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Wow... so you're saying our democracy could be overthrown if you, A) disrupt Congress and B) cause a day's worth of delays. Amazing stability of our government

Wow... so you're saying our democracy could be overthrown if you, A) disrupt Congress and B) cause a day's worth of delays. Amazing stability of our government that.

unabridged 5y ago
You are missing the most important point C) the outgoing president refuses to leave The rioters wouldn't have ended democracy, but if they caused enough commotion to prevent certification there was a significant risk Trump would have taken advantage of the situation.
DerpyBaby123 5y ago
I didn't say that at all. However, taking control of the government is exactly how coups are executed, please look into it if you haven't.
- ng12 5y ago
  Yes coups require explicit support of the military and/or populace. They had neither.
  - DerpyBaby123 5y ago
    Many people in the populace would have supported it, look at how many now even today deny that it was a riot aimed at disrupting the peaceful transition of power of the government. If they didn't do a good enough job at it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
  - openasocket 5y ago
    Around 75% of republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election, and that number has been substantiated by multiple polls at this point. I'd like to say that the coup attempt didn't have the support of the populace, but frankly I'm not sure.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  We have a chain of command in our government for when people die. First the President, then the Vice President, then the Speaker of the House, then the Secretaries in a predefined order, and so forth. Plus, the Secret Service (which protects the president) includes considerations for, say, Nuclear Bombing of the capitol and who would take over leadership if such a disaster should happen. If the rioters had succeeded in murdering every single person in the capital building, there would have been a protocol in place with the leader already determined. The only way this would have been successful is if the rioters killed every single elected official and secretary in the building, followed by having the support of the Army. They were absolutely nowhere near that.
  - DerpyBaby123 5y ago
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      The way I like to explain it is that Jan 6 was a Denial of Service attack which would have shut down a critical service COV (Certification_Of_Vote). The COV service was designed to bring a new process online while initiating the shut-down sequence of a lame-duck process. But a rogue script in the lame-duck attempted to shut down the COV service, which would have resulted in a privilege escalation and caused the lame-duck to continue running past its expiration date. Thankfully the DoS attack subsided in time and the COV service resumed its normal operation.
  - cnelsenmilt 5y ago
    The president (and president-elect) weren't anywhere near the building and their safety was not at issue. There is no federal procedure or "chain of command" for replacing individual Representatives and Senators -- that goes back to the states they represent, with either elections or appointments.
ModernMech 5y ago
Kind of, yes. The people voted democratically to elect Joe Biden as President in November. The Constitution and laws say that he becomes President Elect on Jan 6. That's the law. People vote -> President elect on Jan 6, President on Jan 20. What happened on Jan 6 was that the transition of power was, for a number of hours, prevented through violent means. Thank God two things happened on Jan 6: (1) Mike Pence refused to leave the Capitol and (2) Mitch McConnell refused to entertain the 10 objections that they wanted (which would have delayed proceedings for at least 20 hours). If either of those two things happened, we'd be in a political situation uncovered by the Constitution and law. That's when things get bad, because either side is just making things up at that point. It becomes a battle of wills and political power; whoever has the most power to reify their will, wins. The plan on Jan 6 was to delay certification as long as possible, because there was a pressure campaign ongoing in which states were being pressured to "decertify" their votes, and Pence was being pressured to consider alternate slates of electors for Trump. I think everyone needs to start getting clear on the facts here: (1) Jan 6 was about stopping Biden from being certified as President Elect by any means, because that's a write only operation. There's no undoing that. Once he is certified by the House, Senate, and VP, the deal is done. Not even the Supreme Court can overturn that: separation of powers and all. (2) The legal way to do that was spelled out in the Eastman Memo [1]: It argued Pence could just unilaterally refuse to consider slates of electors and cause a contested election, which favored the Republicans electorally. But Pence would not go along with this plan. (3) Pence was aware of fraudulent certificates of the vote that had been submitted by various states, which purported to be legitimate votes for Trump. Pence could not go along with accepting those without a pretextual reason given by the states themselves. This was the last piece of the plan which was, supposedly according to Trump's lawyer, coming together at the last minute while the Capitol attack was ongoing. Think of it this way: On Jan 6 the situation was that every state had certified their votes, Trump lost 62/63 court cases and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the AG had said he found no fraud. There was no pretext for Pence to accept the alternative electors. However, that could have changed very quickly had the pressure campaign continued. If Pence had left the Capitol on Jan 6, then the joint session would not have reconvened for several days while the Capitol was secured (actually the Capitol was correctly deemed insecure by Secret Service the day of Jan 6, so there's as open question as to why Pence was there in the first place). At this time, there was a pressure campaign going on to get one or more states to "Decertify" their certificate of the vote. Had one or more states done so, it would be very easy to see how this would have ended up at a contested election where Republicans would have all the votes needed to install Trump as President. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos
tablespoon 5y ago
Your comment here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935989) has been killed, so I couldn't post my reply there, so I'll post it here: > Political theater by Democrats trying to make Jan 6th "The Day That Democracy Nearly Died" or something. I agree there's been a lot of political theater around Jan. 6th, but if democracy does in fact die in the US, those events will have been an important milestone. Basically, the point where the breakdown of the respect for the institutions of democracy became in-your-face obvious. It also set some precedents/put options in people's minds that will be hugely destabilizing. That said, I'm really disappointed that Democrats are basically making only small tactical responses (e.g. party-line voting rights legislation, some justice dept. unit to combat "extremism") to a strategic problem, which is that a large fraction of the population is losing/has lost respect for the system. The Democrats really need to get their act together and, being the less-degraded party, do their duty and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to fix that [1]. [1] As in when some asshole trashes some common area, you have the duty to spend your time and effort clean up after them. You don't have control over their behavior, but you have control over your own, and it's wrong to leave the common area trashed even though it's not "fair" you're the one sacrificing your time to clean it up.

