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Millions of Americans watched the Capitol insurrection play out live on tv. That has an impact on the national psyche that's very similar to a terrorist attack.

Millions of Americans watched the Capitol insurrection play out live on tv. That has an impact on the national psyche that's very similar to a terrorist attack. People aren't going to forget about it because we all witnessed it together. It's going to be the defining event of trump's presidency, whether you think that's fair or not

abduhl 6y ago
You honestly think that THE defining event of Trump's presidency is going to be the Capitol riot? You don't think it's the bungled response to coronavirus that landed us all locked up in our houses for over a year, the assassination of an Iranian leader on another sovereign's soil, the trade war with China, the tax reform bill he pushed through, the Mueller probe, the BLM protests, the "stolen" SCOTUS seats, or any number of other things he did? You think the defining moment of his presidency is something that he only tangentially had a hand in that resulted in a couple arrests and a stolen podium? That's a hot take.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Those are slow burns. The attack on the capital was a severe jolt to our national psyche. You may not want them to be different, but they are.
  - abduhl 6y ago
    I disagree. The things that happened at the Capitol stick out in your mind because they are the most recent thing that happened. Every moment I posted was hailed as "the most important thing to happen in our lifetime" when it occurred. This is one of the big problems with our society now: sensationalism rules and our collective memories are short. It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" as I stand in line for my bi-monthly mRNA booster shot that the newly appointed 99th Supreme Court Justice (after the Court has been packed, of course) has ruled is mandatory for all citizens.
    - rat87 6y ago
      those dudes who attempted a coup and got pretty close to a hostage situation or even assassinating the Vice President or congressmen This event made the US seem less like a super stable countries and more like one of those tin pot countries where coups frequently happen. Could it have succeed, probably not even if they did kill the VP but will we see more coup attempts is the real question
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" I betcha it's a Jeopardy clue in 50 years. "This president incited a riot that led to an invasion of the Capitol building for only the second time in its history". Assuming we have Jeopardy in 50 years, of course.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" as I stand in line for my bi-monthly mRNA booster shot that the newly appointed 99th Supreme Court Justice (after the Court has been packed, of course) has ruled is mandatory for all citizens. Well, yeah, all the stuff added to describe the context in which you would be remembering the events sounds pretty implausible.
    - notahacker 6y ago
      We remember Nixon for Watergate rather than how he normalised the relationship with China, ended the Vietnam War, floated USD and handled the Civil Rights movement despite all of that stuff having more long term consequences
- filoeleven 6y ago
  Wait a month or so: more arrests are coming, and it’s quite possible that members of Congress will be prosecuted for sedition. The Capitol insurrection was a culmination of 4 years of POTUS cultivating a rebellion. You’re right that those other events had broader effects on the world, and Americans in particular. I’d add leaving the Paris agreement to your list. But people respond to symbols, and the last capitol building breach was two centuries ago in 1814. The historians will take everything you mentioned into account—though Khashoggi’s murder and probably the tax cuts will get short shrift—and they’ll frame it all as pointing to an inevitable coup attempt. Though honestly, Jan 6 is probably only the beginning, given how many Americans are so invested in Trumpism. I expect more violence to come, so while his part is ending (he will likely be in prison soon) the fractures in the citizenry that he exposed and deepened are going to be with us for a while.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  How many of those other things was he impeached and subsequently condemned by the Republican floor leader in the Senate for?
  - abduhl 6y ago
    I didn't realize that Moscow Mitch was the bellwether of history.
    - three_seagrass 6y ago
      Being impeached twice is the landmark here. We're living some pretty important history as it's being written right now.
      - rtx 6y ago
        Yup, down fall of an empire. Don't fight it, world would be a better place afterward.
        LarvaFX 6y ago
        Would it? After the fall of rome we got the middle ages
  - thatcat 6y ago
    None of those threatened Senate directly. They are simply protecting themselves.
- Bakary 6y ago
  To be honest I had almost forgotten about many of these events until you mentioned them again. There are just so many things going on that it's hard to fixate too much on one thing. That said, humans tend to focus on both the beginning and end of a time-frame. In this case, the Capitol raid has a clear advantage over the other things you listed. The virus is in its own zone as far as memory is concerned. It's been going on for so long that it overshadows Trump to some extent
Izkata 6y ago
> It's going to be the defining event of trump's presidency, whether you think that's fair or not Trump's approval is not the lowest it's been during his presidency - it was lower in Dec 2017 [0], and even now at 39.2% it's almost twice that of Congress [1] at 20%. It doesn't seem to have hurt him all that much. If you look at favorability rather than job approval, it even seems to be almost unchanged [2], only having gone from 45% to 43%. And if you give any weight to Rasmussen, they have Trump's total approval going up since the 6th, from 47% to 51% [3]! [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/poll-of-the-week-congress-approval-rating/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/poll-of-the-week-con... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-trump-approval-remains-stable-republicans-unmoved-after-capitol-violence-n1254457 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-trump-a... [3] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/tru...
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Trump's approval is not the lowest it's been during his presidency In the Gallup poll it is [0], in the particular weighting and aggregation used by 538 it is not. > it's almost twice that of Congress Congress isn't a person, it's an aggregate, for which any voter will not have had a voice in selecting 532 of 535 voting members. Comparison of Congress’s approval ratings to the President’s are meaningless, and only ever resorted to by people trying to make horrendously unpopular Presidents look more popular than they are. > if you give any weight to Rasmussen, You probably shouldn't; they've always had a pro-Republican house effect as a pollster matching their editorial tilt, which isn't too worrying, but they’ve pretty overtly gone into hyperpartisan mode since the election. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-average-record-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-...
  - Izkata 6y ago
    I can't discount Rasmussen completely, because their presidential polling was among the most accurate in both 2016 and 2020.

