DC Unrest Megathread

[Progressive Pessimist]

I never got to post in this thread due to being quite busy yesterday, as rare as that is, but I obviously still couldn't ignore the absolute travesty that happened.

Just a few days ago I said that the Raffensperger phone call was the culmination of everything in Trump's presidency and his most impeachable offense yet, but holy f***! Within days of that we have the absolute biggest culminating event of the Trump era. I knew it was going to be ugly yesterday, but this, as predictable as it actually was, still managed to catch me off-guard. When the Raffensperger call was the most relevant controversy of Trump's final weeks, I believed it was impeachable but not worth going through the procedure with only a few weeks left. But after yesterday this nation cannot take 13 more days of this worst President in our nation's history, who should be referred to as such without any hesitation. Something has to be done. He and his party too, especially cretins like Cruz, Hawley, and 60% or more of the GOP House have to face consequences. Everything about yesterday was nothing short of sedition. And even if the means of impeaching him again or invoking the 25th Amendment don't end up bearing fruit, they have to be attempted for the sake of precedent.

I will say though, there are silver linings to this incident. It once again proved to be a black-light event where Americans can plainly see who Trump is, and always has been. Same with the political party he has had grovelling at his feet for the past four years. I felt very validated by the storming of the capitol while simultaneously feeling even more nausea than I did during Trump's acquittal last year (and I literally had the stomach flu as that was unfolding). The Republican Party should be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. Obviously that won't happen. But even without that happening, it should be a stain on their party for the rest of this nation's history. Yesterday was the moment that will cement the legacies of everyone who has ever supported Trump in even the most minor ways. And sure, we had some Republicans change their minds about objecting to the certification subverting our democracy, but I think it reflects poorly on the party that it took them to be potentially be directly, physically harmed to finally have even the barest minimum of an epiphany for feeling shame, humility, and/or recognizing that their party's behavior over the past four years or more can actually have dangerous consequences. That's always how things are with Republicans though, they only accept reality when they feel tangibly affected by something, especially if their hold on political power is threatened. If I wasn't steadfast in my will to never vote for a Republican ever, under any circumstance, before; I sure as s*** am never voting for one now. They have irrevocably damaged our country.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Massive convoy of police cars and other emergency personnel passed my apartment complex a little while ago. They were headed in the general direction of Capitol Hill. 

To everyone who lives in DC and area: please stay safe tonight!  Appreciate the first hand reports.  I have been jumping back to this thread for over a day now and it has been great.

I don't think the severity of this terrorist attack sunk in right away.  Every network was jammed yesterday.  I went and grabbed a newspaper today, and there was an entire section dedicated to this.  I will file it in with the 9/11, Y2K, the JFK assassination, and orher newspapers that my family has collected over the years.

To everyone being mean or generalizing all 74 million Americans who voted for this guy,  please show compassion.  These terrorists are/were radicals, not ordinary folks.  Much like all the trouble in the summer with the riots in Minneapolis and Kenosha, or the Charlottesville rally and terrorist attack in 2017.  If anything, these events show us the true dangers of extremist ideologies and internet echo chambers.  Right wing terrorism appears to be a big threat now.  Be kind to your neighbors, family, and friends... and even strangers on the internet.  People got duped by a conman, and if they believed the election fraud nonsense, they're rightfully upset right now.  Biden's unity message has a certain panche to it that really resonates well with me.  His speech yesterday was beautiful.

Good post. I agree completely.

After everything the district was put through yesterday, it has to become a state.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Ya know I just realized if Trump even was going to resign he can’t because he doesn’t have his precious Twitter. We basically cut his tongue out

He could just do another hostage video.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Am I the only one who thinks Trump can recover from this by 2024?
Or am I just a doomer?

Assuming he's not barred from running for office, he's still the heavy favorite for the Republican nomination.

However, he is DOA for the general election. Harris wins with the 413 map.

I too think Trump would finally be damaged goods from the get-go in a general election, but I still think the 413 NUT map is fantasy.

[Progressive Pessimist]

God the title of this thread keeps getting worse

Everything about this keeps getting worse as the days go by and we continue learning more. It's depressingly astounding.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Biden’s not a coward.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous though.

Agreed. It's a real shame since I was looking forward to inauguration day and finally feeling awash with relief afterwards.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/hugolowell/status/1348769912265826312

She's so f***ing worthless. As if "I think he learned his lesson" wasn't embarrassing enough.

[Progressive Pessimist]

WTF?

