American Politics Discussion Thread

[Miguelito]

The people in the examples you gave would and do mostly understand that what they are doing is terrorism.

I agree with T-Hawk in this case. Call the events at the capitol a riot maybe. Anything more than that is hysteria.

What's your argument here?  Because you think the insurrectionists were more deluded than terrorists, their attempt to overturn the results of the election via violence was actually not an insurrection, because it didn't meet the insurrectionist's standards of one?  What matters is what happened, not how they may or may not have perceived their own actions (and, to be clear, many of them were fully cognizant and vocal about their intent to impose their preferred leader by force and execute government officials who opposed them).

What's wrong with sticking to insurrectionists? Add on treasonous on top if you will. Seems bad enough.
I'd agree with civac that with all the anti terror laws floating around the globe, one should take care to stick to a narrow definition of the word. "Terrorists" I've seen in the news include protesting Indian farmers, Uighurs in concentration camps, young Filipinos randomly killed by police, the landless movement in Brazil and the Portland antifa.
There surely is terrorism on the extreme right in the US (as well as here), but not all forms of political violence should count as such, and if it's a catch-all phrase it becomes meaningless, and just an excuse to establish ever harder surveillance and repression laws (and I would suppose you can prosecute the insurrectionists for their actions perfectly fine without the terorr label).
I suppose I should come up with a well worded definition of terrorism in that case, and I'm struggling. But I'd suggest it involves spreading of fear as the main objective of the violence. Often that's violence against random targets, which makes it so terrifying, but even if the targets are more specific (leftist teror in the 70s) the objective is to provoke a certain reaction, not to achieve a direct goal by the act of violence itself. The jerks at the capitol had a goal with their violence, of course not thought well through because well.


A point from T-Hawk that I'd like to pick up - you claim that there was no court decision on the fraud itself, citing the Texas lawsuit which wa srejected by the SC because lack of standing (honestly I'd be embarassed and/or furious if the guys I'm rooting for went all hyping "this is the big one!", only to get thrown out by the judges they appointed themselves after half a day because of the evident absurdity of the whole exercise - of course the lawsuit was never meant to go anywhere, it was a pacifier for Trump and a means to keep up the fervour among the base).
So you make it sound like there were no courts where the fraud could have been challenged - but of course there are, the state courts, and guess what, it all poofed. So are you claiming that these courts in four (?) states including Georgia (!) are all dead set to cover up "the steal"? And does that theory not sound a bit like a conspiracy to you?

[T-hawk]

I believe there was enough of a combination of illegitimate rule changes plus some actual fraud that it's likely to have swung enough states and the election. (The GA case is much more direct, the only thing needed to swing the state would be mail-in ballots rejected at the same rate as in 2016.) I also believe there isn't enough findable evidence and proof for a court to act on. (PA physically can't audit everything properly since ballots that arrived late are no longer distinguishable.) It's completely possible for both of those to be true. There's no conspiracy, just everyone acting in their own interests, and the overall outcome of everything that happened is the aggregation of that.

We're stuck with the steal as the less-bad outcome compared to overturning it on insufficient proof. That last is a matter of opinion and the capitol protesters judged the less-bad-ness otherwise.

[Bobchillingworth]

What's wrong with sticking to insurrectionists? Add on treasonous on top if you will. Seems bad enough.

Nothing at all. I believe civac is arguing that any term stronger than "rioters" is excessive (or "hysteria", specifically); I disagree, because describing the events of the 6th as merely being a "riot" does not go far enough.

[Jowy]

What's wrong with sticking to insurrectionists? Add on treasonous on top if you will. Seems bad enough.

Nothing at all.  I believe civac is arguing that any term stronger than "rioters" is excessive (or "hysteria", specifically); I disagree, because describing the events of the 6th as merely being a "riot" does not go far enough.

I'm with you on this Bob. I also understand Miguelito's point about the word and how it can be abused. It's certainly tricky. I think it is quite important for the rest of the US and the world to condemn the attack and not undermine it, else they will find themselves back in the same situation or worse. Normalizing these things, as if storming the capitol in a show of force and trying to kill representatives of the opposition can just be handwaved as a "riot", as if it's the same thing as low wage workers marching for workers rights or abused minorities protesting for equal treatment. US government expanding the surveillance state in response is just one of the many flaws in the country. All they need is an excuse to further trample on their citizens. That's not exclusive to the Republican party either, Democrats are quite happy opposing any meaningful progress that would improve the quality of life of their citizens. All I can suggest is to support the progressives.

