“The things we do for the orange Jesus”
November 1, 2021 10:44 AM   Subscribe

Bloodshed (Over thirty Washington Post reporters and contributors provide the most detailed accounting of January 6 yet published, 10/31/21.)
posted by box (89 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
Can I please just ask, as this conversation happens, that people please be thoughtful about how they refer to the January 6th insurrectionists? There's a MeTa on this topic for terms related to LARPing and I'd like to request, as I did in that thread, that we also not refer to them as "anarchists" and especially that we not make derogatory comments about their bodies; there are plenty of totally legit and valid and cool and good ways to talk about how terrible they are based on their actions and beliefs and not characteristics that are morally neutral and are shared by people who are not reprehensible.
posted by an octopus IRL at 10:56 AM on November 1, 2021 [76 favorites]


I'd really like to read this but its paywalled. incognito window did not solve this.
posted by supermedusa at 11:00 AM on November 1, 2021 [4 favorites]


Democracy dies behind paywalls
posted by riverlife at 11:02 AM on November 1, 2021 [57 favorites]


Wayback (presentation isn't as good, but it will get you the text).
posted by MonkeyToes at 11:07 AM on November 1, 2021 [12 favorites]


Archive
posted by migurski at 11:09 AM on November 1, 2021 [11 favorites]


Thank you MonkeyToes. I receive the WaPo and NYT newsletters each day, and I was hoping there would be a chance to read this. (I know, I know; when I have more money, I will pay for subscriptions - it doesn’t absolve much, but I have been donating to my PBS stations for years).

ETA: also thanks to Migurski
posted by sara is disenchanted at 11:11 AM on November 1, 2021


yes, thanks MonkeyToes and migurski, I did not know about the archive trick
posted by supermedusa at 11:14 AM on November 1, 2021


Members discussed how they would position themselves if the mob were to burst through the doors. Crow suggested that members take their pins off so that the rioters could not identify them as the elected officials they wanted to kill.

Just removing a pin was not a solution for every lawmaker, however. While all were under threat, the danger was particularly acute for lawmakers of color, whose identity made them a visible target for the overwhelmingly White throng.

“For many of us, we can’t hide what we look like,” Jayapal said. “We can’t run over and hide in a group of Republicans, and we can’t take off a jacket to blend into a White crowd, which was a very, very real dynamic as we were watching Confederate flags being raised with horrible racist messages.”


We're probably only a psychotic pilot away from another domestic, white supremacist terrorist attack. Trump needs to be brought to justice for what he did to this country, and what he continues to do to us while he breathes air outside of a maximum-security prison facility.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:16 AM on November 1, 2021 [30 favorites]


Democracy dies behind paywalls

People die when they don't get paid for their work.
posted by FencingGal at 11:36 AM on November 1, 2021 [78 favorites]


And the unrelenting view that this is all just a hoax, from the psychotic Right.
posted by PhineasGage at 11:39 AM on November 1, 2021


> Escalating danger signs were in full view hours before the Capitol attack, but did not trigger a stepped-up security response

Hate this passive language. Who was responsible for escalating security and deciding not to? What are the names in that chain of command? Why did they make that choice? A bit of accountability would be very nice.
posted by andreinla at 11:42 AM on November 1, 2021 [48 favorites]


And here we are still in the same year -- oh, the interminability!
posted by y2karl at 11:57 AM on November 1, 2021 [3 favorites]


Now that we've got all the paywall, presentation, and tone-setting comments out of the way... Could we talk about the article?

It's a fantastic bit of holistic journalism. I particularly like the way they tell the story through the eyes of different people involved; Paul Hodgkins the insurrectionist, Liz Cheney the congressperson, Mendoza the capitol police. Placing Pence's safety in the timeline next to Trump's tweets inciting attacks against him. It helps anchor a very complicated narrative. My only complaint is it's long and upsetting and I fear very few people will actually read it. I read it yesterday and it took me 90 minutes over three stretches.

But they accounted for the tl;dr problem somewhat with the key findings summary at the top. Also lots of other related articles, the one about Trump's lawyer blaming Pence while Pence was under assault is particularly effective.

The horrible thing is nothing has happened in the last ten months to make the country safer from another coup attempt like this. The coup leaders, participants, and fellow travellers literally form half the government. And have been passing laws, mostly at the state level, to make it easier to have a more effective coup next time. And we all just walk around pretending this is OK. All efforts by the Democrats to make us safer have failed. Impeachment failed. Congressional subpoenas are routinely ignored with no penalty. Couldn't even pass a basic voting rights protection bill.

Sounding alarmist is hackneyed but there's a very real chance we lose American democracy in 2024. I don't just mean further corrupting democracy, like we have all along with voter suppression and gerrymandering and rural state power. I mean a straight up seizure of the Presidency ignoring all laws, just pure political and violent will. They tried it ten months ago, failed because of bad planning, and suffered no consequences. Now they're planning the next attack and it seems likely they'll be more prepared this time.
posted by Nelson at 12:08 PM on November 1, 2021 [113 favorites]


PhineasGage: And the unrelenting view that this is all just a hoax, from the psychotic Right.

Dang, I seem to remember a day when the Real Clear web brand was new, and froth-free. Now, like the fifth link on their home page is the terrible New York Post:
Virginia Buries an Enduring Political Myth Jeff Greenfield, Politico
Parents Matter: VA to Decide Fate of Students, Schools Glenn Youngkin, FOX News
'Parents' Rights' Is Code For White Race Politics Juan Williams, The Hill
The Toll Critical Race Theory Takes On Our Children Alveda King, Newsweek
The Party of Ideas Produces a Frankenbill Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times
Dems Have Screwed Up Everything. Stop Voting for Them! Deroy Murdock, NY Post
Taking the Infrastructure Bill Hostage Didn't Work Bill Scher, RealClearPolitics
COP26: The Elites Are Laughing in Our Faces Brendan O'Neill, Spiked
We Can't Let China & Russia Sit Out the Climate Fight Thomas Friedman, NY Times
Concerns About Biden's Mental Abilities Go Mainstream Terry Jones, I&I/TIPP
What a parade of rubbish....and that is the "smart" political web site, too. *eyeroll*
posted by wenestvedt at 12:14 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]


I must not have been paying much attention when they got started. I thought RCP was always awful.
posted by PhineasGage at 12:16 PM on November 1, 2021 [7 favorites]


