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What actually constitutes an "attempt to overthrow a government"? Do you think a random mob would be followed by the country as a whole? Do you have so little f

What actually constitutes an "attempt to overthrow a government"? Do you think a random mob would be followed by the country as a whole? Do you have so little faith in the government's institutions that they'd just agree to follow them? Do you think the military would? If an "attempt" is so far flung from reality as to be impossible does it actually make it an attempt? If the mob had been half its size, or a quarter its size, or even one person, is that still an "attempt to overthrow the government"? Even if they'd literally walked in with their guns blazing and killed every single politician they could find, while it'd cause a ton of chaos, the government would still have elections to replace those people killed and government would continue.

ithkuil 2y ago
Yes institutions and democracy can resist and win against a small group of armed people taking over the physical seats of the government. But in order to win people have to agree that the act is profoundly antidemocratic and a punishable offence. It becomes more problematic when a sizable part of the population dismisses it as a non-issue. That very fact raises the level of concern several orders of magnitude. The more people dismiss the level of severity of an act of subversion the less faith you can have that the problem will just fix itself. So yeah, it's not a big deal, provided that we all agree it is a big deal. Otherwise it becomes a big deal.
verzali 2y ago
That's an extremely naive statement. Massacres of politicans are rarely followed by everything going calmly back to normal, it's much more likely to be followed by more violence, a crackdown on freedoms and liberties and a slide away from democracy.
- belorn 2y ago
  > Massacres of politicans are rarely followed by everything going calmly back to normal That is correct. Massacres of politicans are generally followed by military factions taking control of a country, also generally a military faction that participated in the massacre. Those are coups. When we have massacre of politicians like the 2011 Norway attacks, we call it a domestic terrorism and throw the guilty into jail, and then everything goes mostly calmly back to normal. The risk that those actually succeed in changing the government of a democracy is thankfully very slim. Obviously they are still very horrible acts.
- mlindner 2y ago
  How is it naive? Americans have allegiance to the Constitution, not to whoever happens to be sitting in the seat of government. This is foundational to thinking of your average American. And yeah there would probably be some nation-wide violence in response and some laws passed that would push the limits of what the Supreme Court would allow. It doesn't mean that people would follow the idiots who did the shooting.
  - tga_d 2y ago
    Polling says ~70% of Republicans, or over one third of all Americans, think the 2020 election was stolen.[0] That's a lot of people who disagree over what "allegiance to the constitution" means. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-poll-post-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-pol...

ithkuil 2y ago

Yes institutions and democracy can resist and win against a small group of armed people taking over the physical seats of the government. But in order to win people have to agree that the act is profoundly antidemocratic and a punishable offence. It becomes more problematic when a sizable part of the population dismisses it as a non-issue. That very fact raises the level of concern several orders of magnitude. The more people dismiss the level of severity of an act of subversion the less faith you can have that the problem will just fix itself. So yeah, it's not a big deal, provided that we all agree it is a big deal. Otherwise it becomes a big deal.

verzali 2y ago

That's an extremely naive statement. Massacres of politicans are rarely followed by everything going calmly back to normal, it's much more likely to be followed by more violence, a crackdown on freedoms and liberties and a slide away from democracy.

belorn 2y ago
> Massacres of politicans are rarely followed by everything going calmly back to normal That is correct. Massacres of politicans are generally followed by military factions taking control of a country, also generally a military faction that participated in the massacre. Those are coups. When we have massacre of politicians like the 2011 Norway attacks, we call it a domestic terrorism and throw the guilty into jail, and then everything goes mostly calmly back to normal. The risk that those actually succeed in changing the government of a democracy is thankfully very slim. Obviously they are still very horrible acts.
mlindner 2y ago
How is it naive? Americans have allegiance to the Constitution, not to whoever happens to be sitting in the seat of government. This is foundational to thinking of your average American. And yeah there would probably be some nation-wide violence in response and some laws passed that would push the limits of what the Supreme Court would allow. It doesn't mean that people would follow the idiots who did the shooting.
- tga_d 2y ago
  Polling says ~70% of Republicans, or over one third of all Americans, think the 2020 election was stolen.[0] That's a lot of people who disagree over what "allegiance to the constitution" means. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-poll-post-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-pol...