Wow... so you're saying our democracy could be overthrown if you, A) disrupt Congress and B) cause a day's worth of delays. Amazing stability of our government that.

unabridged 5y ago

You are missing the most important point C) the outgoing president refuses to leave The rioters wouldn't have ended democracy, but if they caused enough commotion to prevent certification there was a significant risk Trump would have taken advantage of the situation.

DerpyBaby123 5y ago

I didn't say that at all. However, taking control of the government is exactly how coups are executed, please look into it if you haven't.

ng12 5y ago
Yes coups require explicit support of the military and/or populace. They had neither.
- DerpyBaby123 5y ago
  Many people in the populace would have supported it, look at how many now even today deny that it was a riot aimed at disrupting the peaceful transition of power of the government. If they didn't do a good enough job at it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen.
- openasocket 5y ago
  Around 75% of republicans believe Trump won the 2020 election, and that number has been substantiated by multiple polls at this point. I'd like to say that the coup attempt didn't have the support of the populace, but frankly I'm not sure.
gjsman-1000 5y ago
We have a chain of command in our government for when people die. First the President, then the Vice President, then the Speaker of the House, then the Secretaries in a predefined order, and so forth. Plus, the Secret Service (which protects the president) includes considerations for, say, Nuclear Bombing of the capitol and who would take over leadership if such a disaster should happen. If the rioters had succeeded in murdering every single person in the capital building, there would have been a protocol in place with the leader already determined. The only way this would have been successful is if the rioters killed every single elected official and secretary in the building, followed by having the support of the Army. They were absolutely nowhere near that.
- DerpyBaby123 5y ago
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    The way I like to explain it is that Jan 6 was a Denial of Service attack which would have shut down a critical service COV (Certification_Of_Vote). The COV service was designed to bring a new process online while initiating the shut-down sequence of a lame-duck process. But a rogue script in the lame-duck attempted to shut down the COV service, which would have resulted in a privilege escalation and caused the lame-duck to continue running past its expiration date. Thankfully the DoS attack subsided in time and the COV service resumed its normal operation.
- cnelsenmilt 5y ago
  The president (and president-elect) weren't anywhere near the building and their safety was not at issue. There is no federal procedure or "chain of command" for replacing individual Representatives and Senators -- that goes back to the states they represent, with either elections or appointments.