I'm at 2:44 pm and I have to take a break from reading. It's around the time I stopped watching in real life. It's harrowing reporting.
posted by mochapickle at 12:21 PM on November 1, 2021 [3 favorites]


I am intensely curious about what kind of impact knowing that Lyndsey Graham was urging Capital police to "use your guns! Shoot them!" is going to have.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:39 PM on November 1, 2021 [9 favorites]


My prediction is "none at all." Graham will deny it or claim he only said that because he thought the insurrectionists were antifa. Within a few months of the insurrection Graham had fallen 100% back in line behind Trump:
"To try to erase Donald Trump from the Republican party is insane. And the people who try to erase him are going to wind up getting erased," Graham said in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"It's impossible for this party to move forward without President Trump being its leader, because the people who are conservatives have chosen him as their leader."
Exactly as The Onion predicted.
posted by jedicus at 12:53 PM on November 1, 2021 [33 favorites]


urging Capital police to "use your guns! Shoot them!"
As much as a part of me wishes this had happened, a few dozen capitol police with ~18 bullets each would have done nothing against that frothing swarm and it would have been way worse on net, I think...
posted by Xoder at 12:55 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


And we all just walk around pretending this is OK

I don't think this is true at all. But no one can live in a state of constant panic, and doing so wouldn't help anything. Teri Kanefield has been doing an excellent job of explaining that in order to buttress the rule of law, you have to let the system do its job. It works slowly and imperfectly, but trying to shortcut the system is exactly what the GOP wants. I hate the smugness of the Obamas' "they go low, we go high," but there's a lot of truth in the notion that if we admit the system is so broken that we can't follow established procedure, then they've already won.

I'm sympathetic to the argument that the Democrats are just circling the drain here, but the only real alternative is accelerationism and a civil war we will definitely lose (because look at who has the guns). I would put pressure on my elected officials if I had any who weren't total rats and Nazis. I'm trying to find ways to contribute to mutual aid in my community, but my friends and I are definitely NOT walking around pretending anything is OK. Unlike the dog in the burning house, getting out is not as simple as walking out the door.
posted by rikschell at 12:58 PM on November 1, 2021 [30 favorites]


Across from the FBI’s headquarters downtown, some bureau personnel began the day mixing with MAGA protesters at an Au Bon Pain as they ordered coffee and breakfast. One official noticed a young man wearing a tactical vest and briefly wondered what made him think he needed to wear military-style gear to a political rally.

Are you new here, or what?
posted by klanawa at 1:01 PM on November 1, 2021 [24 favorites]




Thank you for the thoughtful comment, rikschell. Unlike many folks worried about where we are I don't exactly blame the Democrats; they have at least tried. Nor do I have any solutions to the danger our country is in. I'm just in a state of useless despair.

It seems like some basic understanding of factual reality is helpful though and this story is an excellent first draft of history. I appreciated the WashPo's clear framing of this story with direct statements about insurrection, violence, and lies. One of our problems is that a good chunk of the country has entirely divorced itself from reality. The Big Lie about the 2020 election being stolen somehow has a lot of power.
posted by Nelson at 1:09 PM on November 1, 2021 [7 favorites]


While my heart wants to agree with Teri Kanefield, rikschell, I am fully on the side of "the Obamas were naïve with 'When they go low we go high'." I'm not advocating for extra-legal response to the insurrection, but a vital sense of urgency is necessary - greater urgency than we are seeing so far. Nelson's comment upthread is depressing as hell, but that doesn't make it wrong.
posted by PhineasGage at 1:20 PM on November 1, 2021 [9 favorites]


in order to buttress the rule of law, you have to let the system do its job

Even the cogs in the system are finding themselves frustrated with it:
Why, [Judge Beryl A. Howell] asked, when prosecutors called the riot an “attack on democracy . . . unparalleled in American history,” were Griffith and other participants facing the same charge as nonviolent protesters who routinely disrupt congressional hearings?

“It seems like a bit of a disconnect,” Howell said — “muddled” and “almost schizophrenic.”

The parading charge carries a sentence of at most six months, with no supervised release.

“Is it the government’s view that the members of the mob that engaged in the Capitol attack on January 6 were simply trespassers?” Howell asked incredulously. “Is general deterrence going to be served by letting rioters who broke into the Capitol, overran the police . . . broke into the building through windows and doors . . . resolve their criminal liability through petty offense pleas?”

After asking for probationary sentences in several cases, the government sought a three-month jail sentence for Griffith. Howell questioned what distinguished those cases from this one. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jamie Carter said prosecutors gave some defendants credit for early acceptance of responsibility. Griffith, she added, displayed a lack of remorse after the attack and continued to spread false election claims.
[. . .]

She said it was also unusual that prosecutors were not asking for defendants to be under court supervision until they paid their fines. “This is the first time I’ve ever had the government ask for a restitution payment and not ask for a term of probation,” she said. “Is it because the government thinks these defendants are more trustworthy?”

It is unclear legally whether a judge can impose a sentence of jail time followed by probation for a petty offense such as parading. Prosecutors argued Howell could, while Griffith’s attorney maintained she had to choose one or the other.

The law is clear that a person can serve a mix of probation and intermittent jail time, prosecutors said. But Howell said it did not seem wise to have defendants going in and out of the prison system during an ongoing pandemic.

“My hands are tied,” Howell said in frustration. “In all my years on the bench, I’ve never been in this position before, and it’s all due to the government, despite calling this the crime of the century, resolving it with a . . . petty offense.”
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:31 PM on November 1, 2021 [32 favorites]


Parading?

Please forgive the derail, it's a great&vital article (which, like mochapickle, I've not finished yet, must digest it in pieces) but that word... this is from where I know that term (questioned, with incredulity).
posted by Rash at 1:56 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]


Even the cogs in the system are finding themselves frustrated with it:

Man that article Glegrinof the Pig-Man posted is infuriating. No wonder Republicans always win.

"The $500 number (misdemeanor fine), he said, came from dividing the cost of repairs to the Capitol — $1.5 million — by the number of people believed to have entered the building — 2,000 to 2,500."
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:06 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


The parading charge had been pled down from Aggravated Gallivanting and Cavorting with Intent to Commit Shenanigans.

