Election 2020

[IdleRich]

Blaming it on Antifa will work for hardcore Republicans and Trumpists but it’s clear that a bunch of the insurgents had white supremacists tattoos and links with far right stuff. So I doubt that will have wider resonance.

what happens next? I guess Trump will have the option of pardoning these people on his last day. If he does then that will be the green light to ongoing fashy nastiness for many years to come.

If not, these people are armed and still too invested in this worldview to go anywhere else. Followers looking for a leader. Lone wolves. The armed wing of the divorced Dads.

Yeah, that idea (that it was a false-flag from Antifa) was all over twitter last night, but pursuing it is going to whittle down the base to the absolute smallest, hardcorest, maddest nucleus. Anyone with a small of brain or morality will be outside at this point.

 

[john eden]

With the spycops stuff in the UK there is a real mixture of things that happened that are all documented. Everything from burning down a department store to basically fuck all except taking notes. And way more of the latter than the former.

 

[IdleRich]

My thought last night was that it looked less like a genuine coup attempt and more like a bunch of fuckwits larping a coup attempt, if that makes sense.

Somebody else literally used the word larping so you may be on to something.

 

[IdleRich]

But also it's going great for them. Pence has consciously decoupled from trump or whatever the term is and his supporters are hopelessly tarnishedI

It's going great politically just now... but in terms of them realising their (supposed) aims and making life better for people....

 

[craner]

The role of a lifetime:

 

[IdleRich]

Was thinking about it a lot last night, as you do at these historical moments, did manage to genuinely depress myself and it's not just the deaths. It's the emergence of this kind of hugely popular delusional thinking. Can't see how it's going to end well, or indeed ever end. Qanon, Covid denialism etc et.

I really miss truth. Like when you had a debate and you said to someone "no that's not cos x" and they said "oh yeah, you're right" but now they're just like "you read that on a piece of paper and paper has liberal bias so educate yourself cuck".

 

[IdleRich]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it but I believe that the Trump camp has now issued a statement saying "whine whine whine poor me, but there WILL be an orderly transition of power" which to me basically means that he has given up. Now whether that's despite or because of yesterday I don't know but I lean towards the latter.

 

[IdleRich]

Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Electoral Certification: “Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th. I have always said we would continue our...
...fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”

Is how it appears on twitter - hiliariously it was made by aids (hence the statement by bit at the start) cos, of course, he's banned.
Then again the first comment reads it as follows

Orderly transition to the next administration (new team, him without some folks). Also the emphasize on orderly likely means EO. End of greatest first term (not his presidency). Hes looking positively on what was accomplished. Sounds like something is about to kick in.

They completely live in another reality. I just wish it a separate a little bit further and they could just be happy pretending he's president somewhere, but it has to impinge just too much on our lives....

 

[john eden]

Because of. Trump (or people around him) realised that his words had consequences that he was likely to be held accountable for.

 

[IdleRich]

My feeling is he thought "fuck I'm in real trouble here - quick, reverse ferret, and now I have bigger priorities than overturning the election".

 

[version]

Orderly transition to the next administration (new team, him without some folks). Also the emphasize on orderly likely means EO. End of greatest first term (not his presidency). Hes looking positively on what was accomplished. Sounds like something is about to kick in.

The thing is there's no way of knowing if that's a genuine supporter, a bot, someone paid to stir it up or someone just going along with it for whatever reason.

These are the kinds of accounts some people think are CIA or whoever trying to keep the momentum going, keep causing unrest.

 

[john eden]

Yeah I think "someone I have never seen before said this on the internet" is one of the reasons we are in this mess.

 

[IdleRich]

Just to summarise the vote last night - as predicted some of the objectors decided not to object after the previous events although a few persevered. I think the original aim was to object to all six swing states, but it seems they did object to AZ and PEN but failed to get senators for the others so it couldn't even get off the ground.

Congress voted down challenges to reject Biden’s wins in Arizona and Pennsylvania, based on spurious claims of widespread voter fraud. The House rejected the challenge to the Arizona result by a vote of 303-122 and the Senate voted it down 93-6. The Pennsylvania challenge was voted down 282-138 in the House and 92-7 in the Senate.
A majority of House Republicans voted to overturn the Pennsylvania result, despite no evidence of significant voter fraud in the state and multiple failed court challenges in past weeks.
Attempts by House Republicans to object to the electoral slate in Georgia, Michigan Nevada and Wisconsin failed to garner support from a senator and were not considered.

 

[luka]

Sorry it was a long phone call. What was the question again?

 

[Leo]

I'd imagine the Justice Department can identify through the major carriers, with virtually 100 percent accuracy, every cell phone that entered the Capitol yesterday during the time of the siege. They can identify from which location it entered the building, where it went in the Capitol and when it left the building. And then they can identify the owner of those cell phones, where they live and where they are.

 

[version]

You'd hope they aren't stupid enough to carry a phone at a protest, but they probably are.

 

[luka]

You can see them on their phones in the photos. But does anyone even want to prosecute? For what? Trespass?

 

[IdleRich]

I reckon they'll probably try and get the ones sitting at the desks, dressed as chewbacca etc but they won't go after them all will they?
Although in Wantage when everyone climbed on the statue of King Alfred at NYE it turned out the police had been videoing it secretly and they arrested loads of people over the next few days. But obviously that was more important.

 

[Leo]

You'd hope they aren't stupid enough to carry a phone at a protest, but they probably are.

pretty much all the coverage I've seen shows them wandering around the capitol taking photos and videos.

 

[IdleRich]

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, tweeted a video message Thursday calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and President Trump to be removed from office.