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Smooth Election Transition vs Possible Autocrat Coup (Page 2)
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OreoCookie
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Jan 13, 2022, 08:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
What I don’t see considered in January 6th analysis are the ongoing efforts to infiltrate seditious groups by countless federal and state agencies.
I don’t quite understand the relevancy here. After all, most of the rioters did not belong to some group like the Proud Boys or the 3 %ers or some armed militia.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I see three possible scenarios.

1) The plan was kept hidden from these infiltrators and informants.

2) The plan wasn’t kept hidden from these infiltrators and informants, but the government did nothing.

3) There was no plan.
Why do you assume there was a plan at all?
As far as I understand the situation, there was no single group, it was an amalgamation of groups and people. Only a fraction belonged to militias or a group like the proud boys. Even then you’d be dealing with several groups and I don’t think it is likely these different groups coordinated. In the language of Ghost in the Shell, this was a Standalone Complex, i. e. a movement without centralized leadership to coordinate things.

On the LEO side, I think it would be plausible that they looked at the individual groups and (I think correctly) judged that each group did not have a plausible plan to do anything on January 6th.
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subego
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Jan 13, 2022, 08:48 PM
 


I don’t assume there was s plan. Like I said, I find that scenario implausible.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 13, 2022, 09:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post


I don’t assume there was s plan. Like I said, I find that scenario implausible.
Then I don't understand why you wrote your post in the first place, and speculate about the infiltration of federal law enforcement. That sounds like talking points from Ben Shapiro et al. to me, either makes whatever happened sound nefarious or cast the federal government in an inept light. I don't claim this is your intention, but I think this is the effect.
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andi*pandi
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Jan 13, 2022, 11:40 PM
 
Someone had a plan. Was it the random people in the crowd? Maybe not. Were some of them in on it? The faction leaders?

Did Trump HQ just hope if they mixed enough volatile chemicals together (proud boys, nazis, the clueless faithful) with some accelerant (rhetoric, speeches) that things woud go boom?

We won't know until all the arrests are made and the commission is done.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 14, 2022, 07:14 AM
 
Apparently, the DOJ thinks the Oath Keepers had a plan.
     
subego
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Jan 14, 2022, 09:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Then I don't understand why you wrote your post in the first place…
Because I get the feeling people think there was a plan.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 14, 2022, 10:47 AM
 
My impression is that there were a number of plans, but most of them weren't coordinated with each other.

Had they been, the United States would probably look a lot different on the surface than it does today.
     
subego
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Jan 14, 2022, 12:32 PM
 
I don’t see anything which they could have done which would have amounted to more than a delay. This includes murdering everyone in the building.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 15, 2022, 06:45 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I don’t see anything which they could have done which would have amounted to more than a delay. This includes murdering everyone in the building.
That strikes me as something very brash and naive thing to say. If the rioters had killed even just a few Congress people and/or the vice President, the US would be in a constitutional crisis now.

Especially so if the rioters had killed several people in the line of succession (such as Nancy Pelosi). If they had killed all people in Congress plus then-VP Pence, who would be president on January 21st? Since Congress needs to formally count the votes in the electoral college, if there were no Congress people then no one could formally ratify the election result.

Or if the vote was delayed until after the 20th, Pelosi (as Speaker of the House) would have been sworn in. Do you think Republicans who think Biden stole the election would accept her in his stead? Like I wrote above, the US would have slid into a state of constitutional crisis.
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subego
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Jan 15, 2022, 12:37 PM
 
Even Republicans don’t have the will to maintain their front in the face of legislators being murdered.
     
Thorzdad
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Jan 15, 2022, 08:40 PM
 
I wouldn’t want to bet money on that. This GOP isn’t your father’s GOP, by a long shot. There are more than a few members of the GOP (especially in the House) who I honestly don’t think would have any problem with Dem leaders being killed on Jan. 6. MTG, for instance, was texting with the rioters while she was in hiding with other House members.
     
subego
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Jan 15, 2022, 09:25 PM
 
Is MTG representative of an average Republican? She seems fringe to me. Like Michele Bachmann.
     
OreoCookie
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Jan 15, 2022, 10:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Even Republicans don’t have the will to maintain their front in the face of legislators being murdered.
I wouldn’t be so sure.
Look at how strongly some Republicans condemned Trump in the aftermath and then promptly flipped back. And that’s despite the fact that I believe many of them genuinely feared for their lives on January 6th.
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subego
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Jan 15, 2022, 11:02 PM
 
The probable outcome of my hypothetical scenario would be more likely to follow opinion of a year ago rather than now, no?

