DC Unrest Megathread

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Bernie Sanders is right. No need to impeach Trump. Let him leave office on schedule. He's already going to be a disgrace.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Trump I don't think actually wanted this to unfold in this manner. He's not ambitious enough to desire a violent disorderly coup. He wants large-scale protests in support of him, but not like this.
He's too much of a lazybones to even have any real role in plotting to help something like this to happen either, even in the scenario he did passively consider it.
There remains no real ground to even activate the 25th. What happened is that Trump has lost control of some of his supporters. The moral failure of the man is evident, but this does not mean there is any real sense of emergency to kicking him out of office ahead of schedule.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Bernie Sanders is right. No need to impeach Trump. Let him leave office on schedule. He's already going to be a disgrace.

Where did Bernie say this?

It was secondhand from at least two people elsewhere, admist a livestream.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/trishkilgannon/status/1346981739948695558

She's trash.  Can NY gerrymander this worthless moron into oblivion?

You've asked this question many times so let me answer, if HR1 does not pass, NY Dems will draw the maps, there is no way to screw her over, her seat is a GOP sink that actually supports the map, and you want to pack as many GOP votes there as possible, if anything she might lose Plattsburgh, if Democrats want to go scorched her, but drawing her out is very, very stupid.

Sorry, I ask but these threads move fast and I don't see the response.  It looks like NY will lose 2 seats though.  If that happens, who are the two most likely to lose out?

Brindisi will likely be drawn in with either Katko or Stefanik, and one downstate seat will be lost. Most likely.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

MICAH COHEN
JAN. 6, 8:07 PM
It feels like we published this years ago, but it’s worth rereading this late 2019 article from FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman: “If Republicans Ever Turn On Trump, It’ll Happen All At Once.”

The idea was that elected Republicans were very unlikely to turn on the president, as they have so many incentives not to, but that if it did happen, it would happen in a rush (as opposed to gradually). It’s hard to say right now exactly how extensive the Trump-vs.-elite-GOP split is, but today we’ve seen a far more robust rebuke of the president from far more elected Republicans than I think we ever have before.

Does that mean Republicans will drop their objections to the Electoral College vote? Some Republicans already have. But we’ll see how many ultimately do.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Can we finally ban people like Fuzzy for spreading propaganda that leads to people doing what we saw today?

no way in hell will I condone banning Fuzzy.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I'm skimming Free Republic right now to see what the reaction to this is within the right-wing bubble. Looks like two of the main lines of argument are "the rioters were all Antifa dressed as Trump supporters" and "Trump really needs to release all the evidence of fraud soon or things are going to get really bad."

Not too shocking. I wouldn't expect anything different.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Romney is furious.

I have lots of issues with Romney. And I often counter and disagree people I know relentlessly praising him for just being anti-Trump or whatever.

But he is in the right here. And he is speaking the truth, and I respect him for it.

I agree. Credit where credit is due.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnBubacz/status/1346924569177722881
I don't normally post Twitter randos, but this tweet neatly encapsulates the frame by which the mob that descended on the Capitol should be seen. Republican politicians are utter cowards who were behind this till the very millisecond it became a net downside for them. Trump and Co lost control over the most radical elements of their base and now they are paying the price for it. Trump needs to be censured by Congress for his irresponsibility. Ofc the TV-driven couch potato could care less though...

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Is this the “pivot” we’ve heard so much about??

Plot twist: This was the real infrastructure week.

The real infrastructure week was the friends we made along the way.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I agree Trump should ultimately not be prosecuted. Let him sulk in obscurity.
But his associates are fair game.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The three Trump Supreme Court justices need to resign too, but not until Biden is in office.

lol.
Okay, sure Jan.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The video is actually very good. He should have recorded this video on November 6 or 7 when it became clear that he had lost the election.

He should resign now to avoid being impeached and Pence should pardon him.

God's how in God's name can you say he deserves pardoned? Is this just a way of pardoning your own conscience for supporting this neo-Nazi?

No. It's just an embarrassment to the country to have a former President prosecuted for crimes and possibly convicted.

Yeah, the country’s totally fine now, but if he goes to jail we’ll be embarrassed.