Standard operating procedure for prosecuting coup attempts the world over, really.
posted by dr_dank at 2:22 PM on November 1, 2021 [25 favorites]


I think the 1/6 commision/investigation in Congress will have some problems, specifically finding an actual real conspiracy. (Look I'm hoping many get serious jail time) But was there a functional conspiracy? It seems more like people that got worked up, and a few that went overboard and it all escalated. All bad and wrong, and Trump has huge responsibility but it really may not be that there was an actual group of planners, more a weird group of crazies, true believer wackos and scarily misinformed. There were small contingents of bad actors wanting to look cool and be ready to cause problems, but doubt they even liked each other. And seriously racist core establishment in too many places that did not believe whites would do bad things in a group.

How do you legislate "no wackos allowed"?

I doubt there will be a repeat from the same crowd, word will get around that one can actually get jail time. But there are so many other really scary issues like voting restrictions. The next coup will happen invisibly.
posted by sammyo at 2:27 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


And the unrelenting view that this is all just a hoax, from the psychotic Right.

And also from the primary 'news' network (turn turn turn spit) where mainstream conservatives go for their 'facts.' Not that this isn't also the psychotic Right, but about a third of Americans pretend that it isn't and that Tucker isn't a frothing propagandist.

But was there a functional conspiracy? It seems more like people that got worked up, and a few that went overboard and it all escalated. All bad and wrong, and Trump has huge responsibility but it really may not be that there was an actual group of planners, more a weird group of crazies, true believer wackos and scarily misinformed.

Start at the Willard Hotel and its cast of characters.
posted by delfin at 2:32 PM on November 1, 2021 [9 favorites]


They had t-shirts printed up with the date. While not knowing the legal definition of conspiracy here, that certainly suggests an active and organized plan.
posted by kokaku at 2:33 PM on November 1, 2021 [9 favorites]


I think the 1/6 commision/investigation in Congress will have some problems, specifically finding an actual real conspiracy.

Yeah, about that: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff

And here's a follow-up article: Rep. Mo Brooks Admits Staff May Have Helped Plan Jan. 6 Events, Says He’d Be ‘Proud’ of Them If They Did
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 2:35 PM on November 1, 2021 [39 favorites]


I think the 1/6 commision/investigation in Congress will have some problems, specifically finding an actual real conspiracy.

Oath Keeper claims she met with Secret Service before Capitol riot
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:39 PM on November 1, 2021 [11 favorites]


The short version of "was there a functional conspiracy?" is that the actual riot / invasion of the Capitol was only a part of what it was that Team Trump was attempting to pull off.

Not all of the rioters themselves had been given explicit marching orders in advance, or an expectation that they were actually going to make it inside, or specific goals to achieve once they were in there. An awful lot of them, as with many a riot, were people stepping into a wave and letting it carry them along.

Some of them would have been happy to go ham if presented with targets of opportunity, of course. Some of them _had_ targets in mind... and one group that did zero in on the right area to attack got its point person shot for her trouble.

But the majority of them were useful idiots, directed onto the grounds by Trump and his allies with the expectation that they would at least cause major delays so that the remainder of their game plan could slide into place. And if, you know, they _did_ happen to drag out Pelosi and AOC and That Turncoat VP Guy kicking and screaming, so much the better for them.
posted by delfin at 2:42 PM on November 1, 2021 [7 favorites]


word will get around that one can actually get jail time

We all know that none of the Conservative-identified media people are "conservative" in a philosophical sense. It's an identity. Carlson isn't conservative, or anything else. He's a nihilst and a mercenary, and he knows that all of the things he says are untrue and harmful.

I have this weird hypothesis, though, that his (and others') viewers -- at least subconsciously -- also know that none of it is true and don't care. They're essentially playing ideological video games. Among the obvious reasons this clique is so white is that in order to play these kind of games you have to have lived a relatively consequence-free life, like middle-class white people tend to do. You have to treat other people like NPCs and expect to respawn when you fuck up. People like this (preppers, share groups, militias, freemen-on-the-land, etc.) have always had a place in the American polity, but 24/7 propaganda and social media magnified the problem.

Of course a few of these people have now come face-to-face with the fact that when you get shot in the face, you do not, in fact, respawn; when you get sent to jail, you don't turn the game off and go for a walk. But their fellow travelers are so embedded in the game, that when their fellows get killed or jailed, they think that is part of the game too, until it happens to them.

Deterrence (if it's a real thing, which conservatives seem to think it is) kind of depends on the exercise of an individual's ability to imagine the suffering that comes with consequences, but for whatever reason, these guys seem entirely incapable of using their imaginations in that way, and it's like the only way to reset their expectations is by the broad application of actual consequences, which is really kind of terrifying if the exercise -- rather than the mere promise -- of state violence is required to keep people in line.
posted by klanawa at 2:59 PM on November 1, 2021 [26 favorites]


Donell Harvin's job was literally homeland security and the dude was befuddled like 'why so many out of state plates here on this day of January 6, better call the office maybe they know'
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:09 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


And this unnamed FBI official

One official noticed a young man wearing a tactical vest and briefly wondered what made him think he needed to wear military-style gear to a political rally.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 3:11 PM on November 1, 2021 [3 favorites]


You have to treat other people like NPCs and expect to respawn when you fuck up.

They are getting $500 fines with little jail time for attacking the US Capitol and being involved with police officers getting killed. Most aren't facing any real consequences. That's why they think like that.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:13 PM on November 1, 2021 [20 favorites]


I have a lot of patience for the process to unfold of its own accord, but it isn't infinite, because it seems obvious that if nothing meaningful is done here, it'll happen again and probably fairly soon. Failure to correct this situation seems to lead directly to an increasingly large scale of political violence. Already, today, the situation is more dire than we want to face. Look at what happened to that Biden caravan in Texas that was just revealed. If you are a Democrat voter and live in Texas, do you think the police will help you if the Trump mob shows up? They laughed at Biden's team. How many other places are actually like this and we just don't know because they covered it up successfully?