With the added influence of their co-workers having been murdered.
( Last edited by subego; Jan 16, 2022 at 12:17 AM. )
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 16, 2022, 06:33 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Is MTG representative of an average Republican? She seems fringe to me. Like Michele Bachmann.
If that fringe was 6" long in Bachman's day its barely 1" now.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 16, 2022, 09:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Even Republicans don’t have the will to maintain their front in the face of legislators being murdered.
The list of things "even Republicans" wouldn't do has shrunk at an alarming rate over the past decade, and in increasingly unimaginable ways over the past year and a half.

There are literally Q followers sitting in Congress on Republican tickets attributing wildfires to "space solar generators" run by the Rothschilds!

"Fringe" or not — she ran on the Republican ticket, and won a majority.
     
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Jan 16, 2022, 09:18 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
With the added influence of their co-workers having been murdered.
I cannot speak to the exact experience they had, but the closest I came to a life-and-death situation was when a co-worker was stabbed two offices down. He survived, but colleagues and I helped him deal with the perp. Even though I was not the victim, this has had a very definite impact on me.

Like I wrote, I imagine most of them were genuinely in fear of their lives, and that experience stays with you. If colleagues had actually been murdered, would that have enhanced the state of fear. Sure. But I think their experience should have been more than enough as it was that they stayed above party politics when it came to January 6th and Trump’s removal from office.
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Laminar
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Jan 18, 2022, 11:27 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
What I don’t see considered in January 6th analysis are the ongoing efforts to infiltrate seditious groups by countless federal and state agencies.
It's kind of funny, because I keep seeing it go in the opposite direction - countless federal and state agencies have been infiltrated by seditious groups of white nationalists.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-police-report

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/...aw-enforcement

How many members of local law enforcement, of the national guard, of the FBI, of the military wanted Trump to remain in the presidency? How many of them believed with 100% certainty that the Democrats illegally rigged the election in favor of Biden? How many of them believe that the correct, legal result of the democratic process should be the denial of Biden's win? That number is not zero.
     
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Jan 18, 2022, 01:47 PM
 
You watch the videos, of the republican senators being scared during the insurrection, of Mitt Romney being directed to scurry down a hallway, moments before insurrectionists storm the other way, and you know they had to know their lives were in peril. They were shook for a day or a week or two enough to condemn it, while the fear was still fresh. Then once the dust settled and the party line was written, they fell in line.

I do not understand why some Rs are falling in line when R no longer means what it used to mean. Trumplicans say RINO but frankly they are RINO.

Just start new parties already.
     
subego
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Jan 18, 2022, 01:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
How many members of local law enforcement, of the national guard, of the FBI, of the military wanted Trump to remain in the presidency? How many of them believed with 100% certainty that the Democrats illegally rigged the election in favor of Biden? How many of them believe that the correct, legal result of the democratic process should be the denial of Biden's win? That number is not zero.
The relevant numbers aren’t “number of believers” and “zero”, it’s “number of believers” and “number of people required for substantive action”.
     
subego
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Jan 18, 2022, 02:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
It's kind of funny, because I keep seeing it go in the opposite direction…
The infiltrators you see are the fuckups.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 18, 2022, 03:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The infiltrators you see are the fuckups.
So the infiltration goes way beyond that…it's systemic.
     
subego
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Jan 18, 2022, 03:31 PM
 
The idea is successful infiltration is invisible.

The quantity of exposed infiltrators doesn’t tell you anything about the success rate, only the failure rate.

“I see people infiltrating the government, not the reverse” means only one of these groups is failing, not that only one of these groups is trying.
     
Laminar
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Jan 18, 2022, 03:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The relevant numbers aren’t “number of believers” and “zero”, it’s “number of believers” and “number of people required for substantive action”.
At this point it seems to just be conspiracy theories and speculation, which isn't any fun for me, I'm more of a "we'll see where it stands when the dust settles."

This article paints an interesting picture - that the delayed National Guard response was intention - not to allow the Capitol attacks to happen, but so that there weren't federal troops on site that Trump could control by invoking the Insurrection Act.

https://www.justsecurity.org/79623/c...and-january-6/

On Nov. 9, 2020: Trump fired Defense Secretary Esper. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows reportedly called Esper to inform the secretary that he was being dismissed for not being “sufficiently loyal.” After the Trump Presidency was over, Esper told Jonathan Karl that his goal was to prevent Trump from using the military against citizens in “the days before, the day of, and the days after the election.”

On the evening of Nov. 9, Pompeo came to see Milley, according to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s book Peril. Speaking of the President, Pompeo said, “He’s in a very dark place right now,” and expressed concern that Trump was turning the situation in a direction that was perilous for the republic. The following day, CIA Director Gina Haspel called Milley concerned about the shakeup at the Pentagon and believing that Trump wanted to fire her. “Yesterday was appalling,” Haspel told the Chairman. “We are on the way to a right-wing coup,” she said, according to Woodward and Costa’s reporting.

