Trump supporters storming Congress [split topic]

[St_Eddie]

...I'm wondering what has to happen for these people to get off the crazy train. Maybe there is no limit.

Cultists aren't known for their rationality.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Republican members refusing to put on masks while sheltering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tqitfs9aLc

According to the BBC, two members of Congress now have COVID:

Two members of Congress have tested positive for coronavirus after the pro-Trump siege on the Capitol last week.

Bonnie Watson Coleman, 75, and Pramila Jayapal, 55, both Democrats, tested positive after being forced to lockdown in a small room with many others as pro-Trump supporters broke into the building.

Some of their Republican colleagues refused to wear masks when sheltering, Jayapal said, calling such behaviour "selfish idiocy"...

[Urinal Cake]

Pence was a personal betrayal for him. I really thought Trump would spin the deaths in his favour as a Democrat-Antifa conspiracy but I guess he's too dejected to even make an effort on that. 

Cultists aren't known for their rationality.

The latest QAnon Anonymous podcast was pretty depressing. According to them the (boy)friend of the woman who got shot blamed it on antifa agitators. The conspiracy is always moving and amorphous. In a way the world has to move on without them since you can't argue with them until they reach a moment of clarity.

[Paul Calf]

Locked in a small, poorly-ventilated room with COVID-positive people for several hours, the rioters might have got their wish of dead legislators.

[ajsmith2]

Trump supporting patches of the US are just gonna be permanent Covid incubators from now on aren't they?

[Buelligan]

Behaviour is fostered by the environment people see around them and how their coping mechanisms have evolved to adapt to it.

There are a few who choose to adapt by withdrawing from most aspects of the prevailing culture but that is a natural variation and a tiny minority. Just because it is possible doesn't make it achievable or likely.

If you want meaningful change then the environment and culture needs reforming. If you leave people to their own devices they will try to adapt to hardship and reduced rights rather than fighting against it, until a tipping point is reached where there is nothing left to lose.

Successful labour movements have managed to sustain positive cultural habits like community activism, solidarity with others, understanding the power of the collective and hostility to impositions of hardship and decline, but that is vanishing and certainly in the UK most people are lost, they can't see the ground being swallowed up beneath their feet or can and would rather deny it. It is beyond simply demanding that individuals pull themselves together.

I wouldn't argue with any of that.  You may be aware I am fairly politically engaged and hopefully, that evidences my engagement with changing culture and my solidarity with other humans with the aim of improving experience for everyone. 

My comments were a response to bgmnts talking about my personal choice not to live with other humans, not to have personal relationships and so on and also my firmly held belief that yes, we can all say the reason we did shitty thing X was provocation of some description - and fuck me, many humans are provoked beyond any reasonable tolerance, as you alluded - nevertheless, it all boils down to personal choice at the end.  There is no way of removing the hardship you talked about, to enable people to make an unencumbered choice, until that hardship, itself, is ended.  In the mean time each must choose for themselves, do we raise the gun or the pen?  It's a personal choice.

Everyone suffers, the mark of civilisation is that, whilst we work to alleviate that suffering, we conduct ourselves like the people we hope to be.  That's what I reckon anyway.

[sirhenry]

Trump supporting patches of the US are just gonna be permanent Covid incubators from now on aren't they?

Like bubonic plague? https://abcnews.go.com/Health/plague-exists-now-us/story?id=55860883

[Buelligan]

Perhaps some enterprising individual should build a wall round them.

[Alberon]

The Washington Post has a piece on what was going on in the White House during the riot.

But as senators and House members trapped inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday begged for immediate help during the siege, they struggled to get through to the president, who — safely ensconced in the West Wing — was too busy watching fiery TV images of the crisis unfolding around them to act or even bother to hear their pleas.

"He was hard to reach, and you know why? Because it was live TV," said one close Trump adviser. "If it's TiVo, he just hits pause and takes the calls. If it's live TV, he watches it, and he was just watching it all unfold."

...

Even as his supporters at the Capitol chanted for Pence to be hanged, Trump never called the vice president to check on him or his family. Marc Short, Pence's chief of staff, eventually called the White House to let them know that Pence and his team were okay, after receiving no outreach from the president or anyone else in the White House.

