The "Green Bay Sweep"--One Year Later

[Dill]

(01-15-2022, 12:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: . . . for the storming isn't the lone scary part.
The much scarier thing than the insurrection attempt, imho, is the ongoing reaction of the almost entire Republican Party to that event.

That's why I'd say your democracy is very much at stake. Of course, this is mainly based on Trump setting all the steps for getting future elections overturned to his will and a whole party apparatus supporting him in that effort. Or on people just rather believing conspiracy lies they read on facebook rather than the reasonable people reasonably denying wide-spread election fraud with all democrat and quite some republican election officials, all judges, all law enforcement apparently being in on the fix. Or on Brad Raffensberger being censured and whatnot for the eternal sin of having done his duty for securing and certifying a free and fair election. Yeah, eff this guy, right. And all that can be discussed about all that is some counter-arguments like bringing up liberal hypocrisy in one or the other convoluted way, that the awful Dems politicize the event, that one comes from a partisan viewpoint etc etc, all that deflecting and false equivalencies and side-battles; the route cynical, yet not converted McConnell goes. While this is actually going on and your people just shrug. Half of the country doesn't care, and many are actively rooting for replacing democracy with following Trump's will. Just imagine what a smart guy could do with that kind of opportunity.

The eventy of January 6, as bad as they were, imho pale in comparison.

I agree with this pretty much. I'd just tweak it a bit by saying "all" our people aren't shrugging. But it might be that "most" or certainly enough are to grant the anti-democratic forces control of government, which, when they have it, will enable them to keep passing laws to keep their superminority in power.  Preserving the filibuster takes precedence over preserving democracy.

There may be an analogy here to resistance to civil rights legislation back in the '60s, when people who "of course" were against racism and segregation nevertheless attacked King and civil rights protestors who were actually fighting racism and segregation. Following MLK's analysis, it was the white "moderates" who were the biggest obstacle to change. Today barely a third of the country is "rooting for replacing democracy," and a third or so understand the stakes and actively oppose them, but there is a disturbing number of "centrists" and "independents" who don't see a major problem. They view this conflict through variations of "both sidesism," one of which is that our politics are simply cyclical and someday the Dems will be thankful for the filibuster and Repubs will be complaining about anti-democratic policies, etc. "The system is working" so distrust people who want to change it (e.g., see Mason Bengal's link to the National Review article, written by people who aren't MAGA). 

Another variation would be comparisons which never go beyond the symmetry of each side's rhetoric to the basic asymmetry of evidence supporting the rhetoric. That's why many people hear Dems accusing Repubs of being anti-science and Repubs accusing Dems of being anti-science and stop there to conclude that "both sides" are just engaging in political performance. Meantime, COVID streaks through our millions of anti-Vaxxers, keeping the pandemic with us, the virus evolving, etc. Same when Dems raise the alarm about voting rights in danger. More "theater." There is no capacity among such folks to understand what is at stake when 50 million people WANT to re-elect a president who tried to throw the election--personally involved himself in doing.  So yes, Democracy is at stake.

The events of Jan.6--I wouldn't say they "pale in comparison," but only because they are not separate for comparison--i.e., they are not separate from the The Green Bay Sweep and the 5 or more states who sent alternative, forged, electoral certificates to the Senate and the National Archives in hopes of the throwing the election to the House, nor from the current ongoing push to selectively reduce voting and to give GOP controlled state legislatures final control over electoral votes. 

(01-15-2022, 12:13 AM)hollodero Wrote: Oh yeah, I might add former Trump officials openly debating coup attempts on TV and nothing really happening in reaction to that on the list.

This list/message board?