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1348691563619233795

I double checked this, and it's true. What the ACTUAL F!?

These people are absolute maniacs! Say what you will about their ability to empathize with other humans, but why harm an innocent animal!? Something is inherently wrong with you if you support Trump! You are a despicable psychopath if you do. I'm not pulling punches anymore. F*** Trump and everyone who ever voted for him!

[Progressive Pessimist]

WTF?

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1348691563619233795

I double checked this, and it's true. What the ACTUAL F!?

I think it's important for people to recognize that there's a huge proportion of Trump supporters who are seriously psychologically disturbed.  I'm sure they'll now claim this is ANTIFA.

Or they'll claim that it's a Jussie Smollett-esque hoax. Yeah, no, not this time! It's one thing to harm yourself and blame someone else, but to harm an animal and blame someone else? I don't think an anti-Trump attention whore like Smollett would even go that far.

[Progressive Pessimist]

WTF?

https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1348691563619233795

I double checked this, and it's true. What the ACTUAL F!?

These people are absolute maniacs! Say what you will about their ability to empathize with other humans, but why harm an innocent animal!? Something is inherently wrong with you if you support Trump! You are a despicable psychopath if you do. I'm not pulling punches anymore. F*** Trump and everyone who ever voted for him!

If not mistaken, the mantee are still considered an endangered species. Because they swim so close to the surface, many small boats (and their propellers) accidently hit them, and injure or kill them.

That's what makes this so awful. However, since they're a protected species, the culprit is going to incur a hefty fine at a minimum. That's the least of what they deserve though.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1349154850844639234?s=20

Could you imagine what would happen if Ilhan Omar refused to be searched? Anyways, Boebert should not be seated in that case.

Boebert is a grandstander, and we unfortunately have too many of those in Congress. She certainly is provoking much more controversy than her predecessor Scott Tipton. Tipton was a Generic Republican, but he was also a backbencher and generally stayed out of the limelight. Ironically enough, this is one of the reasons why he lost the primary to Boebert last year.

Boebert has, unsurprisingly, proven to be the absolute worst Republican freshman so far. She is even ahead of stiff competition from Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene.

I wonder how many GOP senators secretly want a Trump conviction so he's not a primary threat in 2024.

This is definitely going to be on the mind of some. I never put the ambitious cynicism of Republicans past them. I guess it's a gamble though depending on how the base sees it and where the party ends up during the Biden years. Cruz and Hawley will probably think that sticking by Trump as a martyr is the better plan and others like Sasse might think otherwise, for the party to move on from him.

Also cynical will be the GOP Senators who don't have to be re-elected for another four to six years, without 2024 ambitions, and can afford to vote for Trump with little to no consequence.  

[Progressive Pessimist]

Random thought while looking up Boebert's info while trying to see if it was her, I found out her son's name is Kaydon. Why am I not surprised?

In what way? Is there any significance to the name?

The -aiden (well sound) names are just kind of stereotypical tacky white names that you’d think someone like her would bestow upon a kid.

Also, names like Tanner, Colton, Wyatt, Cody, Logan, etc.

No offense to any of you who have one of these names lol.

None taken. I hate my name. I didn't choose it. My middle name is just as bad too. And to make matters worse I have a cousin named Wyatt.

[Progressive Pessimist]

This statement was the most generic pile of bulls*** I have ever heard. It's also undermined further by him not being able to resist bringing up the right wing interpretation of the First Amendment as it concerns social media (what he has really been the most upset about this past week) and failing to acknowledge, once again, by name that Biden won the election fair and square.

In spite of my complaints on this statement though, and how generic and insincere it is by the President, it is still more than he did last week as the bare minimum and had he timed it then, would probably not be garnering the criticism it is getting now. It's one of many too little, too late moments from him though. If this is enough to sway any Republican Senators who may have considered voting to convict (here's looking at you, Susan Collins! Don't f*** this up again! He still didn't learn a lesson!) then the Republican Party is even more hopeless than I thought. The guy sent a horde of mindless marauders to potentially kill or torture members of Congress and the Vice President and hesitated to act on deploying the national guard to combat it! If that isn't enough to want to remove him, nothing will be and the GOP will continue down its path of destroying the country in addition to itself.

Random thought while looking up Boebert's info while trying to see if it was her, I found out her son's name is Kaydon. Why am I not surprised?

In what way? Is there any significance to the name?

The -aiden (well sound) names are just kind of stereotypical tacky white names that you’d think someone like her would bestow upon a kid.