The thing is, I don't agree at all that there is a disparity in weaponry or whatever between right and left which would be pivotal. There is, however, a massive disparity in willingness to talk shit about it and engage in the macho posturing and pose-offs. It has long been the mindset of aggressors in warfare that the side they are attacking is soft and weak and won't fight. They see the lack of posturing as cowardice. They're going to be happy to let China take Taiwan and Russia take the rest of the former SSRs just to get a shot off at some liberals.
posted by feloniousmonk at 3:15 PM on November 1, 2021 [14 favorites]


Echoing Nelson, et al:

One of the recurring characteristics of Weimar Germany was an unwillingness to deal harshly with the right out of a fear of provoking further right-wing violence. Noske was perfectly willing to slaughter Spartakists; but the subversion of the Kapp putsch (and the beer hall putsch) produced a complacency in the SPD, an assumption that police and law could be relied upon to uphold law. This complacency on the part of the SPD and Zentrum would prove fatal to many, even if Adenauer and Bruning escaped the noose.

I think that variations on this excuse is what many Democratic former elected officials will be mumbling to us in the exercise yards of the concentration camps in 2025. I say this as a historian with a JD who's written papers on authoritarian regimes: if you have an opportunity to get out of the United States, you should act on it, and get out, now, while you still can.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 3:26 PM on November 1, 2021 [55 favorites]


I am intensely curious about what kind of impact knowing that Lyndsey Graham was urging Capital police to "use your guns! Shoot them!" is going to have.

I think there's a very good argument to be made that the shockwaves propagating back through the mob from the shooting of Ashli Babbitt may have cooled their ardor enough to keep the riot from succeeding.

I remember a journalist reporting a woman rioter running through the crowd weeping and wailing that 'they’re shooting us! They’re supposed to shoot them, not us!'
posted by jamjam at 3:39 PM on November 1, 2021 [11 favorites]


I would love klanawa's hypothesis to be correct, but if you spend any time in an area that has a lot of Trump supporters, you will learn just by listening that they do believe everything they hear on Fox News. Why wouldn't they? They have been trained by Fox to treat all other news sources as false.
posted by wittgenstein at 3:40 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]


was there a functional conspiracy

There is no legal rule that requires crimes be well planned or functional in order for them to be charged as crimes.
posted by srboisvert at 3:42 PM on November 1, 2021 [29 favorites]


specifically finding an actual real conspiracy.

We're discussing a long detailed article that talks, in part, about the conspiracy. What did you think about what it had to say? Is there some reason you're dismissing it entirely?

There's plenty of evidence of conspiratorial organizing among various of the attackers, particularly the Proud Boys. While that's not the focus of the article there's plenty of information about it as part of the full story.

There's also plenty of evidence in the article for Trump and his legal team working to overthrow the election via judicial procedures. I don't want to say "legal means", since part of their actions was putting direct inappropriate pressure on state authorities. But through the legislative and judicial system. We tend not to call this "conspiracy" because it's all polite and lawyerly. Some of it sure seems illegal to me though.

What the article doesn't have evidence for is a direct back and forth conspiracy between Trump and his lawyers vs. the thugs on the ground. If there are planning documents and conversations they haven't come to light yet. May well never, between having plenty of time to destroy evidence and the fact that Trump's strategy is to tell his people to ignore Congressional subpoenas.

But there's plenty of indirect connections the article talks about in great detail, with timestamps. Trump literally saying "we fight, we fight like hell, and if you don't fight like hell you're not going to have a country anymore". Then "we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue ... we are going to the Capitol." Then the group going to the Capitol and fighting to overthrow the US government. Also the article has many details about Trump's choice to not act for hours during the coup attempt. Trump's lawyer calling Pence and taunting him while he's hiding in a safe room in the Capitol building hoping not to get killed, after Trump told his followers Pence was the enemy.

(Just kidding, I get it. You probably didn't read the article and just want to express your opinion. Give the article a try, you'll learn something!)
posted by Nelson at 3:55 PM on November 1, 2021 [17 favorites]


Following Nelson, LeRoienJaune, et al, Bret Devereaux has an excellent post on insurrections in Ancient Greek democracies he wrote not long after these events. One of his main take aways (#3) is that the leaders of the insurrection must be held accountable within the law, otherwise with repeated tries the insurrectionists may eventually succeed.
posted by eigenman at 3:57 PM on November 1, 2021 [8 favorites]




Archive link to the first of the three WaPo articles - Red Flags: As Trump propelled his supporters to Washington, law enforcement agencies failed to heed mounting warnings about violence on Jan. 6.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 5:13 PM on November 1, 2021 [3 favorites]


Of course a few of these people have now come face-to-face with the fact that when you get shot in the face, you do not, in fact, respawn; when you get sent to jail, you don't turn the game off and go for a walk. But their fellow travelers are so embedded in the game, that when their fellows get killed or jailed, they think that is part of the game too, until it happens to them.

Also see, covid-19 and vaccines. They're full of bravado, my immune system, and "99.97% survival rate" until they get it, then it's "pump me full of monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, and anything and everything" cause there ain't no politician coming to save them from reality.
posted by meowzilla at 5:25 PM on November 1, 2021 [9 favorites]


They are getting $500 fines with little jail time for attacking the US Capitol and being involved with police officers getting killed. Most aren't facing any real consequences. That's why they think like that.

This is a disingenuous statement considering that nearly 700 people have been charged so far in connection with the riots, and only about 100 or so have pleaded guilty. Of course those people are going to receive the lightest sentences, but even of those many of them are facing jail time. The people who don't plead guilty or who are charged with more serious crimes in connection with the riots are going to receive much harsher sentences if found guilty.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 5:35 PM on November 1, 2021 [1 favorite]


So while I am very concerned about states passing laws that let them throw out election results, and I definitely wish the insurrectionists (and ideally Trump) were jailed for treason 9 months ago, I'm not as worried about another armed attack on a government building ending in a coup. I'm probably missing something, but it doesn't seem like the military is (currently) inclined to back candidates installed by open violence.

If the insurrectionists had succeeded in breaking through and killed most of all of our elected leaders, I'm not sure what would have happened, but it doesn't seem likely that Trump would have been re-installed as President. Then again, maybe I'm foolish or missing something.

All that said, I fully expect they would sit on the sidelines as states throw out votes, as long as there is legal machinery to justify it. And unfortunately, at least as far as military policy goes, that's probably what should happen. I don't trust the military to decide when voting is broken.

