The fear of losing democracy

Missouri state Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden (R) announced on Monday that U.S. Senate candidate and disgraced ex-governor Eric Greitens’ “RINO hunting” campaign ad had prompted him to reach out to law enforcement.

“We have been in contact with the Missouri Highway Patrol and hope that former Gov. Greitens finds the help he needs,” Rowden tweeted.

“Anyone with multiple accusations of abuse toward women and children should probably steer clear of this rhetoric,” he added, referring to Greitens’ ex-wife’s graphic accusations of domestic abuse against the candidate.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/missouri-gop-leader-rowden-police-greitens-ad

 

No one should.

 

As you should know by now, Trump's coup plans went far beyond the riot on 1/6. Thanks to the media and to the 1/6 committee we know quite a lot about the plot to overturn the election. So I'll reiterate, anyone who still supports Trump.

 

Yes.

 

Is Russia, Belarus, China and North Korea not under the command of ruthless dictators? Does the phrase "It can't happen here" have any meaning to you?

 

2024 here we come!

 

Why can't we base our belief on the myriad of people inside the admin and his inner circle who told him he lost?

Many may be familiar with the term “plausible deniability”, or the phrase “turning a blind eye”, but a lesser known and more nuanced term under the law is known as willful blindness.

Also referred to as willful ignorance, this is described as a situation in which a person will intentionally shield themselves from acknowledging information that might make them liable in a civil or criminal case, even denying these facts to themselves.
https://www.jbsimonslaw.com/willful-blindness/

 

Thank you for providing an example of someone who is anti-democratic. The OP was looking for a clear example.

 

She is right about Dems picking the wrong fights, and GOP seems to be guilty of the same. Dems will lose this year, there is no doubt about it (they are not even trying), but I don't see how that equates to "losing our democracy". Maybe she was referring to 2024 and the possibility of Trump forcibly taking control regardless of election outcome (like they tried in Jan 6).

The concern about him losing again and not accepting the loss (again), and forcibly taking control.

 

It's the only response those suffering from TDS can understand.

 

Are you seriously making the argument from popularity?

 

The FBI doesn't see it the way you do. I think they know more and are less excitable by nuts:

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

"Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases," said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. "Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages."

Stone, a veteran Republican operative and self-described "dirty trickster", and Jones, founder of a conspiracy-driven radio show and webcast, are both allies of Trump and had been involved in pro-Trump events in Washington on Jan. 5, the day before the riot.

FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ex...ol-attack-was-coordinated-sources-2021-08-20/

 

You know TDS is just a made-up meme to help you deflect from Trump's woeful inadequacies as a person and a prez, right?

 

I have no idea what you mean.

 

That narrative has been shattered.

For almost 18 months, the Proud Boys have been at the center of the criminal and congressional investigations of the violent attack on the Capitol last year.

More than 40 members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group, have been indicted in connection with the assault, among them several of its leaders who are now facing charges of seditious conspiracy. The organization was also prominently featured this month at the first hearing of the Jan. 6 House committee, which suggested that the Proud Boys played an instrumental part in fomenting the storming of the Capitol.

Building off the work of online researchers, The New York Times has come up with a newly detailed view of the Proud Boys’ role in instigating the chaos that consumed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. After months of studying video footage of the attack and poring over internal communications by the Proud Boys, The Times has determined that members of the group maneuvered in a coordinated fashion that day in a way that was not previously known and in a manner that was unlike that of the hundreds of other rioters who stormed the building.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/us/politics/proud-boys-jan-6.html

‘Coordinated and Planned’: Proud Boys Ran Recon at Capitol Hours Before Jan. 6 Attack

Hundreds of Proud Boys assembled near the Capitol on the mid-morning of Jan. 6 — well before Donald Trump’s speech at the ellipse — and appeared to perform reconnaissance for the attack on the Capitol that they would spearhead later that afternoon.

That was the testimony of British documentary filmmaker Nick Quested, live before the Jan. 6 Committee on Thursday night. Quested was embedded with Proud Boys on that day, and his raw footage of violence during the insurrection was featured at length by the committee.