ModernMech 5y ago

Kind of, yes. The people voted democratically to elect Joe Biden as President in November. The Constitution and laws say that he becomes President Elect on Jan 6. That's the law. People vote -> President elect on Jan 6, President on Jan 20. What happened on Jan 6 was that the transition of power was, for a number of hours, prevented through violent means. Thank God two things happened on Jan 6: (1) Mike Pence refused to leave the Capitol and (2) Mitch McConnell refused to entertain the 10 objections that they wanted (which would have delayed proceedings for at least 20 hours). If either of those two things happened, we'd be in a political situation uncovered by the Constitution and law. That's when things get bad, because either side is just making things up at that point. It becomes a battle of wills and political power; whoever has the most power to reify their will, wins. The plan on Jan 6 was to delay certification as long as possible, because there was a pressure campaign ongoing in which states were being pressured to "decertify" their votes, and Pence was being pressured to consider alternate slates of electors for Trump. I think everyone needs to start getting clear on the facts here: (1) Jan 6 was about stopping Biden from being certified as President Elect by any means, because that's a write only operation. There's no undoing that. Once he is certified by the House, Senate, and VP, the deal is done. Not even the Supreme Court can overturn that: separation of powers and all. (2) The legal way to do that was spelled out in the Eastman Memo [1]: It argued Pence could just unilaterally refuse to consider slates of electors and cause a contested election, which favored the Republicans electorally. But Pence would not go along with this plan. (3) Pence was aware of fraudulent certificates of the vote that had been submitted by various states, which purported to be legitimate votes for Trump. Pence could not go along with accepting those without a pretextual reason given by the states themselves. This was the last piece of the plan which was, supposedly according to Trump's lawyer, coming together at the last minute while the Capitol attack was ongoing. Think of it this way: On Jan 6 the situation was that every state had certified their votes, Trump lost 62/63 court cases and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, the AG had said he found no fraud. There was no pretext for Pence to accept the alternative electors. However, that could have changed very quickly had the pressure campaign continued. If Pence had left the Capitol on Jan 6, then the joint session would not have reconvened for several days while the Capitol was secured (actually the Capitol was correctly deemed insecure by Secret Service the day of Jan 6, so there's as open question as to why Pence was there in the first place). At this time, there was a pressure campaign going on to get one or more states to "Decertify" their certificate of the vote. Had one or more states done so, it would be very easy to see how this would have ended up at a contested election where Republicans would have all the votes needed to install Trump as President. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos

tablespoon 5y ago

Your comment here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935989) has been killed, so I couldn't post my reply there, so I'll post it here: > Political theater by Democrats trying to make Jan 6th "The Day That Democracy Nearly Died" or something. I agree there's been a lot of political theater around Jan. 6th, but if democracy does in fact die in the US, those events will have been an important milestone. Basically, the point where the breakdown of the respect for the institutions of democracy became in-your-face obvious. It also set some precedents/put options in people's minds that will be hugely destabilizing. That said, I'm really disappointed that Democrats are basically making only small tactical responses (e.g. party-line voting rights legislation, some justice dept. unit to combat "extremism") to a strategic problem, which is that a large fraction of the population is losing/has lost respect for the system. The Democrats really need to get their act together and, being the less-degraded party, do their duty and make whatever sacrifices are necessary to fix that [1]. [1] As in when some asshole trashes some common area, you have the duty to spend your time and effort clean up after them. You don't have control over their behavior, but you have control over your own, and it's wrong to leave the common area trashed even though it's not "fair" you're the one sacrificing your time to clean it up.