[civac2]

Low wage workers or abused minorities protesting is obviously a protest. (Unless, they set local shops on fire. Than, yes, riot would be appropriate.)

Most people at the capitol were not doing much of anything except stupidly taking pictures of themselves. The is criminal for this kind of thing. Trespassing, theft, intimidation, assault in some rare cases. I'm sure you'll find ample material within the draconian excesses of US law. It was however not close to anything that could be called terrorism let alone a coup. If you want to know how a coup looks like it Chile '72 is a good one.

[darrelljs]

All I can suggest is to support the progressives.

If you'd indulge me I'd love to hear your case for why I should do that.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

Again people never see themselves as the "bad" guys. I disagree with Civac that people would ever realize they are terrorists in almost all cases. They have been fed information that their side is in the right and that whatever thing they are doing is justified (hm sounds familiar).

I wanted to take a second on how the average person can determine if the sources of information you're relying on should be trusted.
1) Do they report when "your" side messes up. As discussed people naturally gravitate to news media for their own world view. Simple example would be a descent number of sites did fact checks of Biden's first week for instance. Even from the tone of the writing and how they labelled what he said you can kind of tell where they actually fall. Something I used to do a lot more pre Trump era was flirt all around the news trying to get a more comprehensive view.
2) Does the truth change? This is of course why my friend stopped our argument, because I pointed out that the truth he was believing changed with the ramblings of a single individual. I actually did some soul searching to see if I excluded most logic and "fake media facts" if maybe there was a chance in hell I was on the wrong side. Maybe Trump really does get put upon by the fake news and I'm believing their lies. The problem of course is that then the truth changes. Truth changing based on an individual is a classic dictator move (there is a good quote I'll try to find on this). This is also the reason I've stopped going to conservative sites as well is because my brain can't do mental gymnastics that well.
3) Do their 'facts' stand up. It is very telling that a lot of the 'Dominion stole the vote' claims have disappeared now that they threatening legal action because the people that were spouting those claims lack these things called facts and would like not to be sued into the ground.

[Jowy]

All I can suggest is to support the progressives.

If you'd indulge me I'd love to hear your case for why I should do that.

Darrell

As the largest economy in the world, I think they could treat their citizens much better. Things like paid sick leave, paid leave to take care of your newborn child, paid vacations, higher minimum wage, rights to unionize, affordable access to education and health care, removal of for-profit prisons and restructuring of the prison system for rehabilitation, higher standards and accountability for the police force, larger social security net, rights to your own body, separation of church and state. The way I see it, there is nothing crazy on this list that couldn't be achieved. The rich at the top will continue to be the rich at the top, it's just that the other 99.9% gets a few more bread crumbs to live more comfortable lives.

[civac2]

Again people never see themselves as the "bad" guys. I disagree with Civac that people would ever realize they are terrorists in almost all cases. They have been fed information that their side is in the right and that whatever thing they are doing is justified (hm sounds familiar).

That's a different claim. Of course, they see themselves a righteous or at least justified. But they still usually recognize their actions as terrorism. It's just that they rationalize their actions with some higher goal or principle.

Bin Laden for instance intended to attack the United States to achieve something else. The aim of the capitol rioters was not to attack the mythical creature called US democracy but rather to preserve it. That they are delusional is not relevant for this analysis. The situation is fundamentally different.

You are also giving Trumpian blowhards too much credit. They are not a threat to US institutions as of now though that could change.

[Mjmd]

All I can suggest is to support the progressives.

If you'd indulge me I'd love to hear your case for why I should do that.

Darrell

As the largest economy in the world, I think they could treat their citizens much better. Things like paid sick leave, paid leave to take care of your newborn child, paid vacations, higher minimum wage, rights to unionize, affordable access to education and health care, removal of for-profit prisons and restructuring of the prison system for rehabilitation, higher standards and accountability for the police force, larger social security net, rights to your own body, separation of church and state. The way I see it, there is nothing crazy on this list that couldn't be achieved. The rich at the top will continue to be the rich at the top, it's just that the other 99.9% gets a few more bread crumbs to live more comfortable lives.

Without getting into every progressive idea and the merits there of I wanted to address a larger point. A lot of what I've seen has been "Democrats should act like they won the election". The truth is however that 'Trump lost the election' Also, then sowed doubt and division and finally tried to overthrow our basic democratic principles. If Democrats aren't careful they are going to be facing Trump again in 2024 where Americans have mysteriously forgotten that Republicans tried to overturn an election. History has shown people have a remarkable short memory on these kind of things and I have very little faith in Americans overall.