However, I do think you underplay Trump's agency in the electoral chaos. For months prior to the vote, he preached to his supporters that if he lost the election, that would be proof of fraud. For reasons that COMPLETELY escape me, he cast as much doubt as he could on absentee ballots, even given that approach was key for casting votes from older GOP voters[1]. After the election happened, he put forth clowns like Sidney Powell and Rudy Guiliani to represent him, both of whom were making up crap the whole way[2]. On Election Night, Trump and his team was happy to push the "night time ballot dumps" lie, when everyone on his team knew better[3].
I could go on and on, but to get back to my point - and where I think your piece veers off-track - is that folks aren't worried about their neighbors taking up arms against them. Rather the fear is that using 2020 as a guide, we're not confident that our neighbors are willing to stand against a coup attempt (see the Eastman memo[4]) as long as the usurper is telling them things that they want to hear or willing to provide enough excuses in the form of bad information and/or conspiracy theories that give folks an excuse to throw up their hands and say "who knows one way or the other", absolving them of their responsibility as small-D democratic citizens to hold their leaders accountable. Instead of being responsible for knowing how our system is supposed to work (as well as why it's supposed to work that way), the problem is that we're devolving from a people who cares and relies on Constitutional structure and process to smooth over our differences into tribes that self-segregate and follow the lead of whoever happens to be our current tribal leader.
It's that indifference that will lead us into actual conflict - not whether I dislike my neighbor's Trump flag. Because once we get to a point where the process and structure for resolving our differences falls down - especially in the case of selecting who our next leaders will be - then it becomes Hobbesian tribes all the way down. I have plenty of friends and family who voted for Trump and I would move the world to help them out when in need, but their votes for Trump count the exact same amount as the most rabid #MAGA fan leading Trump boat parade. And it's their unwillingness to see how close we got earlier this year to throwing the entire American experiment away that has me concerned. I honestly don't care who they vote for - what's more important is having a shared grounded reality between us where we agree what happens when someone wins and someone loses that's VASTLY more important to the well-being of the Republic, and seems to be neglected in our partisan skirmishes.
The coup ain’t gonna happen. Not without inside help and there isn’t going to be enough. There are still a lot of forces inside the military, intelligence and executive community who would not allow anything even resembling a coup to happen. And with Trump outside the government, I can’t see how he could begin to arrange it. That’s not lacking diligence, I just don’t see it. I do see an overreaction that can cost lives however.
I'm not so much worried about Trump in this case - old age or an unchewed cheeseburger will have him off the board soon enough - I'm more worried about someone learning from Trump's experience before we put in the appropriate safeguards that shore up our system (such as clarifying/rewriting the Electoral Count Act of 1876[1]) so that things like the Eastman memo (which I think was a MORE serious threat than the Jan. 6 LARPers) are DOA and don't have enough space to exist due to poorly-written laws.
Related - for folks interested in to what extent mistrust about our elections is THRIVING, take a listen to "The Focus Group" podcast by Sarah Longwell over at The Bulwark, where she gets into the various views and attitudes held by a variety of voter classes:
Thanks for a balanced analysis of where we are in the USA today. Hot head right wingers caused most of the damage at the Capitol and, as you said, they are lucky they did not get slaughtered. Most of the crowd were simply caught up in the moment and had no violent intent. Your description of some of the leftist riots and how they were staged is right-on. I still do not see much condemnation of the mobs who looted and burned and caused billions of dollars in damage and destroyed businesses in large and middle sized cities across the nation. Those seem to be excused as protests for racial justice.
I am definitely an outsider looking in when it comes to comments on this site. I am foreign to those who disagree with me - about 95%. They are equally foreign to me. I think it's that many of them view the Constitution as outdated. I view it as the Constitution has been corrupted and laws are not enforced.
I see Steve is already laying the ground work for his Trump vote in 2024. I find it funny how your whole article was about stopping the fringes from creating others when you went along with the president of a party who made his whole political fortunes out of making others out of people. That is literally his whole schtick.
Whatever, its not like you mean any of this anyway. You will be back to telling lies about democrats within the week, like you always do.
I won’t be voting for Trump and you misunderstood my reason for voting for him in 2020. I still believe he is more poisonous outside government than in it. The GOP may not recover.
It would be a tough choice for a newly minted never-Trump but it would take an idiot to vote for more of what we have now. Hopefully the primaries will give us better options.
Curtis most of your comments are either lies that have been fed to you or irrational nonsense. Should probably stay away from saying anything about anybody else's mental state.
That's harsh. Explain please. What has the Biden administration done that's good for the USA? The last answer you gave to this question was that he kept Trump out of office.
Of course you do, it is more convenient that way than to admit you keep asking the same question over and over no matter what response you get. I'm just not going to play your tired game.
I think the point you miss is that Trump rode to power on birtherism, the idea that Obama wasn't an American. That's the breaking point in American politics- that many otherwise banal Americans people like Obama as foreigners, not citizens.
He rode to politics on naked, stupid conspiracy. He played the underdog and got Obama to cave on the birth certificate. Then he got Priebus to cave on the nominee pledge. Then he ruined every debate. He rode a wave of destruction and mayhem and the people enjoyed it like a Roman gladiator match.
Great piece.
However, I do think you underplay Trump's agency in the electoral chaos. For months prior to the vote, he preached to his supporters that if he lost the election, that would be proof of fraud. For reasons that COMPLETELY escape me, he cast as much doubt as he could on absentee ballots, even given that approach was key for casting votes from older GOP voters[1]. After the election happened, he put forth clowns like Sidney Powell and Rudy Guiliani to represent him, both of whom were making up crap the whole way[2]. On Election Night, Trump and his team was happy to push the "night time ballot dumps" lie, when everyone on his team knew better[3].