Meanwhile, in the West Wing, a small group of aides — including Ivanka Trump, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Meadows — was imploring Trump to speak out against the violence. Meadows's staff had prompted him to go see the president, with one aide telling the chief of staff before he entered the Oval Office, "They are going to kill people."

...

Around this time, the White House was preparing to put out a video address on behalf of the president. They had begun discussing this option earlier but struggled to organize their effort. Biden, meanwhile, stepped forward with remarks that seemed to rise to the occasion: "The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America, do not represent who we are."

Trump aides did three takes of the video and chose the most palatable option — despite some West Wing consternation that the president had called the violent protesters "very special."

...

The following evening, on Thursday, Trump released another video, the closest advisers say he is likely to come to a concession speech.

"Congress has certified the results: A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20th," Trump said in the video. "My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly, and seamless transition of power. This moment calls for healing and reconciliation."

His calls for healing and reconciliation were more than a day too late, many aides said. Yet as Trump watched the media coverage of his video, he grew angry.

The president said he wished he hadn't done it, a senior White House official said, because he feared that the calming words made him look weak.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mob-failure/2021/01/11/36a46e2e-542e-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html

[El Unicornio, mang]

Goodfellas/Capitol rioters being put on no fly list mash-up

https://www.facebook.com/22701256/videos/10100257334820978/

[Better Midlands]

Goodfellas/Capitol rioters being put on no fly list mash-up

https://www.facebook.com/22701256/videos/10100257334820978/

That's excellent.

[sirhenry]

If only he had thought to call it a hunger strike, he might have ended up less of a laughing stock: https://mobile.twitter.com/MelissaBlasius/status/1348740338827939841

[Cuellar]

Simply further proof that he's a soy boy antifa plant

[bgmnts]

Its just crazy to think of all the mental injustices that SHOULD incite the public to storm the capitol and enact change, its this absolute farce.

Fair play to them really, at least they did something.

[Urinal Cake]

After the latest podcast I think TrueAnon should just stick to Epstein and other pedo conspiracies. I sort of understand their detractors now.

[jobotic]

Its just crazy to think of all the mental injustices that SHOULD incite the public to storm the capitol and enact change, its this absolute farce.

Like people who correctly call this government fascists until you realise its because....they want us to wear masks in shops, if we don't mind, during a pandemic.

The actual bad shit they're fully behind.

[thugler]

After the latest podcast I think TrueAnon should just stick to Epstein and other pedo conspiracies. I sort of understand their detractors now.

What were they saying? I only listen to q anon anonymous.

[Mister Six]

Gen X is still almost entirely alive

More's the pity.

It was lazy phrasing, but the point is that all the defeatist whinging is an outmoded philosophy. There's everything to play for - literally - so get on the field.

[Urinal Cake]

What were they saying? I only listen to q anon anonymous.

- It wasn't a coup or attempted coup. Apart from the deaths it wasn't that serious. Everybody is being overdramatic. Well yeah because politicians hid for their lives
- Trump cannot control MAGA or Q. But somebodies else are. He can. MAGA people on the ground have said if Trump said to leave earlier they would've done.
- Trump was going to change the system/order and the establishment is using this incident to enforce the status quo. Was Trump really going to change the system? Apart from his rhetoric and foreign policy he wasn't that much of a change. In fact he was far more right-wing than progressive on most fronts.

I still find Brace funny but damn just not a great take.

[idunnosomename]

PooAnon

[sirhenry]

It turns out that the Trump supporter who was found with 11 Molotov cocktails and assorted firearms was even more sick and twisted than that - the Molotov cocktails were filled with homemade napalm: https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/alabama-man-charged-possession-eleven-molotov-cocktails-found-near-protest-us-capitol

Sorry, can't think of a joke that would make that even a bit amusing.