But I am dismayed and continually shocked that election safeguards aren't a #1, single-issue push by Democrats right now.
posted by ®@ at 5:37 PM on November 1, 2021 [6 favorites]


y'all. Texas is a 'blue' state. voting rights, not applied in all areas of the country now.
posted by eustatic at 5:52 PM on November 1, 2021 [5 favorites]


W/r/t the existence of a conspiracy to do a crime—it's not necessary for such a thing to be on paper or formalised as if in a contract, it's plenty for a conspiracy to simply be an understanding between people of their intentions if certain conditions exist. That's mostly what criminal conspiracies are, just tacit arrangements for things to happen.

As the article says:
top law enforcement officials fielded warnings of what was to come, but failed to respond in kind
In this case it's far less important that a large group of violent and deluded people turned up for mischief, than that the whole order-machinery of the State was made to fail the basic task of defending itself. Almost any other State in the world would have responded very firmly to a challenge like this—and the police/military bodies of the US are not exactly under-equipped or ill-led.

These people were violent and hateful, but basically they were armed fantasists, they had none of the organisation or competence of a successful putsch. In any normal time or place an absolute rabble like that of the 6th Jan, without coordination or communications, with no coherent plan apart from 'let's get 'em!', with no advantage of surprise, and without being able to turn large elements of defending forces to their side, would simply have been put down, with more or less ruthlessness depending on the place's history—as you can imagine if it were to happen, say, in Paris or London or Moscow, let alone Hong Kong. A minimally competent State simply isn't vulnerable to people like this. It takes time and energy and yes, conspiracy, to sap a State's ability to self-defend.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:11 PM on November 1, 2021 [14 favorites]


I'm probably missing something, but it doesn't seem like the military is (currently) inclined to back candidates installed by open violence.

If Congress backs the coup (say, by a slim majority, perhaps with certain senators missing), I think the military will fall in line.
posted by ryanrs at 6:17 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]


But I am dismayed and continually shocked that election safeguards aren't a #1, single-issue push by Democrats right now.

Many of the laws that restrict voting rights are supported under the guise of protecting 'fair elections' from imaginary wide-scale voter fraud.
posted by meowzilla at 6:24 PM on November 1, 2021 [2 favorites]


Many of the laws that restrict voting rights are supported under the guise of protecting 'fair elections' from imaginary wide-scale voter fraud.

I think most politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, know this justification is bullshit. But I think some Dems' calculus is that in a world of limited political capital they're more likely to win elections if they spend said capital on popular policies instead of voting rights. I think this calculus is wrong--it doesn't matter how many people like you is they cannot vote. But that might be where their heads are at.
posted by Anonymous at 6:38 PM on November 1, 2021


"Let's go Brandon" [archive.today]
posted by bendy at 6:54 PM on November 1, 2021 [3 favorites]


> If the insurrectionists had succeeded in breaking through and killed most of all of our elected leaders, I'm not sure what would have happened, but it doesn't seem likely that Trump would have been re-installed as President.

As Trump was still the president at that time, if elected leaders had been killed surely he would have declared a state of emergency and deferred any resolution of who was to become president.
posted by anadem at 7:32 PM on November 1, 2021 [6 favorites]


Rosen — who a few days earlier barely survived an attempt by Trump to fire him and replace him with a loyalist willing to echo the president’s wild claims about voter fraud — considered Schumer’s suggestion [that the acting attorney general tell the former president to "call off his people!"] impractical.
democracy wept. and died of understatement.

later, the post knows what sad patriotic platitudes rosen is thinking from his impotent perch atop the department of justice as the capitol churns.

ooof. have read "during;" now working at "before," posted by sara is disenchanted, above, which,
In the 20 years since the country had created fusion centers in response to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sena couldn’t remember a moment like this. For the first time, from coast to coast, the centers were blinking red. The hour, date and location of concern was the same: 1 p.m., the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6.
posted by 20 year lurk at 8:44 PM on November 1, 2021 [5 favorites]


Eugene Goodman's actions were amazing on so many levels. Non-paywalled link.
posted by bendy at 2:50 AM on November 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


Footage of Goodman's actions.
posted by bendy at 2:59 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


only real alternative is accelerationism and a civil war we will definitely lose (because look at who has the guns).

The US is awash with guns with many owners to the left of the Republicans. And a lot of the owners who aren't are still amoral enough to sell to both sides besides the armaments that will pour in from outside as every arms dealer cashes in on a once in a life time payday. The third American civil war will not be predetermined by who starts out with the biggest arsenal. It'll be long and messy enough that any initial advantage in arms will be swamped by other factors.
posted by Mitheral at 3:39 AM on November 2, 2021 [2 favorites]


the only real alternative is accelerationism and a civil war we will definitely lose (because look at who has the guns).

I would take our fundamental laziness, baseline (if often loudly concealed) nihilism and short attention spans into account - years of sporadic, grinding, totally demoralizing stochastic terror seem much more likely to me than anything resembling a conventional civil war.
posted by ryanshepard at 4:15 AM on November 2, 2021 [15 favorites]


"You're soaking in it!"
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:35 AM on November 2, 2021 [4 favorites]


Officer Goodman's actions are an example of what drives me absolutely batshit about the right's response to 1/6.

There is a line, of course, between choosing not to resist a mob and actively enabling it, and some who opened gates and whatnot for them may need to be investigated. (There may well be a less-than-sinister rationale behind those actions, for all I know -- a doctrine of "they're going to tear them down anyway, so let's keep it civilized", rather than officers throwing in with the mob -- but that's a case-by-case.) But for the most part, the officers playing defense played things absolutely right. Bend but don't break, steer rioters away from problem areas, keep them walking instead of hitting when possible, do not initiate violence (often at the cost of absorbing significant damage themselves), but also make it clear that crossing the last line bears a heavy price.

And for their trouble and their battle scars earned (physical and mental), they received scorn from Republicans, accusations of all sorts of wrongdoings from the hard right, accusations that Babbitt's shooter "deliberately executed her" and "provided no warning" and "hid in a dark corner waiting for a white person to shoot" with the dotard-formerly-in-chief pointing a finger at him and screaming GET HIM from afar.

It's one thing to have the gall to continue to insist that the occupation of the Capitol was somehow justified. It's another to view the footage and somehow draw the lesson from it that the _officers_ were the ones who engaged in unnecessary force.

At long last, there is no sense of decency left.
posted by delfin at 5:03 AM on November 2, 2021 [23 favorites]


Now that we've got all the paywall, presentation, and tone-setting comments out of the way...