Also, names like Tanner, Colton, Wyatt, Cody, Logan, etc.

No offense to any of you who have one of these names lol.

None taken. I hate my name. I didn't choose it. My middle name is just as bad too. And to make matters worse I have a cousin named Wyatt.

For what it's worth, I think Cody and Tanner are adorable names. 

*Blushes*

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1349492130578919425

Too little, too late. Trump appears genuinely chastised for the first time in his Presidency.

The statement he should've released last Wednesday.

A week after election day you mean

On the contrary, he didn't even mention Biden or his fair and square victory over him. All he did was vaguely suggest a transition. So it's still a useless statement for that time too.

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1349844554539806721

Oh, honey...it took you that long to realize that? By the way, I'll answer your question for you: you can't. I'm sorry to break it to you.

[Progressive Pessimist]

This reminds me how police identified yet NEVER arrested Umbrella Man from Minneapolis.  Do they think Americans are too stupid to recognize the clear double standard in how they treat left wing protestors versus right wing protestors?

Yes they are. That's evident by how right wing domestic terrorism is never taken as being as much of a threat as Islamic terrorism. The fact that a hoard of white men (mostly) were able to overtake the Capitol and law enforcement's failure to prepare for them potentially escalating things is disturbing evidence of that. We should be more afraid of right wing terrorism, in fact, because they could literally be anybody anywhere. These people aren't entirely your stereotypical bearded white militiaman living off the grid. They could be your community's police officer, firefighter, schoolteacher, doctor, civil engineer, etc. We've already seen how that's been the case within this mob too.

[Progressive Pessimist]

And would you look at that...all the feared protests at state capitols are turning out to be nothing.

It's still better to be safe than sorry. We should appreciate that the Trump terrorists are more incompetent than they seem to be to actually be able to organize. The Capitol insurrection appears to have been a perfect storm event. If anything, that one working out while the individual state revolts didn't just implicates Trump even more with his physical presence being the unifying factor that drew all of the seditionists to DC and caused them to work in tandem to storm the Capitol. They're like Orcs, they are the most threatening in large numbers and those numbers just aren't panning out in state Capitols.

We should still definitely be cautious about the inauguration in spite of all this.

[Progressive Pessimist]

And would you look at that...all the feared protests at state capitols are turning out to be nothing.

It's still better to be safe than sorry. We should appreciate that the Trump terrorists are more incompetent than they seem to be to actually be able to organize. The Capitol insurrection appears to have been a perfect storm event. If anything, that one working out while the individual state revolts didn't just implicates Trump even more with his physical presence being the unifying factor that drew all of the seditionists to DC and caused them to work in tandem to storm the Capitol. They're like Orcs, they are the most threatening in large numbers and those numbers just aren't panning out in state Capitols.

We should still definitely be cautious about the inauguration in spite of all this.

Well obviously!
The reason these right wing terrorists aren’t doing stuff right now is specifically because of how prepared we are.
They know they can’t take down anything now...so why waste manpower? I suspect if these loonies do want more violence, they will do it periodically over the next few months, kinda similar to how the Troubles and the IRA wasn’t defined by only one event.

We definitely aren't going to be out of the woods if nothing happens at the inauguration too, you're absolutely right about that. Right wing domestic terrorism is going to be a major problem in this country for the foreseeable future and I hope the Biden administration makes it a priority so that anything even remotely close to the Capitol riots gets quelled.

[Progressive Pessimist]

A rioter from Texas threatened to shoot his children if they told the FBI that he participated in the riots at the Capitol.

A Texas man with ties to a right-wing extremist group threatened to shoot his children if they told the FBI he traveled to Washington to storm the Capitol with other President Trump supporters, according to court documents.

Guy Reffitt threatened his daughter and son while arguing with them about his role in the Capitol siege, his wife told an FBI agent, according to the court papers filed in Washington, DC.

“If you turn me in, you’re a traitor and you know what happens to traitors … traitors get shot,” Reffitt allegedly said to his kids.

I give you the pro-life, pro-family party, ladies and gents.

"Killing my kids to own the libs! Who needs kids when I can have four more years of President Trump!?"

Nothing unhinged or irrational about that.

[Progressive Pessimist]

How is it that this is still consistently getting worse!?

[Progressive Pessimist]

https://twitter.com/davidalexander5/status/1352607314298216448

Seems innocent enough. It's like the time I broke into the bank because I needed a pen.