That's correct. And the idea that Trump will end democracy is a core part of the left's fear campaign. They share responsibility for this.
Trump regularly behaves completely irresponsibly and is a terrible loser, and Trump is definitely capable of (intentionally and otherwise) inciting violence, but if you compare the actions of the Democratic leadership to their rhetoric you can clearly see they don't believe the full extent of their own rhetoric about him.
They play up the apocalyptic fears for democracy itself because they know it's the only card they have left after nominating Biden. If they were serious about protecting democracy they'd have kicked him out last year when there was still time to build momentum for an electable candidate, rather than continuing to protect his ego. If they were serious about protecting democracy they would have tried harder to court the moderate voters (who are very courtable right now if anyone cared to try). If they were serious about protecting democracy they would have done anything other than focus exclusively on how terrible Trump is for the last four years, because they know that you don't beat a fire by fanning it. They would have deescalated, but instead they escalated, and they absolutely share responsibility for this.
I guess, for people whose world view is so malleable that they can look at an attempt to overthrow the government and say "Some people walked into a government building," it makes perfect sense to feel sorry for Trump being demonized by the Left.
Let me turn this around - why lie about such an easy-to-check fact? Even RFK has stopped pushing this, why do you continue when it's trivial to disprove?
As far as what was brought into the building I only see mention of a potential concealed carry handgun or two? The only person shot was a unarmed woman who apparently caused the capitol police to fear for their lives. If they had guns as you claimed then they forgot to use them?
Sort of sounds like they forgot the guns, make sense given so many of them were elderly.
I mean, why do you think guns were stashed close by? Just for fun? Do you do this as a hobby as well?
I expect many own firearms for hobby purposes.
I'm sure you are aware that I didn't ask whether you own weapons as a hobby. Since we're interacting in good faith and you're surely not attempting to derail the conversation with unrelated remarks, I'm interpreting your answer as affirmative.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/01/02/jan-6-pol...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
These conversations (this entire thread and all(!) others like it, with perhaps a few exceptional comments here and there) are like listening to my uneducated family members discussing AI at my last family reunion.
Noteworthy: they show no signs that they realize the predicament they are in.
Why are people like this?
How can there be no exceptions?
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy...
The 22nd amendment is the only thing that gives me confidence, but it won't be for lack of trying on his part.
We’ve got a SCOTUS that says he can be King. Surely he won’t use it, because…