But I haven't linked to Bypass Paywalls Clean (for Firefox-based browsers and Chrome-based browsers) yet!
posted by flabdablet at 5:40 AM on November 2, 2021 [8 favorites]


the only real alternative is accelerationism and a civil war we will definitely lose (because look at who has the guns).

I would take our fundamental laziness, baseline (if often loudly concealed) nihilism and short attention spans into account - years of sporadic, grinding, totally demoralizing stochastic terror seem much more likely to me than anything resembling a conventional civil war.


And the same could well apply to the resistance to the Republican dream of a fascist takeover of the US, but recall that Iraq was no match whatever for the US militarily, and yet proved to be completely ungovernable, thanks in large part to low-tech asymmetric warfare.

The problem with the neo-Confederates is the same one that the original Confederacy had: Their opponents had a vastly better economy. New York and California aren't likely to secede, but they can apply all kinds of passive resistance to starve the new government of Gilead of funding.

Given that the Republican project for more than a century has been to protect the wealth of plutocrats, one wonders how their money masters think they can control the genie of insurrection they're toying with to protect their tax cuts. An ongoing violent insurrection would be bad for business (well, except for Fox News, one supposes).
posted by Gelatin at 7:54 AM on November 2, 2021 [10 favorites]


Given that the Republican project for more than a century has been to protect the wealth of plutocrats, one wonders how their money masters think they can control the genie of insurrection they're toying with to protect their tax cuts.

By controlling the message that those insurrectionists hear from their chosen media sources, and directing them to the preferred targets (i.e. Let's You And Him Fight).
posted by delfin at 8:40 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


Neo what? Yeah I got it and yeah perhaps it's room for optimism. The extremists of 1/6 are not an aligned homogeneous group of insurrectionists. It's a bunch of groups from seriously wacko with antlers to legitimate republicans. Without the charisma of trump these groups are not going to organize well or at all. And look at the exciting GOP lineup in 2016 before trump entered the race, none of them will be pulling together all the extreme wackos.

Frequently observed problem with the GOP is so few willing to even slightly contradict trump, the reverse benefit is not a one of them will be uniting enough to be a threat.

I do think progressives should work on a quiet grassroots effort to get Liz Cheney through the primaries, just incase President Biden's health fails.
posted by sammyo at 11:51 AM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


only real alternative is accelerationism and a civil war we will definitely lose (because look at who has the guns).

The right-wing grievance machine is built on a foundation of cheap and available groceries, reliable Internet, and free-flowing consumer goods. They may refuse to accept that reality, but the luxury of that hypocrisy is tenuous: once the Wal-Mart trucks stop coming, the war will be over. Their entire worldview is predicated on denying how much they need the shared infrastructure we all rely on. Civil war will instantly destroy that infrastructure. Look at what just COVID-19 has done to it. We'll see how that Southern Pride holds up after a summer of no air conditioning, no college football, and no cheap beef. A closet full of guns and buckets of ammo won't do shit for addressing those kinds of shortages.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:02 PM on November 2, 2021 [9 favorites]


It's not Southern Pride we need to think about. It's the other slavering horrors.

Right now I live in New York City, the place that the reich wing screams about as the example of Librul Murica. I am trans. And I do not feel safe here.

There are enough people here, those that are pro-Trump, that this place would be dangerous in that kind of war, not the least because some of the best armed members of the Trumpistas will be the goddamn motherfucking New York Police Department. And there's no way until things go wrong that they can be told apart from other people.

It's a horrifying equivalent to a zombie apocalypse, where it's a disease that causes people to turn, and some already have it, and you don't know who does until they turn. Like zombies, their brains see anyone who isn't like them as other, as something to be killed and torn apart. Sure, some of us can hide, and some might be able to make it to safety, but then how do we know what's safe anymore? That's what really gets me about this situation.

My own family is turned against me, and if this starts they will not stop until there is no resistance, just their way.
posted by mephron at 12:40 PM on November 2, 2021 [21 favorites]


The thing about this is that the geographic model doesn't make sense anymore. California has among the most Republican voters of any state. Think less Gettysburg and more a patchwork insurgency. With the involvement of already obviously sympathetic law enforcement, I do think it becomes a little easier to see an actual pitched battle of some kind taking place somewhere, but it seems clear that while everyone is sure to come in thinking First Bull Run, what they're really walking into is the first day of the Somme.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:41 PM on November 2, 2021 [7 favorites]


This article (especially the last diagram) reinforces what mephron is saying about NYC from the California perspective. The cities have the capacity to get real scary.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:44 PM on November 2, 2021


Looking at Portland & Seattle might also be good, as potential models for extrapolation goes.
They're both moderately-liberal cities, embedded within *deeply* Republican rural areas with long-standing ties to militias & white supremacy, who get consistently spotlit as examples of "Everything wrong with socialist Democrats".
They're economic engines for their respective states, with decades of deep resentment on the state-legislative level that they're able to 'boss the rest of the state around' (all attempts to suggest that people should count for votes more than land by the wayside).
Their governors have *terrifying* levels of vitriol pointed at them, "King Inslee" and the like.

I can go on & I'm sure others can add to this, but you get the idea.

And as a result, we've seen year after year of both cities being targeted with varying levels of political violence. Both cities' police departments have been on record as supporting & lending aid to some of these groups, and when they don't do that there's a whole lot of "Let's look the other way, also our police union's cheering for blood in the streets, but that's not official communication so how dare you say we're associated with it". The 2017 MAX-line attack is still real fresh in my mind.

The repeated comparison/portrayal of (Seattle, the coasts, the US in general) as neo-Weimar by many of the violent extremist groups in question should really be setting off some red-hot warnings for anyone reading along to this point.

It's not like nobody's aware of this either, there's been a number of local groups that've been seeing the writing on the wall & planning accordingly. But there's nothing Seattle loves more than having a group to point to and go "Now *they* are going too far. I'm as progressive as anyone, but can't they find a way to work within the system?".

My fear there (and today's election results for Seattle will go a long way towards confirming or dampening this fear, locally at least) is that all of these aforementioned trends will continue on unabated, and enough of the populace is tired of it all that they'll collectively shrug and go "well, what did they expect?" and think themselves safe.