[thugler]

- It wasn't a coup or attempted coup. Apart from the deaths it wasn't that serious. Everybody is being overdramatic. Well yeah because politicians hid for their lives
- Trump cannot control MAGA or Q. But somebodies else are. He can. MAGA people on the ground have said if Trump said to leave earlier they would've done.
- Trump was going to change the system/order and the establishment is using this incident to enforce the status quo. Was Trump really going to change the system? Apart from his rhetoric and foreign policy he wasn't that much of a change. In fact he was far more right-wing than progressive on most fronts.

I still find Brace funny but damn just not a great take.

Yeah that's a pretty dense take.

It really wasn't that far away from more deaths and senators getting attacked if you look into it a little. Just because only a few people died that's not a reason to dismiss it like that. Also disagree with all takes that make out Trump was/is going to do anything to change the system. He only cares about glorifying himself and firing up the base that got him elected. It was never about that for him.

[ajsmith2]

Also disagree with all takes that make out Trump was/is going to do anything to change the system. He only cares about glorifying himself and firing up the base that got him elected. It was never about that for him.

That's what I really don't get about the 'Trump is the rule-breaking punk rock outsider candidate! You may not like his style, but face it: he's our only hope for real change!' takes (from both sides, both sides).. yes it's true Trump is (was, now?) a genuine maverick smashing up norms, but it's only in the pursuit of creating his own entirely self serving empire dedicated only to the deification of himself and his brand, forever. That's it, there's no other aspect to it. It's an empty, monochromatic endgame that makes the possibilities and opportunities offered by the US's shitey regular governance look fecund and fair by comparison.

WHY are those seeking upheaval and revolution to the status quo meant to be working in unquestioning lockstep with that kind of solipsistic monomania? It's so dumb and completely lacking in imagination. Why are we meant to be satisfied with that? It's insulting to anyone practicing critical thinking, and I can't believe so many who style themselves as such have fallen for it again and again, just for school peer level pressure fears of looking like a 'normie'.

[Dayraven]

A belief that once the status quo gets smashed, changes for the better will take care of themselves?

[ajsmith2]

A belief that once the status quo gets smashed, changes for the better will take care of themselves?

I'll admit that a significant part of me wanted Trump to win in 2016 because it would disrupt the smugly assumed liberal narrative, and it sure did on the surface, but since then it's been 4 years of siding with various banalities and evils and banal evils in the cause of 'me best man ever' and nothing else. Why would anyone seeking genuine change want to side with that after seeing it in practice? It's just the creation of a new even worse status quo.

[Petey Pate]

One thing I didn't realise from the initial coverage was the prevalence of international flags and symbols at Capitol Hill. You can spot Canadian, Israeli, Indian, Australian and Japanese flags among the crowd, but there are some even more curious ones.



Iran, pre-revolution.



South Vietnam, pre-reunification with North.



East Turkestan/Xinjiang.



Tibet.



Georgia, though in this case, the person might confused the country with the US state.

[Urinal Cake]

Like the understanding I got from TrueAnon was Trump was a useful idiot of the establishment just to convince the public that the status quo was needed.

I know the political system isn't great and that the Democrats in many respects are the same as the GOP but fuck these guys would've got their hands on Pence to force him to overturn the vote. Then they'd probably find any RINOs and Democrats they could and do some citizen's arrest bs and probably kill them through vindictiveness or incompetence.

[George Oscar Bluth II]

AOC said last night she didn't go to the secure room with other congresspeople cos she was worried Republicans would give away their position and get her killed. Real healthy democracy they have over there isn't it. Good stuff.

(Are they going to search republicans on inauguration day? There's at least two real Qanon heads in Congress now, can they be trusted not to do something?)

[Hank Venture]

Two new things I've seen that goes against the "calm down, it's not that dangerous" line of argument:

- Pretty convincing video proof of an agent provocateur within the police force right next to the lady who got shot: https://twitter.com/politicalwilli/status/1349083364729360384
- the panic buttons in Ayanna Pressley's office were all ripped out *before* the attack: https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1349232278636011520

[Lord Mandrake]

- Pretty convincing video proof of an agent provocateur within the police force right next to the lady who got shot: https://twitter.com/politicalwilli/status/1349083364729360384

Crikey.