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Comment by somenameforme

4 days ago

It also illustrates what a real insurrection attempt looks like. [1] He declared martial law, suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting (and directed the military to enforce such), ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds, issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication, ordered the power+water for a news broadcaster be cut, and much more.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_South_Korean_martial_law_...

Just to be clear, ordering a violent mob thousands strong to march on the capitol and "fight like hell" to interfere with the peaceful transition of power is also what a real insurrection attempt looks like.

  • As does attempting to manipulate election officials to change the vote outcome. If not for one person rejecting this coercion the coup would have been successful.

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    • Have you read or watched/listened to his entire speech?

      I genuinely do not believe any reasonable human being can look at just the speech in context - much less his statements surrounding it in the months leading up - and argue that he didn't get exactly what he wanted in good faith.

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    • Yeah! Like if we all just agree to pretend the one statement in isolation was the entire event he looks pretty reasonable!

      Why do people keep pointing out that months of lying about electoral fraud may have encouraged people to take some extreme actions? SMH, that's not what he said on the day! Well, at least not on that day within the few second window of what I'd like you to consider!

  • Innocent until proven guilty.

I’m not suggesting things are as bad as a full on insurrection. But it’s not a great leap of imagination to compare the two either.

> He declared martial law

Trump has sent federal troops into states that voted against him.

He’s also frequently talked about “the enemy from within” to describe American citizens.

And then there’s ICE…

> suspended and prevented their Congress equivalent from meeting

Trump has shut down the government twice already.

The press just like to blame Democrats despite the fact that it’s the Republicans who are refusing to negotiate.

> ordered the immediate arrest of numerous high level politicians with a goal of arresting hundreds,

To be fair, Trump hasn’t gone that far (yet). But he has fired lots of people from government roles that should have been non-partisan and filled them with his own loyal supporters. Even when those people are clearly not qualified to be doing their new found appointments.

He’s also freed lots of criminals because they either supported him, or paid him.

> issued a declaration that all media and publications had to be approved before publication

Trump has been removing press from the White House and replacing them with publications that support him.

> ordered the power+water for a news broadcaster be cut

Trump hasn’t done that either. But he has sent the FCC to shutdown shows he dislikes. And sued the others into compliance.

  • The overreach of executive powers is very concerning, but those are more long term attempts to influence the public and policy makers through shady tactics.

    The insurrection everyone is referring to is definitely Jan 6th, which it is laughable to compare to an actual insurrection attempt. A few thousand unarmed people waving signs and wearing costumes break into government buildings and take selfies? What would the next steps be that would end in them overthrowing elected leaders?

    • I think the thing that puts J6 in the "definitely an insurrection attempt" category is the fact that it happened while Congress was exercising its duty to formalize the electoral college vote. We don't have to reach for statistics about how many were armed or wearing costumes (a fact that seems immaterial in any case); the question is sufficiently answered by what they were attempting to stop.

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    • Multiple protestors had weapons and the militias had weapons parked just across the border. There also would have been no reason to pardon anyone if no crimes were being committed. But you already know this

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    • Killing legislators or physically threatening them into overturning the results. But siccing the mob was just a last-ditch move.

      The main plan was sending fake electors with fraudulent certifications and counting on Pence to derail the formal vote count and accept the false slate through a fog of procedural confusion. The fact that Pence refused to go along with the plan and Trump resorted to physically threatening him and Congress doesn't change the fact that their plan was an illegal and fraudulent interference with the verification of the election based on knowingly false claims.

    • According to the bipartisan House select committee that investigated the incident, the attack was the culmination of a plan by Trump to overturn the election.

      Within 36 hours, five people died: including a police officer who died of a stroke a day after being assaulted by rioters and collapsing at the Capitol.

      Many people were injured, including 174 police officers. Four officers who responded to the attack died by suicide within seven months. Damage caused by attackers exceeded $2.7 million. It is the only attempted coup d'état directed towards the Federal government in the history of the United States.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...

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> It also illustrates what a real insurrection attempt looks like.

What did you say elsewhere about "good faith"? J6 was a real insurrection attempt.

A failed and poorly executed insurrection attempt is still an insurrection attempt.

People go to prison for attempted murder every day.

How did they stop him?

  • Some of the orders weren't carried out, others were carried out loosely so armed forces were occupying their Congress but they didn't actually stop members from being in the building and voting down the martial law. If we're doing the Trump comparison, an obvious difference is that Trump already knew the military wouldn't intervene to take sides on who got certified as the winner (they'd actually taken the unprecedented step of issuing a statement to that effect) and had reason to believe some of his supporters would give it a go...