Ford spared the country from Nixon's arrest and indictment, and since then public faith in institutions has just skyrocketed!

Ford did the right thing and nothing in the present or in the past since he took office can change this.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The three Trump Supreme Court justices need to resign too, but not until Biden is in office.

lol.
Okay, sure Jan.

I’m being facetious.

Ok, good to hear. There's (understandable, yet still wrong) rhetorical hyperbole going on, so it's hard to tell actual hyperbole from joke hyperbole.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Blue avatars don't seem to get one really simple fact: You either support America or you support Trump.  These are entirely mutually exclusive things at this point.  You are free to support Russia and Trump simultaneously though, which I'm sure you already do.

Trumpists don't really support Russia more than they support America, so this is a false dichtonomy. In fact, many Trumpists are anti-Russian hawks who will in fact point to the sanctions against Russia Trump signed as a good thing.
This "Trump loves Putin" meme never really made sense.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Blue avatars don't seem to get one really simple fact: You either support America or you support Trump.  These are entirely mutually exclusive things at this point.  You are free to support Russia and Trump simultaneously though, which I'm sure you already do.

Trumpists don't really support Russia more than they support America, so this is a false dichtonomy. In fact, many Trumpists are anti-Russian hawks who will in fact point to the sanctions against Russia Trump signed as a good thing.
This "Trump loves Putin" meme never really made sense.

You are confusing standard republican warmongers (Liz Cheney, Marco Rubio) with pathetic no self dignity Trumpist clowns (Rand Paul, Ron Johnson). 

Even taking into account these differences, you don't get any closer to the truth. You don't get any closer to proving me wrong.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Blue avatars don't seem to get one really simple fact: You either support America or you support Trump.  These are entirely mutually exclusive things at this point.  You are free to support Russia and Trump simultaneously though, which I'm sure you already do.

Trumpists don't really support Russia more than they support America, so this is a false dichtonomy. In fact, many Trumpists are anti-Russian hawks who will in fact point to the sanctions against Russia Trump signed as a good thing.
This "Trump loves Putin" meme never really made sense.

You are confusing standard republican warmongers (Liz Cheney, Marco Rubio) with pathetic no self dignity Trumpist clowns (Rand Paul, Ron Johnson). 

Even taking into account these differences, you don't get any closer to the truth. You don't get any closer to proving me wrong.

https://www.rollcall.com/2018/07/09/after-moscow-trip-ron-johnson-says-election-meddling-overblown/

What's the weather like on your planet?

Less unduly spiked by recent events, and less in line with missing the forest for the trees. What about you?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Meanwhile half of the Republican Party approves of the riots, and their conspiracy theory was validated by a majority of the Republican House caucus just hours after the attack!

To be fair, pretty much every Republican has condemned the violence, just as how establishment Dems condemned BLM riots.

147 Republicans voted to object to the election based on the president's lies. They know his claims are and have always been completely fabricated and they've decided perpetuating the lies is worth more to them than defending and uniting the country. Those lies triggered the violence by Trump's supporters. He's radicalized them with lies that their country is being stolen from them, their culture is being stolen from them, their election is being stolen from them.

The lies are behind the violence and unless the Republican Party comes out and apologizes to the nation for breeding terrorism in the gullible to get votes, they're 100% still the pieces of crap to blame.

Saying "I still think I won but don't hurt people" with no affect isn't worth a bucket of snake piss.

But it’s different from actually supporting the violence, which I’ve seen no Republican do so far.

An Al Qaeda recruiter who never leaves camp or hurts someone directly is still to blame. You don't get to spend years radicalizing people and suddenly be outraged they're radicalized and insane. They need to stop the lying or they're knowingly encouraging more of this. 147 of them voted with hopes of maintaining this madness to further their own ambitions. They're all going to hell when they die.

I don’t think they actually wanted to incite violence though.

WHAT DID THEY THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?

You spend months telling people this election is the "last chance to save the country" and if Biden wins we'll be a socialist tyrannical dictatorship, then he wins and you say "THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!"

How do you think people are going to react to that?!

This is exactly why I think Trump and other allied Republicans were so irresponsible. Something like this was made inevitable months ago, as GOP leaders sowed doubt about mail-in voting and for their own self-serving purposes let the imaginations of their voters run wild. When they want all their voters to quiet down and avoid a political liability, turns out the genie is out of the bottle.

