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Comment by root_axis | Hacker News Reader

This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple. I don't care if this comment is perceived as partisan, it's a statement of fact. If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn't be happening.

Edit: Yes, it's true that the top leader and his acolytes have engineered this outcome, but the majority of the republican leadership did not want this and do not benefit from this, they were (with some exceptions) simply too cowardly to speak out against it.

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They had their chance to do the right thing last January. Instead of holding a fair impeachment trial in the Senate, with witnesses, they chose to let this clown show go on. They are complicit.

"Impeachment trials" are not really designed to be fair in the way actual trials are. They are legally designed to be a popularity contest among the legislature; hence why the Republican party was able to block it, and also why they would have been able to vote no if they had decided not to block it. Honestly, letting the term run out and having the president lose in a typical election is probably the least debatable way to change the president. There is some historical precedent for impeachments being used as political tools, while elections are wreathed in tradition and legitimacy.

I'm not doubting they would've voted no even if they'd called witnesses and had a real trial. But (and this is speculation) there'd be a lot more people aware of Trump's corrupt conduct in office and he would've lost by a far larger margin.

Although...who am I kidding. The right-wing media would probably have covered the full impeachment trial in the same way they covered the House impeachment proceedings. Just play a silent video of politicians talking, and have their own pundits say "This is BS we won't even insult you by making you listen to it".

One of the articles of impeachment was on obstruction of justice. In a normal court that would have been open and shut. The White House was extraordinary and blatant with the obstruction. It was well documented. The conviction on the obstruction charge was voted down by an even larger margin than the collusion charge, which I thought was strange because thanks to all of the obstruction the hard evidence was a bit lacking. They had few documents to work with because the Trump Whitehouse explicitly refused to honor all of the subpoenas they were served.

Basically he knew that the Senate would cover for any crime so long as he delivered the votes, so he ran the place like a mob boss.

The other article of impeachment was on abuse of power, not collusion. It was a nice way of accusing Trump of extorting a bribe.

> letting the term run out and having the president lose in a typical election is probably the least debatable way to change the president

Except that didn't work out, did it? Remember he was impeached for trying to cheat at an election. And people (lots of people) warned he'd continue on that path.

I mean, let's be honest: it would have been better in hindsight to have actually removed him from office.

Well, we're comparing reality, the case of a lost election, (thousands of protestors without broad support) to a counterfactual, the case of an impeachment (a million protestors? support from every Republican?).

I’m not sure what would even happen if the GOP voted to condemn their own president. To whom would frustrated GOP voters petition then? Would they fracture into a third party?

The reality nearest to our own where the impeachment attempt succeeded is the one where the Senate was D-majority that year. Only a few seats would have to be different for that, whereas the counterfactual of republicans voting against one of their own would require a shift in the very elements of politics. Imagine a world where a D-majority legislature impeached a Republican president. Instead of pointing to an election, Democrats would have to point to a 1000 page report that nobody wants to read. Republicans would be calling it a "political move" and the whole party would be unified against its fairness.

>I’m not sure what would even happen if the GOP voted to condemn their own president.

The GOP having had enough of GOP President Nixon that they were going to impeach and remove him is what led to him resigning first.

And the country got on just fine.

The republican leadership is the person who is leading this coup.

They invited this! It's the republican leadership that's perpetuation this!

And it hasn't exactly been subtle either. That this isn't apparent to anyone that has been conscious for the past year+ makes you wonder if you're going crazy, doesn't it?

What is the point of a national guard if they can't be used to defend the capitol?

The DC National Guard, unique among all other guards, is under the command of the President. A state governor can call up that state's Guard, but the government of D.C. cannot.

They were requested by the DC Mayor and approved by the Pentagon for deployment yesterday by... But no idea where tf they are.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/04/politics/muriel-bowser-dc...

I was glad to hear McConnel and Pence finally (FINALLY) do the right thing.

They were speaking out of both sides of their mouth, per usual. They deserve no credit, they only acted when their actions would have no consequences.

Look if you still fault them for doing the right thing why should they do the right thing? Give it a rest! Acknowledge that they have done the right thing now! People deserve credit for taking the correct moral stand unlike the terrorist group attacking Washington DC right now!

Agreed. We must allow for people to change their mind.

> moral stand

They're refusing to undermine the system from which their own legitimacy and power derives. There's nothing moral about it.

They had so many chances to do the right thing though. It still is good that they didn't go crazy hysterical like Trump and eventually accepted but I won't cut them any cookie for it.

Don't say that. That makes people reluctant to be adults and do what needs to be done. People deserve some recognition for, eventually, doing just that.

edit: Guys. By resorting to ad hominems and offering no incentive for changing one's mind, you are practically guaranteeing calcification and re-entrenchment. Are you happy that you contributed to the situation in a positive way?

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Let them earn respect by demonstrating that they understand their wrongs and taking ongoing substantive action to change.

This is an OK attitude to young children, not adults.

You give recognition to a toddler when it learns how to use the toilet, not when grown men in positions of responsibility do the bare minimum it's expected of them

You mean, treat them like special snowflakes?

> offering no incentive for changing one's mind

What offers even less incentive is when someone knows they will never be held accountable.

Give them some credit when they give a mild amount of evidence that they have actually changed their ways. Doing the right thing in a single instance is not enough evidence.

When the murderer stops stabbing his victim for a second to take a breath you dont commend him. These are adults. They are malicious. They are not trying to do the right thing, and deserve no commendation.

You don't appease Hitler, you stop him.