abduhl 6y ago

You honestly think that THE defining event of Trump's presidency is going to be the Capitol riot? You don't think it's the bungled response to coronavirus that landed us all locked up in our houses for over a year, the assassination of an Iranian leader on another sovereign's soil, the trade war with China, the tax reform bill he pushed through, the Mueller probe, the BLM protests, the "stolen" SCOTUS seats, or any number of other things he did? You think the defining moment of his presidency is something that he only tangentially had a hand in that resulted in a couple arrests and a stolen podium? That's a hot take.

selectodude 6y ago
Those are slow burns. The attack on the capital was a severe jolt to our national psyche. You may not want them to be different, but they are.
- abduhl 6y ago
  I disagree. The things that happened at the Capitol stick out in your mind because they are the most recent thing that happened. Every moment I posted was hailed as "the most important thing to happen in our lifetime" when it occurred. This is one of the big problems with our society now: sensationalism rules and our collective memories are short. It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" as I stand in line for my bi-monthly mRNA booster shot that the newly appointed 99th Supreme Court Justice (after the Court has been packed, of course) has ruled is mandatory for all citizens.
  - rat87 6y ago
    those dudes who attempted a coup and got pretty close to a hostage situation or even assassinating the Vice President or congressmen This event made the US seem less like a super stable countries and more like one of those tin pot countries where coups frequently happen. Could it have succeed, probably not even if they did kill the VP but will we see more coup attempts is the real question
  - triceratops 6y ago
    > It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" I betcha it's a Jeopardy clue in 50 years. "This president incited a riot that led to an invasion of the Capitol building for only the second time in its history". Assuming we have Jeopardy in 50 years, of course.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > It's just hard for me to believe that in fifty years I'll be saying "oh boy you remember those dudes that broke into the Capitol?" as I stand in line for my bi-monthly mRNA booster shot that the newly appointed 99th Supreme Court Justice (after the Court has been packed, of course) has ruled is mandatory for all citizens. Well, yeah, all the stuff added to describe the context in which you would be remembering the events sounds pretty implausible.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    We remember Nixon for Watergate rather than how he normalised the relationship with China, ended the Vietnam War, floated USD and handled the Civil Rights movement despite all of that stuff having more long term consequences
filoeleven 6y ago
Wait a month or so: more arrests are coming, and it’s quite possible that members of Congress will be prosecuted for sedition. The Capitol insurrection was a culmination of 4 years of POTUS cultivating a rebellion. You’re right that those other events had broader effects on the world, and Americans in particular. I’d add leaving the Paris agreement to your list. But people respond to symbols, and the last capitol building breach was two centuries ago in 1814. The historians will take everything you mentioned into account—though Khashoggi’s murder and probably the tax cuts will get short shrift—and they’ll frame it all as pointing to an inevitable coup attempt. Though honestly, Jan 6 is probably only the beginning, given how many Americans are so invested in Trumpism. I expect more violence to come, so while his part is ending (he will likely be in prison soon) the fractures in the citizenry that he exposed and deepened are going to be with us for a while.
dragonwriter 6y ago
How many of those other things was he impeached and subsequently condemned by the Republican floor leader in the Senate for?
- abduhl 6y ago
  I didn't realize that Moscow Mitch was the bellwether of history.
  - three_seagrass 6y ago
    Being impeached twice is the landmark here. We're living some pretty important history as it's being written right now.
    - rtx 6y ago
      Yup, down fall of an empire. Don't fight it, world would be a better place afterward.
      - LarvaFX 6y ago
        Would it? After the fall of rome we got the middle ages
- thatcat 6y ago
  None of those threatened Senate directly. They are simply protecting themselves.
Bakary 6y ago
To be honest I had almost forgotten about many of these events until you mentioned them again. There are just so many things going on that it's hard to fixate too much on one thing. That said, humans tend to focus on both the beginning and end of a time-frame. In this case, the Capitol raid has a clear advantage over the other things you listed. The virus is in its own zone as far as memory is concerned. It's been going on for so long that it overshadows Trump to some extent

Izkata 6y ago

> It's going to be the defining event of trump's presidency, whether you think that's fair or not Trump's approval is not the lowest it's been during his presidency - it was lower in Dec 2017 [0], and even now at 39.2% it's almost twice that of Congress [1] at 20%. It doesn't seem to have hurt him all that much. If you look at favorability rather than job approval, it even seems to be almost unchanged [2], only having gone from 45% to 43%. And if you give any weight to Rasmussen, they have Trump's total approval going up since the 6th, from 47% to 51% [3]! [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/ [1] https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/poll-of-the-week-congress-approval-rating/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/poll-of-the-week-con... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-trump-approval-remains-stable-republicans-unmoved-after-capitol-violence-n1254457 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-trump-a... [3] https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/trump_administration/trump_approval_index_history https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/tru...

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Trump's approval is not the lowest it's been during his presidency In the Gallup poll it is [0], in the particular weighting and aggregation used by 538 it is not. > it's almost twice that of Congress Congress isn't a person, it's an aggregate, for which any voter will not have had a voice in selecting 532 of 535 voting members. Comparison of Congress’s approval ratings to the President’s are meaningless, and only ever resorted to by people trying to make horrendously unpopular Presidents look more popular than they are. > if you give any weight to Rasmussen, You probably shouldn't; they've always had a pro-Republican house effect as a pollster matching their editorial tilt, which isn't too worrying, but they’ve pretty overtly gone into hyperpartisan mode since the election. [0] https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-average-record-low.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/328637/last-trump-job-approval-...
- Izkata 6y ago
  I can't discount Rasmussen completely, because their presidential polling was among the most accurate in both 2016 and 2020.