But given all of the thread up to this point, I don't think seeing 2022/2024 as safe will turn out well.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:15 PM on November 2, 2021 [7 favorites]


It's pretty clear right-wing media isn't backing away from stoking hatred and violence. The slogan "Fuck Joe Biden" makes "Lock Her Up" look modest (since it's directly profane and starting years before a presidential election), and even Trump isn't completely on board with the craven anti-vaccine push. Although there are plenty that would like the world to burn (e.g. Bannon), the power players seem to think either a full-scale insurgency couldn't form in the US, or the damage would be limited. I'm pretty sure either way the 2024 election is going to be ugly.
posted by netowl at 1:15 PM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


Think less Gettysburg and more a patchwork insurgency.

Precisely. This theoretical battle will not be red state versus blue state, Union versus Neo-Confederacy, but a lot more hit-and-run. The armed groups lined up outside the Georgia state house on January 6th, causing Raffensperger and others to be evacuated? The nuts that wanted to occupy the Michigan state house, detain anyone they disapproved of, and televise trials and executions over the following week? Someone with a gun and a grudge against the local librarian who lends Communist Propaganda, or the state Congressperson who didn't vote to authorize a fraudit, or whatever loosely-or-not-defended target of opportunity comes their way? Say hi to them.

The good thing about stochastic terror is that, on any kind of large scale, people crazy enough to want to do it are rarely sane enough to succeed at it without blowing their own legs off or tipping their hand early to police/FBI. The bad thing about it is the word "usually."
posted by delfin at 1:18 PM on November 2, 2021 [4 favorites]


or tipping their hand early to police/FBI

The former of which is provably unreliable (and will be out for vengeance on the libs because of the vaccine mandates) and the latter of which may or may not be controlled by those that are feeding the stochastic terror group their propaganda, targets, and marching orders.
posted by Candleman at 1:21 PM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


They are getting $500 fines with little jail time for attacking the US Capitol and being involved with police officers getting killed. Most aren't facing any real consequences. That's why they think like that.

They're getting reduced sentences in exchange for cooperating with the enemy. When the cold realization hit them that hard time was on the horizon, they chickened right. The fuck. Out.

Will it stick? Of course not. And you have the bigger problem, that the system will let literal, actual seditionists (even if they do think it's a game) off the hook.
posted by klanawa at 1:43 PM on November 2, 2021


well below the fold on the before story could, however well-researched, use some editorial attention. remember how, above, all the red lights were blinking at all the fusion centers everywhere over ominous intelligence? well, "gun-carrying agents at the FBI and elsewhere" call them "confusion centers" and their blinking lights and red flags don't carry much weight with the action heroes, especially in DC, with federal action heroes. it might be a little more nuanced than that, but is hard to tell; several paragraphs here could use a rewrite for clarity.

omg:
Anti-government extremists known as “boogaloo boys,” some of whom with militia ties had been implicated two months earlier in a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, were discussing rendezvous points to stash weapons and stage rapid reserve forces to platoon into D.C. with avowed neo-Nazis — two elements in the far right that the analyst hadn’t commonly seen align.
i don't know what it means but it hurts my parser and frightens me. and it is almost poetic:

i have eaten
boogaloo boys
some of whom

with militia ties
had been implicated
in breakfast.

they were seditious!
so extreme.
and so anti-government.

but the parser-strain is eroding my will to keep reading in the face of such evidence that the washingtonpost doesn't even want me to read it. first the paywall, then the editorial inattention. that said, i do appreciate the story of donell harvin's perspective on "before," as well as several evocative photos of the subject/witness/source/fusion-center guy, who "As a paramedic in the New York Fire Department, ... had responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11 and prided himself as someone who had learned to keep his cool. But now he was anything but."

weird, colloquial, as the phrasing is, i think i understand what the author intended to communicate, here, as to mr. harvin's reported estimation of his own cool as contrasted with his alarm upon observing all the open seditious planning. but i do not not have that confidence as to the position and esteem of fusion centers within law enforcement, or the intel as to the convergence of boogaloo boys and nazis.

by the by: probably preaching to the choir here, but marcy wheeler has been following development of the cases against january 6 parties pretty closely and regularly. see generally emptywheel.net.
posted by 20 year lurk at 6:52 PM on November 2, 2021 [1 favorite]


We all know that none of the Conservative-identified media people are "conservative" in a philosophical sense. It's an identity. Carlson isn't conservative, or anything else. He's a nihilst and a mercenary, and he knows that all of the things he says are untrue and harmful.

Don't get caught up in "conservative" as some kind of valid ideology. What conservatives believe in preserving is not, ultimately, the outward forms but the underlying structure of power and domination- white over nonwhite, man over woman, capital over labor, and every other power structure that holds up the unremitting horror of our society. Sometimes this is accomplished through William F. Buckley's patrician posturing, sometimes through Reagan's smug barely-dogwhistles about the need for violence against and impovirishment of black people, and sometimes this is accomplished through Carlsonian sore-throat screaming about the necessity of everybody not already on board with murdering or enslaving 60% of the American population being burned alive. None of this is dissimilar. It's merely the face the beast currently sees as most useful, and as culture shifts and changes it will wear other masks as long as those masks are useful for maintaining the illegitimate horror that our society is and ever has been.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:08 AM on November 3, 2021 [11 favorites]


They're getting reduced sentences in exchange for cooperating with the enemy.
Not according to the article. The judge wanted to throw the book at the guy, but it wasn't very heavy.

And also last night's governor's election results right in the backyard of Washington DC says people have already forgotten Jan 6 or didn't care that much to begin with, and part of that has to be the lackadaisical prosecution of the perpetrators.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:16 AM on November 3, 2021


Don't get caught up in "conservative" as some kind of valid ideology. What conservatives believe in preserving is not, ultimately, the outward forms but the underlying structure of power and domination- white over nonwhite, man over woman, capital over labor, and every other power structure that holds up the unremitting horror of our society. Sometimes this is accomplished through William F. Buckley's patrician posturing, sometimes through Reagan's smug barely-dogwhistles about the need for violence against and impovirishment of black people, and sometimes this is accomplished through Carlsonian sore-throat screaming about the necessity of everybody not already on board with murdering or enslaving 60% of the American population being burned alive. None of this is dissimilar. It's merely the face the beast currently sees as most useful, and as culture shifts and changes it will wear other masks as long as those masks are useful for maintaining the illegitimate horror that our society is and ever has been.