And one day trump will finally be Presidential (TM)

Any one off act is meaningless. What matters is continued, persistent good behaviour. Once in a blue moon is just bad behaviour.

Your standards are too low, and encourages people with bad behaviour to not change. After all, you get accolades for doing one good thing in a sea of bad, but get admonished for one bad thing amidst a sea of good

Mitch: "I'm sorry baby, take me back. I promise I won't do it again."

I've been in abusive relationships, fuck a single apology, change materializes due to consequences. There need to be consequences first.

I wasn't sure if McConnel finally found a conscious or if he was simply pissed off at Trump for spreading the "Stop the Steal" nonsense that likely suppressed a little bit of Republican turnout and lost them the Ossoff/Perdue race. That speech seemed carefully calculated to draw the maximum ire of the President.

But only when violence was on their literal doorsteps.

I'm sorry, but WHY are you glad about that? If anything that infuriates me more. They have known about these threats for months if not years and decided to do nothing until actual violence was at their doorsteps.

This isn’t a failure of leadership like my code failed to compile just now. This is leadership with a vision.

Many Republicans on TV agree with you.

The party needs to split into the anti-democracy, pro-Trump faction, and the rest of the party. The moderate wing could easily pull some people that voted Democrat this year, and form a stable, coalition government.

This would help de-radicalize our political system.

The democrats could peal out their conservatives too.

Then you could have the progressives, the moderates, the ultra conservatives, and I guess a Texas separation party, and it'll be like Canada

The Republican leadership doesn't lose out from this(this won't flip an anti-abortioner's vote), but have a slight chance at winning out.

It makes sense that they'd leave it alone to do it's thing

The failure of leadership by the Republicans occurred in 2016 when no other candidate could manage to beat Trump in the primary. The rest was just the other train cars continuing to derail.

> This is a failure of leadership by the republicans - plain and simple.

The cops have a strange affinity for certain kinds of 'protesters' too, we all know it would end differently if BLM or 'Antifa' did this.

>The cops have a strange affinity for certain kinds of 'protesters' too, we all know it would end differently if BLM or 'Antifa' did this.

You mean they would have let the protestors occupy several blocks of the city while declaring independence for several months until their private security forces murdered too many black teenagers?

I went to protests all summer where the cops were beating the shit out of people for standing on the street outside an empty building. They sure as hell weren't removing the cordons and taking selfies with people inside.

This is terrorism, plain and simple. Donald Trump is the leader of a terrorist cult.

I think that the republicans have benefitted a lot from hyperbole and insults. People need to tone down their language

The US Capitol has been stormed into and guns have now been drawn in the chamber of the Senate.

I think it is also time for people to face the fact that this is not hyperbole.

Shots have been fired in the Capitol building.

Accurately describing what is going on is not hyperbole. People like you gaslighting us about what we see is what has allowed Trump to get away with so much.

The cult leader gets angrier and threatens his own followers who defy his demands for fealty. The rejection makes them all angry, cult leader and followers.

Trump and Trump supporters have been more caustic by far to Republicans who don't toe the line. They seek retribution and engage in threatening behavior, including death threats.

This morning Trump expressed his displeasure at the Vice President's unwillingness to engage in illegal activity, and then Trump sent a mob to the capitol where Pence was doing his job.

Four people are dead on a day of performative action, merely to count votes, with an outcome that was guaranteed on December 8.

Following this violence and death, most Republicans in the House supported and voted for this cynical, delusional lie of their cult leader. And had very little to say about the mob that was send toward them, by him. They had more lies to tell.

Trump spent five years of the previous presidency trying to delegitimize that president too, just like he's trying to delegitimize the next one.

Don't lecture people on how they should become milquetoast.

> If the republican leadership had unequivocally come out against the narrative that the election was stolen, this wouldn't be happening.

They all came out against Trump when this started in 2016. Was not even a speed bump.

The senators could have voted to convict convict during the impeachment trial.

That would have been more than a speed bump. They had the opportunity to act, chose not to (well except for Romney).

You can very fairly blame them for not removing him. I don't think you can blame them for the storming as Trump has the support of the base. They do not.

I would blame those who haven't taken issue with the spreading of conspiracy theories and certainly those who spread conspiracy theories when it is convenient for them that leads to this kind of thing.

Trump's been riling his base up with lies and almost everyone important in the republican party has been doing nearly nothing to disagree. They're supposed to be about half of our elected leadership. They can be blamed for inaction.

If they were openly and clearly disagreeing with Trump, then they wouldn't be at fault. But they're giving tacit approval.

Cruz, Hawley, et al. helped escalate the situation to this point. This would not have happened if they weren't planning on protesting certification in the first place. There are degrees of culpability here. It obviously starts with the mob itself, then Trump, then his supporters in congress, then other Republicans who hesitated to accept the election results, etc.

Most of them came out against Trump only so long as it didn't matter, and in the least effectual way they could. They also almost universally stopped even pretending once he was elected.

Well the Republican “leadership” is no longer a monolithic entity, it’s split between Trumpists and establishment types. The former have been leading it all. The latter have been speaking out against it all along, but to no effect.

The writing was on the wall and they knew it. Now that Trump doesn't benefit them, they will act like they don't support him.

There's barely any "establishment" members left in the Republican party. They were primaried to death in the past couple of decades, or chose to quit when they saw what direction their party was heading. Like it or not Trump and his brand of politics is the modern Republican party.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-there-are-so-few-mo...

Establishment democrats also are their lunch to an extent.

A pro business, corporate tax cut Democrat isn't all that different from a pro business, corporate tax cut republican

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