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Please stop spreading FUD. We were absolutely nowhere near a successful coup. None of the institutions of power supported any coup so no coup was going succeed.
by shkkmo 6y ago
Please stop spreading FUD. We were absolutely nowhere near a successful coup. None of the institutions of power supported any coup so no coup was going succeed. You need a bare minimum of control of the courts, the legistlature, or the military. None of these institutions came close to supporting any coup.
What we had was a scary riot and lots of fear mongering.
Edit: for whatever reasons there are large groups on both sides of the political spectrum that want to pretend that we were much closer to successful coup than reality supports.
- Quinner 6y agoThe President of the United States supported it. There's evidence that the National Guard specifically wasn't deployed in order to increase the danger to the legislature.
- gabereiser 6y agoRep(R) from Ohio let them in... It was a loosely coordinated effort. Either by sympathy or by design. The individuals involved are being found. The real perpetrators are completely let off the hook. It’s just a game of chess and a King’s Castle move didn’t work this time.
- Pokepokalypse 6y agoloosely coordinated --> plausible deniability
- shkkmo 6y agoLet's say that the rioters had successfully taken congress hostage. A lot more people might have gotten hurt, but we still wouldn't have been close to a successful coup because there simply was no where near enough support for any coup in the military or court system for it to possibly succeed. It was a signifant event and one that is well worth being strongly concerned about. That does not justify spreading hyperbolic FUD. In my view the seriousness of this event makes it more important that we bring our full rationality to bear when discissing it and try our best to avoid obfuscating the problems it revealed with the usual partisan games of BS and distortion.
- JoeAltmaier 6y agoIts hard to mischaracterize an attempt to overthrow the government. Whether it was efficiently executed is irrelevant - it was treasonable activity.
- shkkmo 6y agoThe degree to which our institutions worked and did not work in preventing the overthrow of the government is absolutely relevant. If you misrepresent how close something came to success, you dramatically reduce your abilty to learn from the event.
- gabereiser 6y agoI think people are focusing on the outcome rather than the crime. It's irrelevant whether they were successful, it goes into criminality when a criminal act is actually acted upon, not whether it was successful. It's not illegal to sell hammers, but when you pull out that hammer to hit someone over the head with it, it becomes a crime. Whether or not you actually connected with that other party's head doesn't make the attempt any less criminal.
- shkkmo 6y agoHow is that relevant to what I said? I have made no arguments or statements one way or the other about the criminality. I am trying to call out factually incorrect fear mongering about how close the US government ce to being overthrown.
- ihumanable 6y agoIf they could have killed and captured enough Democrats that the Republicans could have won the floor vote to not certify the election results, we would be in wildly uncharted territory. You'd have a Congress and President both declaring that a free and fair election was a "Steal" and they would have the votes, the military, and the levers of power. The people rioting weren't going to overthrow the country and take over, they were a useful tool for trump to overthrow the election and install himself as President for 4 more years.
- pohl 6y agoIt helps to be able to recognize authoritarian intent when one sees it. The dude still thinks he should be President right now, and the party is still working to overturn the results.
- shkkmo 6y agoThe intents or desires of our former President only have bearing on his complicity in any coup attempt. They say nothing about how close any such attempt came to success.
- jfrunyon 6y agoI think you missed the word "attempt".
- MattGaiser 6y agoIt is the right wing attempt at "just kidding."
- shkkmo 6y agoI think you missed the words "barely stopped".
- ineedasername 6y agoThe word is "Attempt". It doesn't need to be anywhere near successful for it to have been an attempted coup. Rioters acting with the hope of disrupting the transfer of power. That's all that matters in correctly labelling the event.
- shkkmo 6y ago> barely stopped an actual coup attempt "Barely stopped" is a modifier to "attempt" that implies the attempt was almost successful. If you read my comment, rather than being reactionary, you see that I deliberate do not say it was not an attempted coup. You can accurately say that this was the closest we have come to a successful coup in our lifetimes. You cannot truthfully say that the coup was close to success or that it was barely stopped.
- ineedasername 6y agoThank you for clarifying. I was responding in the context of the original comment that denied it was an attempted coup. Given that was the original context that started this, I think reading your comment in a similar light was not unreasonable since your distinction might have been implied, but not explicit. It was merely a miscommunication. I too would agree that it was highly unlikely to be successful. Had it gone even a few large steps further in seriously injuring members of congress (also unlikely) I still think the worse-case outcome in terms of transfer of power would have been extra days of delay as appropriate cautions were taken to secure congress.
- shkkmo 6y agoPerhaps you need to read slower? I see no comment denying that a coup was attempted in any of the parent comments. The too comment didn't mention the topic at all. The reply to that comment that I replied to mentioned the "recent almost successful coup attempt" and I responded to that comment by pointing out that we came nowhere near a coup beinf successful. So you, and a large number of other posters, are so locked into the mindset of partisan bickering that you cannot communicate effectively anymore. This is a serious problem that will significanly hurt our chances of preventing similar events.