand?

rmrfstar 6y ago

I also understood this as an instance of the security state threatening Congress. The police were saying, "Don't even think about de-funding or reforming us." DC police spend $210k/employee. 80% of its 2500 employees are "sworn officers," whatever the heck that means.

conanbatt 6y ago

As someone that has experienced a civilian coup in argentina, this is my first question. Trump has all to lose and nothing to gain from this event. But the opposition, and the anti-T republican party gains everything. The concerted Goog, facebook and Twitter censorship, something that would have been impossible to do 6 months ago now clamored if not sanctioned politically. Civilian coups are very different from military coups. Military ones are easy to understand: the guy with the gun did it. Civilian coups happen when a majority or at least a great amount of people agree with what is happening so are willing to go along with the situation. Trump is an idiot and gave a massive opening here. But the fact that there is so much consensus on what's happening next is not a defense of institutions, specially if this was sparked.

Spooky23 6y ago

You could see that the Capitol police were left hanging — they didn’t have the force necessary to protect the Congress and the building. Obviously POTUS was doing whatever was necessary to maximize the drama. But there should be a through investigation to identify collaborators in government. We’re fortunate that many of the more ambitious people (the guy with the goat horns, etc) were obviously pretty crazy and disorganized. I hope puts together an independent commission and prosecutor to make defense of the district more robust against this sort of threat. Maybe investing governor-like powers or elevating DC to statehood or some other form of government would be a start, so that the city administration could override a madman like POTUS.

noodles_nomore 6y ago

The most interesting thing about this incident is that it's a repeat of what happened earlier, late last year, in Germany.