I could go on and on, but to get back to my point - and where I think your piece veers off-track - is that folks aren't worried about their neighbors taking up arms against them. Rather the fear is that using 2020 as a guide, we're not confident that our neighbors are willing to stand against a coup attempt (see the Eastman memo[4]) as long as the usurper is telling them things that they want to hear or willing to provide enough excuses in the form of bad information and/or conspiracy theories that give folks an excuse to throw up their hands and say "who knows one way or the other", absolving them of their responsibility as small-D democratic citizens to hold their leaders accountable. Instead of being responsible for knowing how our system is supposed to work (as well as why it's supposed to work that way), the problem is that we're devolving from a people who cares and relies on Constitutional structure and process to smooth over our differences into tribes that self-segregate and follow the lead of whoever happens to be our current tribal leader.
It's that indifference that will lead us into actual conflict - not whether I dislike my neighbor's Trump flag. Because once we get to a point where the process and structure for resolving our differences falls down - especially in the case of selecting who our next leaders will be - then it becomes Hobbesian tribes all the way down. I have plenty of friends and family who voted for Trump and I would move the world to help them out when in need, but their votes for Trump count the exact same amount as the most rabid #MAGA fan leading Trump boat parade. And it's their unwillingness to see how close we got earlier this year to throwing the entire American experiment away that has me concerned. I honestly don't care who they vote for - what's more important is having a shared grounded reality between us where we agree what happens when someone wins and someone loses that's VASTLY more important to the well-being of the Republic, and seems to be neglected in our partisan skirmishes.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/trump-republicans-vote-mail-arizona-florida/612625/
[2] https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-guiliani-says-he-got-election-fraud-evidence-from-facebook-2021-10
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/30/trump-renews-ballot-dump-conspiracy-theory-claim-heres-why-its-bogus/?sh=5a8bfe381dca
[4] https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/21/politics/read-eastman-memo/index.html
The coup ain’t gonna happen. Not without inside help and there isn’t going to be enough. There are still a lot of forces inside the military, intelligence and executive community who would not allow anything even resembling a coup to happen. And with Trump outside the government, I can’t see how he could begin to arrange it. That’s not lacking diligence, I just don’t see it. I do see an overreaction that can cost lives however.
I'm not so much worried about Trump in this case - old age or an unchewed cheeseburger will have him off the board soon enough - I'm more worried about someone learning from Trump's experience before we put in the appropriate safeguards that shore up our system (such as clarifying/rewriting the Electoral Count Act of 1876[1]) so that things like the Eastman memo (which I think was a MORE serious threat than the Jan. 6 LARPers) are DOA and don't have enough space to exist due to poorly-written laws.
[1] https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/564904-congress-must-update-the-electoral-count-act
That is possible but I disagree on “shoring up the system.” We need to shore up the voters. The system worked fine.
Related - for folks interested in to what extent mistrust about our elections is THRIVING, take a listen to "The Focus Group" podcast by Sarah Longwell over at The Bulwark, where she gets into the various views and attitudes held by a variety of voter classes:
https://focusgroup.thebulwark.com/
Thanks for a balanced analysis of where we are in the USA today. Hot head right wingers caused most of the damage at the Capitol and, as you said, they are lucky they did not get slaughtered. Most of the crowd were simply caught up in the moment and had no violent intent. Your description of some of the leftist riots and how they were staged is right-on. I still do not see much condemnation of the mobs who looted and burned and caused billions of dollars in damage and destroyed businesses in large and middle sized cities across the nation. Those seem to be excused as protests for racial justice.
I am definitely an outsider looking in when it comes to comments on this site. I am foreign to those who disagree with me - about 95%. They are equally foreign to me. I think it's that many of them view the Constitution as outdated. I view it as the Constitution has been corrupted and laws are not enforced.
I see Steve is already laying the ground work for his Trump vote in 2024. I find it funny how your whole article was about stopping the fringes from creating others when you went along with the president of a party who made his whole political fortunes out of making others out of people. That is literally his whole schtick.
Whatever, its not like you mean any of this anyway. You will be back to telling lies about democrats within the week, like you always do.
I won’t be voting for Trump and you misunderstood my reason for voting for him in 2020. I still believe he is more poisonous outside government than in it. The GOP may not recover.
It would be a tough choice for a newly minted never-Trump but it would take an idiot to vote for more of what we have now. Hopefully the primaries will give us better options.
Curtis most of your comments are either lies that have been fed to you or irrational nonsense. Should probably stay away from saying anything about anybody else's mental state.
That's harsh. Explain please. What has the Biden administration done that's good for the USA? The last answer you gave to this question was that he kept Trump out of office.
This question has been answered as well for you multiple times by commenters here. Maybe you should start keeping a diary or something.
I'll take that as a no comment (equivalent to "don't know")
Of course you do, it is more convenient that way than to admit you keep asking the same question over and over no matter what response you get. I'm just not going to play your tired game.
I think the point you miss is that Trump rode to power on birtherism, the idea that Obama wasn't an American. That's the breaking point in American politics- that many otherwise banal Americans people like Obama as foreigners, not citizens.
He rode to politics on naked, stupid conspiracy. He played the underdog and got Obama to cave on the birth certificate. Then he got Priebus to cave on the nominee pledge. Then he ruined every debate. He rode a wave of destruction and mayhem and the people enjoyed it like a Roman gladiator match.