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Comment by Trasmatta | Hacker News Reader

That "protest gone off the rails, with a few bad actors" would have absolutely executed a member of Congress or the Vice President if given the chance. And they got unbelievably close to being able to do that. They had weapons, armor, bloodlust, restraints, and smaller organized extremist groups.

How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

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> How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

I'm pretty high up the spectrum of taking the riot seriously rather than "a protest gone bad", but how would this extreme worst case be "an existential threat to the republic"? The republic is explicitly designed to rout around the death (incl assassination) of the President, let alone more minor political figures. Was Gabbie Giffords' tragic attack an existential threat to the republic?

I'm a hardliner on political violence and want to see the book thrown at everyone who stormed the Capitol, but that's down to the need to set a Schelling fence; it's not even close to "existential".

> Was Gabbie Giffords' tragic attack an existential threat to the republic?

Somebody also compared this to the Scalise shooting. Neither are comparable. This was a mob executing the whim of the sitting President, trying to prevent the legal counting of the votes of the incoming President. Not to mention the symbolic nature of it taking place at the US Capitol, while the entirety of Congress was in session. This is not comparable to lone wolf attacks against singular targets.

I don't think it would have been actually republic ending -- but it sure would have set us on an extremely dangerous path towards increasing levels of extremism, violence.

> How can you not see that as an "existential threat to the republic"?

Because it’s not. Our representatives are not the republic. There isn’t some clause that dissolves government if enough representatives die.

The civil war in which states receded was an existential threat. A bunch of dead Congress members is horrific terrorism but it’s nowhere near an existential crisis. The beauty of our structure is that individuals do not matter in the gran scheme of things.

This has been brought up elsewhere in the thread, but it's not about the individuals dying. It's about the potential for escalating violence and power grabs that come in its wake.

A MAGA mob that managed to kill Senators would likely cause protests and riots to erupt across the country. Likely worse than we saw last summer. Then you have a major danger of counter protesting, and escalating violence between the groups. Then there's the danger of the possible ways in which the government reacts. We already saw Trump last summer threatening to deploy military on domestic soil. The dominos can continue to fall from there, as violence continues, and power consolidates.

Would that have definitely happened, and would that have definitely threatened to end the republic? I don't know. But it's a threat, nonetheless.

This comment explains it better than me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25711602

But that’s all fantasy. The country has the national guard for protests in cities which frequently gets deployed and would be used in these scenarios as well. There is no special power grab that can happen legally so he would need a bunch of life long military generals to agree to a coup, in which case the congress protester attack is irrelevant anyway.

> They had weapons

Are we talking about guns? I didn't see any report that any of these people had a single gun. Yes you can qualify a broom stolen from the janitors cabin as a weapon, but give me a break...

> armor

Wearing a pair of camouflage pants and a bicyle helmet does not qualify as armor

> bloodlust

maybe

> I didn't see any report that any of these people had a single gun.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/08/politics/us-capitol-riots... mentions, among other things, multiple charges for carrying guns on capitol grounds. + a bunch of illegal gun stuff in the surrounding area.

> Wearing a pair of camouflage pants and a bicyle helmet does not qualify as armor

Above article mentions at least one case where the police charge explicitly mentions a bulletproof vest, and on various photos you can see "tactical helmets" (which could be unarmored, true) and plate carriers

Because in trying to imagine the worst possible outcome, I still see no way Joe Biden is not sworn in on January 20. I grant you some of the people there may have been under delusions that they could stop it, but it wasn't going to happen. I mean god forbid they killed the VP or the Speaker. The rest of the Congress, the military, the states, are all going stand aside and say "OK well, nothing we can do now, it's President Trump for life!"

It's not just about whether Biden becomes President on the 20th. Because there's not really any way they could have stopped that. It's about how much further that could have escalated extremism and violence.

I suggest you read more history. Sudden violent events have, time after time, been used to increase authoritarian control. I can absolutely see a line that starts with "we need to get the Senate safe, also we're going to give emergency powers to the president." Followed by attempts to prevent the Senate from meeting, increasing police and national guard presence. Protests start nationwide. Protests lead to riots and conflict. Suddenly there's an incentive to use a little force to get everything "in order". And maybe just hold on a bit before handing over power.

Especially because the police support Trump.

Who is the "we" that is giving him more powers? Trump is viscerally hated by the Speaker (2nd in line) and most of the House (they already impeached him once) and a significant portion of the Senate. No way he's getting any emergency powers, if the Constitution would even allow it.

For a more competent autocrat-hopeful, the military. Trump's biggest mistake (and our biggest boon in such a situation) is that he spent 4 years making enemies of the top brass. You don't become a dictator when the heads of the military hate you.

> we need to get the Senate safe, also we're going to give emergency powers to the president.

There is an actor in your sentence that doesn’t exist in the US government. There is no “we” that would give emergency powers to the president against the will of the congress.

What if the violence ends in everyone who opposes the President losing their lives? They get rid of all Democrats in Congress, and Republicans vote to give Trump emergency powers.

Can’t happen. They wouldn’t be able to achieve quorum to even have the vote. Would need to wait until states appoint replacement representatives.

Not true at all. First and foremost, "the whole number of the House has long been viewed as the number of Members elected, sworn, and living". So if they murdered all of the Democrats the remaining Republicans would have enough members to maintain a quorum.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/98-988

But there are other ways to get around this as well. Specifically, read sections:

- Quorum in the Case of Catastrophic Circumstances

- Voting and Quorum Procedures in the House of Representatives

All Dems murdered would be catastrophic circumstances and would require the 72 hour window with the failure to reach quorum report. That’s plenty of time for states to re-appoint all of the senators and prevent the take over of the upper house.

