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Hundreds storm US Capitol barricades; two nearby buildings briefly evacuated; Donald Trump falsely tells thousands he won
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I'm not available to pay attention to this thread right now, and it's obviously starting to go off the rails quickly.
Temporarily locking until I can take a look at it and see if it's salvageable.Edit: I'm just going to leave it locked. Go pay attention to the news instead of worrying about random people arguing on the internet. Knowing what's happening with this is important. Getting upset at each other about it on the internet doesn't matter.
I think it is important to call this what it obviously is: a fascist coup attempt. We should not be comfortable assuming that they will fail, because the risks if they succeed are immense. People need to start taking antifascism work seriously yesterday.
It doesn't matter that there's not that many of them. If they were a quarter more organized and competent they'd have already won.
So, I think we all know these objections are going nowhere. Biden will be sworn in, and will be the next president. My concern is what happens to these people protesting? They aren't just going to disappear - I worry that the U.S. is going to be in for years of right wing extremist terrorism. The U.S. now has an uncomfortably large portion of the population that will no longer accept that their party lost an election - they have no interest in democracy, unless they are in power (which is not democracy at all).
Honestly I don't know.
In some ways I do think that's an advantage to having Biden vs a more progressive person like Bernie as the elect. Biden has a history of being someone who is willing to try and work with both sides of the aisle. That won't matter to these more fervent supporters, but it may cause (more of) a fraction in the Republican Party and in turn may increase the support for criminal prosecution.
No idea though, it could get even uglier before it starts to get better.
Exactly!
Never not relinking this: The current democratic and republican parties will fracture. The GOP will become a fringe extremist party (as it already is), and the democratic party will over time fill the gap, acquiring more republicans and living its own fracture between progressives (euro-left) and democrats (euro-right).
Electing Biden sealed the deal, IMO. A Warren transition would probably have been more effective, but this is probably as good a deal as it gets for american politics. For the first time in years (or possibly ever), I'm actually pretty hopeful about the future of the USA.
… well, unless the riots actually get so bad that civil war becomes real. We're in the endgame, now.
My apprehension about this is somewhat outweighed by my pleasure watching our representatives get chased out of their halls while in session. When was the last time it happened? 9/11 probably, and for protesters, I have no idea but I'd bet it's been some time.
That right there will put a little bit of the fear into all of them, and that's a good thing. This is serious, and the time for political games is over.
It's really not. Democracy more often than not is birthed out of events just like this one.
It's rare to come out of it unscathed, but to be honest with you, it's probably a good thing for US democracy overall that this is happening, as it entirely deligitimizes the trump-associated part of the GOP. This is assuming they fail in their attempt, and there's very solid reasons to think they will (however, even if they do fail, I wouldn't place a bet on every senate/house members living through the next day or two).
The more violently this fails, the stronger you will be as a result. The USA is a very young nation, after all; it has not really burned its hands on the stove often enough to have the same type of experience most of the rest of the western world has had.
There's no pleasure to be gotten out of this of course, although I can't say I'm not incredibly fascinated/curious by what's happening. It's hard not to be. And if you believe, as I do, that these events will make your democracy stronger and healthier, you can't not be hopeful about the coming months.
Edit: One example of a beneficial effect I see this having in the very short term, is DC statehood being prioritized.
For the simple reason that these representatives fancy themselves untouchable. After today, that notion is gone. I think it's not only good, it's precisely what we needed. The truth will be in how the legislature proceeds, but I'd wager the obstructionism just dropped dead, on both sides.
They aren't storming in with guns. This is just the republicrazy boiling over. If this was an armed mob and people were dying I'd have a different opinion. As it is, most of these protesters will be just going to jail.
WaPo is already reporting one woman shot inside the Capitol, and the "protestors" haven't been cleared from the building yet from what I can tell. It certainly looks like a mob to me, and I have no idea if any of them are armed, but there have also been reports of possible bombs near other office buildings near the capitol.
CNN just reported that Capitol police confirmed that a women is in critical condition after being shot in the chest (no other details yet though).
Update: The woman has been pronounced dead.
There are most definately guns involved, and there have also been reports of bombs.
Links? First I'm hearing of it - was it cops shooting protesters, or a protester shooting someone?
https://twitter.com/RepDanKildee/status/1346907565482004495
https://twitter.com/always_margot/status/1346578062700400647
Newly elected Republican Congresswoman speaking outside the Capitol, saying "Hitler was right on one thing..."
Damn. Saying that shaping young people's opinions is akin to shaping the future is perfectly fine IMO (I mean, it's one of the core pillars of demographic destiny, what democrats believed in until the Democrats stopped ignoring the fact that GOP is clearly not concerned with democracy) but the implication that she associates that knowledge with Hitler or worse, learned it from reading or listening to Hitler is bad.
Rep Kinzinger (R-Illinois) just openly called this a "despicable coup attempt", and Trump a "coward" on CNN.
One of the CNN reporters has now openly called it a coup attempt too, and said shots have now been fired, with Capitol police reporting that a woman is in critical condition after being shot in the chest.
(Update: The woman has been pronounced dead.)
Edit: Van Jones just called this "insurrection, rebellion and treason".
Edit: CNN is now reporting that the National Guard from DC, Maryland and Virginia have finally been activated.
I'm not watching anything live, but I've been following this live commentary on the NYT. It was supposed to be about the Electoral College certification debates, but is now mostly about the protests (which have caused Congress to stop debating for now): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/06/us/politics/electoral-college-certification-live-stream.html
Is there something wrong on my end, or are the tweets that I'm assuming they are referring to in the text being blocked for some reason?
Edit: Aparantly Firefox's built in protections are automatically blocking them, so disabling my ad blocker had no effect.
Something on your end, feeding fine here.
The Guardian link
Going to be really bad if someone takes the opportunity to walk into the Capitol with no security carrying a bomb. They need to start getting people out of there.
I heard something about pipe bombs on one of the streams but I can't find any hard reporting on it yet.
So far it seems a lot of noise, but not a lot of action if we are being honest. With the numbers involved....How they got past the police lines:
https://twitter.com/washingtonian/status/1346898575654068224
And video of them entering the Capitol buildings:
https://twitter.com/mattlaslo/status/1346898208312713223