In his testimony, Quested recalled how hundreds of Proud Boys had ditched the Ellipse and made straight for the Capitol complex at about 10:30 on Jan. 6. They watched as the cops set up bike-rack style barricades, and donned riot gear on the west side perimeter of the Capitol, before circling to the other side of the halls of Congress to see the East side. The Proud Boys finished their recon mission so early that they had time to go out for tacos.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/proud-boys-recon-capitol-jan-6-hearing-1365850/

 

Usually the ones suffering from a malady aren't aware of it. Even when it's pointed out to them they'll just prove they have it in the way they respond. :lol

 

I can't help you out.

 

It depends on what specific point in time we are talking about. Trump is neither a strategist nor a tactician, politically speaking. He just wants everybody yelling and laughing and having fun. That's why he goes to wrestling matches. It isn't a sport; it's a party. And if the party stops, he doesn't care how or why it got stopped. He just wants the DJ to cue up another record and "party on, Garth!" And he sees himself as the DJ. Juvenile? Absolutely. Machiavellian? No.

He obviously is not some noble idealist like James Madison bent on protecting the Republic. (We are all overusing the democracy word here.)

I'd say that at first he honestly coudn't accept the reality that some old moth-eaten, decrepit pol like Joe Biden had beaten him, and that he wanted to stir up a rally to go make some noise in the street, thinking that that might somehow inspire Mike Pence and the state governors to wait for new and different electors from the states. He had no idea how the certification worked mechanically. But he thought it was legal to explore that avenue. He also was in such denial that he latched onto any theory that was whispered in his ear, and those whispers were coming from people like Giuliani and Eastman. Say what you will, they are neither of them unlettered dunces.

Considering the messiness of the vote tabulation process in America and the opportunities for error, I didn't blame Trump for casting wildly about for a lifeline. Don't let anyone tell you that things can't go wrong. We wouldn't even HAVE a recount process if God were in charge of the machines and all those paper ballots. A Swiss watch we ain't.

So, like any jilted person, his denial of reality only very gradually subsided, with spikes of hope on the way down. At the end, he accepted reality and told his supporters to go home. Why? He knows that it had gotten out of hand and he didn't want any of the police getting hurt or disrespected.

What he did not do is try to handpick electors sure to put him over the top. Nor did he barricade himself inside the WH and refuse to leave, as so many predicted. Nor of course did he ever enlist the military to help with this so-called Latin American coup.

 

The "stolen elections" conspiracy is now officially on Texas GOP platform along with Anti-LGBT views and downplaying Jan-6, so it does look like they are prepping for Round-2.

 

Of course the Proud Boys were coordinated as amongst themselves. So is antifa and presumably the KKK. The question is whether they coordinated with any influential Republicans (really, with any elected Republicans at all) or operatives or the Trump campaign. The FBI says no, and I can't see that even you seriously dispute this.

To hang Jan.6 on the Republicans is like hanging the burning of Minneapolis on the Democrats: unfair. Actually it's worse, because some Democrats see the George Floyd riots as righteous.

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/de...police-station-was-act-of-pure-righteousness/

 

Door #2. He was subverting democracy while trying to stay in power at any cost.

 

Some of them are, yes. They are as crazy or dishonest as is Hillary.

 

Hillary is running and pushing conspiracies? I had no idea.

 

Any cost? Really? Did he enlist the military? Did he urge his supporters to actually enter the Capitol? To commit violence once inside?

This is as close as I can see, and I'm not happy about it, but it's still a footnote.

The Times’s headline revelation is that Trump directed Giuliani, his personal lawyer, to ask the Homeland Security Department whether it could take control of voting machines, purportedly to look for evidence of fraud. (The department’s acting secretary said they couldn’t, and no voting machines were seized.)

https://www.vox.com/2022/2/1/22912394/trump-giuliani-seize-voting-machines-military

 

August 20, 2021?