Everyone who is involved in this coup should be arrested immediately

Why isn't Trump arrested yet? since many claims he is the leader of the coup.

Even AOC calls for resignation for supporting a coup attempt. Huh?

In many countries, It's a death sentence (or max jail time) if one tries to overthrow a government.

In US, the punishment is resignation and banned from social media and AWS?

Yeah, some hyperbole is involved here.

I'm old enough to remember when a Bernie Sanders supporter shot a Republican congressman at a baseball practice. Is that an existential threat to the republic that should be laid at the feet of Bernie supporters?

You can't see the difference between a single lone wolf attack at a baseball game, and an entire mob instigated by the President of the United States, at the US Capitol? Taking place while Congress counted the votes of that President's political opponent?

Most of the people at the Capitol were there for peaceful protest.

Trump did not tell them to kill politicians. His rhetoric was extreme, but arguably so is Bernie's.

> Most of the people at the Capitol were there for peaceful protest.

Okay, but there were many there that explicitly wanted violence, came prepared for it, and used the mob as cover.

> Trump did not tell them to kill politicians

Trump doesn't have to explicitly say "kill these politicians" to make the implication perfectly clear. He repeatedly told them he needed them to "fight" for him.

> His rhetoric was extreme, but arguably so is Bernie's

Bernie never incited a mob to storm the Capitol Building, while Congress ratified the votes for his political opponent.

> Bernie never incited a mob to storm the Capitol Building, while Congress ratified the votes for his political opponent.

His supporters most certainly include a fringe of people prepared for violence. I've even seen video evidence of such people working for his presidential election campaign.

Bernie Sanders also endorsed the (thankfully failed) Portland mayoral candidate who was an open Antifa supporter and worshiper of Stalin and Mao.

The question, for any political movement that has violent fringe, to what extent can the responsibility for that violent fringe be set at the feet of either the members of the movement or the politicians who lead it?

Bernie and his followers have never been broadly considered responsible for his radicals, despite his extreme rhetoric.

All summer long we had "mostly peaceful" BLM protests that included a significant minority of violent radicals (both BLM and Antifa) and yet no one took responsibility. In many cases people weren't even prosecuted.

Consider this: on election day, D.C. was boarded up, and it wasn't in preparation for rioting Trump supporters. These are people who generally speaking don't want to over through the existing order. They just want to see the existing order working.

There's a huge difference between a lone actor and the large amount of people who went into the capitol on the 6th.

Most of the people there (including many who entered the building) were clearly not intending or prepared for violence.

So? Many of them were. And the mob provided them cover.

Honest question: do you feel the same about the riots over the past summer?

This is now attempt number 4 in this thread to get me on this point. This is not an "honest question", it's a gotcha attempt.

I am against rioting. Full stop.

> I am against rioting. Full stop.

Great, so am I! But I have been hearing people (both here and from the very politicians threatened on the 6th) excusing and downplaying the violent rioting that occurred over the summer.

This "gotcha" is an attempt to see whether one is dealing with someone that has a consistent set of principles.

Were they a part of a mob swarming the baseball practice? If so, then yes, they were all complicit for not stopping an escalation of violence. If not, then no, it was a single actor. It's not that hard to apply a tiny amount of critical thinking to avoid false equivalency.

Bernie didn't tell him to do what he did, and he was just one guy. This was a large mob, and Trump had just instructed it to do 90% of what it did. The possibility that violence could occur was clear. That's not at all a valid comparison.

And you attest that malatov-throwing, firework shooting, armed, arsonist actors in Summer 2020 wouldn't do the same?

A huge protest with high emotions does mob justice. No surprises there.

You're the third person who's responded to my comment with a whataboutism for the BLM protests, something I made zero mention of.

Nope, because they weren't interfering with the ratification of a Presidential election. It's one thing to burn out a Target and another to ransack The Capitol while it is in session doing critical constitutional duties.

It's better for people aggrieved by the system to loot and burn down community businesses than government buildings?

That is a very hot take.

Yes, when that government building is the Capitol. It's more about the people inside the building than the building itself.

And not just the Capitol, but the Capitol while the entirety of Congress is in session counting the votes for the incoming President.

It's one thing if this had happened on a random Wednesday, but the timing is what makes it so disturbing.

It's straight out of a wannabe dictator's playbook. The fact that it was incompetent and disorganized doesn't change that.

What was your opinion on the BLM protests outside of the White House ?

I'm not sure why you ask, but this seems like a potential bad faith attempt at whataboutism. I don't support any form of rioting. I also don't think what happened outside of the White House was in any way a riot. Certainly not in any way comparable to what happened this week at the Capitol.

I ask because it makes you think and hopefully prevent overreaction. Banning apps because of extremists and poor police presence is stupid. I think these people should have been treated the same as the second day of protest where Capitol police were stationed outside after the church was set on fire. There was a lot more time to plan for these event as it was less spontaneous and had many hundreds of thousands planning attendance. I think not having a bigger police presence was pathetic and it was likely political.

Okay, putting the ideals of the two events aside, the fact is the police (and national guard) presence was great enough during the BLM protest to make breaching the perimeter essentially impossible, as opposed to the much lighter presence on the 6th.

And Trump got absolutely pilloried for having that troop presence at the time.

Because it was a photo op, not a constitutional duty of Congress.

I’m not talking about the photo op, I’m talking about the police presence trying to contain the violent mob earlier in the day.

Exactly and it’s unacceptable that it wasn’t. Who is to blame?

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