Being a geek I think of it as port scanning. Right-wingers have no particular loyalty to any particular protocol (philosophy). They are merely trying everything to find any opening, any insecurity that they can exploit so they can take over a voters brain so they can then use them to achieve their goals.

This is why they often profess so many logically incompatible beliefs near simultaneously. They are not trying to win a logical argument to persuade people of particular philosophy of governance that they will then go on to implement. Instead they are trying out every possible political philosophy from completely insane to sane hoping to unlock a vulnerable voter that they can then add to their human bot-army to achieve whatever ends they or their highest bidders want to them to do.

The Democratic Party does it as well but with a much smaller range of ports that they are willing to scan (so far). As a politically far left person living in the US I am very familiar with the port scanning of progressive democratic voter's ports for vulnerabilities and that the Democratic party port scanners often "fail" to deliver the content packets that you expected when you opened your "Universal Health Care" port to a candidate.

Sometimes the port scanning is a team job - having a diverse range of candidates each responsible for scanning a range of ideological ports and providing deniability cover to other candidates within the same party (Trad Republicans vs Tea Partiers for example) while advancing essentially the same goals. Other times it is within candidates with them just telling different groups different things at different times (old school stumping where you are pro-labor at a factory and pro-capitalists at a fundraiser)

Trump is perhaps the greatest politician ever at scanning every possible voter port. He promised everything to everyone simultaneously often in the same campaign stop speech and his partially coherent stream of consciousness delivery excused/disguised his port scanning and completely baffled the media/punditocracy's ability to act as a firewall/virus scanner. Essentially he was a polymorphic on the fly port scanner whose sheer massive incoherence defied signature identification while attacking every possible weakness in everything.
posted by srboisvert at 7:29 AM on November 3, 2021 [13 favorites]


Yep. Next to the rolling verbal coal of a Trump Tirade, the Gish Gallop looks like a relic from the horse and buggy age.
posted by flabdablet at 7:42 AM on November 3, 2021 [3 favorites]


Not according to the article. The judge wanted to throw the book at the guy, but it wasn't very heavy.

You're allowed to look at other sources.

Also, from TFA:

As the reality of eight months behind bars set in, Hodgkins became increasingly agitated. His conviction cost him his job as a crane operator. He learned that because his sentence was for less than a year, he could not earn time off for good behavior. A friend from the Trump campaign set up a fundraising website for him. “Paul is a true patriot,” it stated. “He was unjustly sentenced to 8 months in federal prison for entering the Capitol for 15 minutes and taking a few selfies.”
...

On a Sunday in September, he got 10 inches of his long hair cut off, went to church and prepared to report to prison the next day.

...

“I made my own foolish choice,” Hodgkins said. He would vote for Trump if he ran again. Maybe Trump would even pardon him one day.


So, yeah, some people get no jail, others cooperate with the feds and others go to jail. But none of them learn a goddamned thing. When they're before the court, they (literally) cry for mercy. In private, they puff their chests out. It's fuckin' nuts.
posted by klanawa at 10:33 AM on November 3, 2021 [5 favorites]


So the FBI didn't do much to stop 9/11, and didn't do anything about January 6. What's the point of them then?

(Also, all the footnotes for the Liz Cheney anecdotes are more or less saying that Liz Chaney is the source of those anecdotes, yeah?)
posted by harriet vane at 6:24 AM on November 4, 2021


Cops only ever prevent crimes by accident. Their job is to arrest people afterwards.
posted by Mitheral at 5:08 AM on November 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


So the FBI didn't do much to stop 9/11, and didn't do anything about January 6. What's the point of them then?

The FBI are actually mostly just regular police that come in when crimes cross jurisdictions.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:37 AM on November 5, 2021


The FBI has significant counter-terrorism capability whose job it is to stop attacks before they happen. Among other things the FBI has a significant effort investigating white supremacists and other right wing Americans organizing attacks. For instance, just today, Newly released FBI tapes show white supremacist members of 'The Base' plotting terror attacks.

There's lots of questions about how effective the FBI is at doing this. Obviously they failed in 2001. And there are plenty of questions about whether they're looking at the right enemies. But it's not correct to say they don't work on preventing terrorist crimes, it's one of the major projects of the FBI and related organizations. We should be expecting them to do that job better, not denying that they try to do it.
posted by Nelson at 8:36 AM on November 5, 2021 [5 favorites]


So the FBI didn't do much to stop 9/11, and didn't do anything about January 6.

I am not sure if the issue in either of these cases was the FBI or it was the administrations running the FBI. In the case of 9/11 in spring/summer 2001 the FBI did warn the Bush admin about suspected terrorists in flight schools, two years after the Clinton administration submitted a report that warned about the possibility of terrorists ramming planes into the Pentagon and White House. The issue was that these investigations were initiated under the Clinton administration and the Bush team was infamously cold to the continuation of Clinton-era projects.

Similarly I'm wondering what the January 6 commission will turn up about what the FBI knew and when and who they tried to notify. Given that preliminary investigation has revealed cooperation between GOP members and 1/6 terrorists and Trump himself was actively looking for routes to overturn the election, it is laughable to imagine that Trump would give two shits about warnings of Trump-supporting white supremacists invading the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the election results themselves.

I'm not arguing the FBI is a model of competence and impartiality, but there isn't much it can do if the governing administration doesn't want to listen.
posted by Anonymous at 12:32 PM on November 5, 2021


I'm wondering what the January 6 commission will turn up about what the FBI knew and when and who they tried to notify

The article has a lot of detail on this. It talks all about the various advance warnings the FBI had and what people in the FBI tried do something about it. One problem is various decision makers decided the threats were more aspirational than tangible. The article stops short of saying "Trump suppressed the FBI's warnings" but does say this.
Politics was also at play. After months of the president threatening to fire FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, the agency’s senior leaders worried that any public statements by the director might be “asking for a desperate president to come after him,” as one person familiar with the discussions said.
Also this, which has been a persistent problem made worse when Trump dismantled some of the anti-white-supremacy groups inside the FBI.
To some inside the FBI, that cautionary language was a telling example of how the bureau tempered its reaction to threats of violence from White, middle-aged and middle-class Americans.
posted by Nelson at 12:39 PM on November 5, 2021 [5 favorites]


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