Making things worse is, Trump and Hawley and others in the gang are not immoral, broadly. They are amoral. This is quite like how, to use a Nazi analogy, many industrialists and elites thought they could simply control Hitler. Turns out the horse had bolted from the stable.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Meanwhile half of the Republican Party approves of the riots, and their conspiracy theory was validated by a majority of the Republican House caucus just hours after the attack!

To be fair, pretty much every Republican has condemned the violence, just as how establishment Dems condemned BLM riots.

147 Republicans voted to object to the election based on the president's lies. They know his claims are and have always been completely fabricated and they've decided perpetuating the lies is worth more to them than defending and uniting the country. Those lies triggered the violence by Trump's supporters. He's radicalized them with lies that their country is being stolen from them, their culture is being stolen from them, their election is being stolen from them.

The lies are behind the violence and unless the Republican Party comes out and apologizes to the nation for breeding terrorism in the gullible to get votes, they're 100% still the pieces of crap to blame.

Saying "I still think I won but don't hurt people" with no affect isn't worth a bucket of snake piss.

But it’s different from actually supporting the violence, which I’ve seen no Republican do so far.

An Al Qaeda recruiter who never leaves camp or hurts someone directly is still to blame. You don't get to spend years radicalizing people and suddenly be outraged they're radicalized and insane. They need to stop the lying or they're knowingly encouraging more of this. 147 of them voted with hopes of maintaining this madness to further their own ambitions. They're all going to hell when they die.

I don’t think they actually wanted to incite violence though.

WHAT DID THEY THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN?

You spend months telling people this election is the "last chance to save the country" and if Biden wins we'll be a socialist tyrannical dictatorship, then he wins and you say "THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!"

How do you think people are going to react to that?!

Idiocy =/ condoning violence.

Sufficiently advanced idiocy is indistinguishable from malice.

Only in some respects, definitely not all of them.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

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.

I mean, I would have supported statehood for the district either way. If this does somehow result in DC statehood, then I suppose we have one more positive side effect besides the self-defeating nature of what has happened from the POV of those who launched the attacks. Trump and Co lost control of the most radical of their supporters after all.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

ExtremeRepublican is extremely (ha) correct in many ways here. We're talking about generalizing about a group of 74 million people. Most of them are fairly normal. In fact, a very large majority of them are in fact normal people - not the most crazy group of wackos who would do this.
It's not civil, just, or fair to overuse guilt by association and presume automatically that an expression of support for one's political tribe would also lead to one committing these acts. It's not right or correct to spout these ideas and then attack someone for giving a partisan reply defending either their own side's voters or politicians, after you have doused yourself in a level of, however understandable or otherwise, rhetorical excess. It's not conductive to the starting of healing or even of normality in any way, shape, or form to just mudsludge the other side in this manner and treat a person as a potential criminal purely on this sort of basis.
Sowing even more increased and thorough partisan hatred will only increase the risk of something like this recurring in the future. And it's even more harmful to our democracy in the long-term than anything the attackers did yesterday. We need sanity. Please be considerate and compassionate. We can disagree on what needs to be done but can we just please be considerate? Is that too much to ask?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Am I the only person who feels sorry for Trump now?

LOL

I'm serious. All he ever wanted is to be loved, but he used demagoguery to get it, and he is finally reaping the consequences. I am not excusing any of his actions, but I can't help but feel sorry for anyone who reaches a self-inflicted nadir.

yeah, I feel sorry for Trump too. But that isn't saying much. I have pity for and feel sorry for a lot of terrible, amoral people who sabotaged themselves like that, because it's just sad to watch human beings waste their potential in such a thorough way. So yeah, Trump has reaped the whirlwind. As more than one person has said, the chicken has came to roost.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

[tweet]
Compare the character of Andy Kim and Donald Trump...

I love this image and the story.
Thank you for sharing it with us.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Saying all Trump supporters support the despicable crap from yesterday is just as bad as saying all Biden voter support looting/rioting and antifa.  The broad generalizations are not fair to either side, so cut the shiit.