“Administration officials like Pompeo and Milley believed some of Trump’s new hires were conspiracy theorists and discussed whether others might have links to neo-Nazi groups,” the Wall Street Journal’s Michael Bender reported. “Senior administration officials weren’t completely sure what Trump was up to, and they started hitting the panic button. ‘The crazies have taken over,’” Pompeo said to a colleague.
...
According to Susan Glasser’s reporting, Milley specifically said he was concerned about a scenario in which Trump tried “to use the military on the streets of America to prevent the legitimate, peaceful transfer of power.” His associates were reportedly concerned too. On Jan. 2, a former defense secretary reportedly told Milley that “all ten living former secretaries of defense had reached the same conclusion.”
Is it a stretch to assume that Trump was doing everything he possibly could in order to stay in office?
     
Laminar
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Jan 18, 2022, 03:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The idea is successful infiltration is invisible.
It doesn't have to be. If white nationalists are recruiting from and joining law enforcement in order to further their white nationalist goals of, among other things, oppressing non-whites, there comes a point where it doesn't really matter if they're "found out" or not. Half the cars around here have blue line sticker on the back window, Iowa even offers an official blue-line license plate.

When a lot of this came to light over the past year or two, there were some token firings or suspensions, and I assume some better tightening-up of their Facebook group visibility settings.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 18, 2022, 04:18 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The idea is successful infiltration is invisible.

The quantity of exposed infiltrators doesn’t tell you anything about the success rate, only the failure rate.

“I see people infiltrating the government, not the reverse” means only one of these groups is failing, not that only one of these groups is trying.
At a certain point, "infiltration" becomes self-sustaining. If you have enough fascists in key roles and jobs, there is no need to be "invisible" because the environment supports even the more brazen and outrageous positions.

You aren't seeing "failed infiltration", because these people aren't seeing repercussions. They aren't failing, despite being open about their destructive goals.

So maybe you're right: "Infiltration" is the wrong word. At this point, it's far beyond that.
     
subego
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Jan 18, 2022, 04:25 PM
 
The idea here seems to be “we can show how dangerous this was by showing the extent these major players (Pompeo, Haspel) were freaking out”.

I get the opposite from it. That it was a lot less dangerous than it appeared because you had incredibly powerful Republicans (Pompeo, Haspel) intent on stopping it from boiling over.

As an aside, the US Secretary of State is probably the second most powerful person in the world. Director of the CIA is in the top 10.


Edit: Barr would have joined them, too.
     
Laminar
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Jan 18, 2022, 05:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The idea here seems to be “we can show how dangerous this was by showing the extent these major players (Pompeo, Haspel) were freaking out”.
One of your first points was, "There can't be a plan to mess with the transfer of power because a lot of people would know about it." But this makes it appear that lots of people very high up and with very high access to information were very worried about there being a plan to mess with the transfer of power. Trump's shuffling of key players post-election would imply he was trying to put friendly people in specific positions. The term they kept using was "Reichstag moment" - from all accounts it appeared that Trump was trying to manufacture an excuse to invoke some form of martial law - at which point it wouldn't matter if there were a few powerful nay-sayers. Plenty of Republicans were firmly on his side, and we've seen over the past 5 years that almost the entire rest of the Republicans will willfully simp for anyone they believe is projecting power, so it doesn't feel obvious to me that his plan was destined to fail.

We'll never know how close we came to a different outcome.
     
subego
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Jan 18, 2022, 09:08 PM
 
I was talking about a plan by the protestors… rioters… fucking morons… whatever you want to call them.

If we want to talk about it coming from the other end, with martial law for example, consider the following three qualities.

1) The authority to declare a policy
2) The power to enforce a policy
3) Public support for a policy

I posit these three qualities determine whether a policy comes to pass.

Two are needed at minimum. Trump only had one. Trump’s authority to declare martial law is meaningless when both his cabinet (e.g., Pompeo, Haspel) and a majority of the public are prepared to respond to it with open revolt.

We didn’t come close to another outcome because the conditions necessary for another outcome weren’t present.
     
Laminar
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Jan 19, 2022, 09:54 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
and a majority of the public are prepared to respond to it with open revolt.
I'm not as confident about that as you seem to be. The psychos with guns constantly remind everyone that all of the psychos with guns are on one side.





et al.
     
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Jan 19, 2022, 11:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I was talking about a plan by the protestors… rioters… fucking morons… whatever you want to call them.

If we want to talk about it coming from the other end, with martial law for example, consider the following three qualities.

1) The authority to declare a policy
2) The power to enforce a policy
3) Public support for a policy

I posit these three qualities determine whether a policy comes to pass.

Two are needed at minimum. Trump only had one. Trump’s authority to declare martial law is meaningless when both his cabinet (e.g., Pompeo, Haspel) and a majority of the public are prepared to respond to it with open revolt.

We didn’t come close to another outcome because the conditions necessary for another outcome weren’t present.
I think it's more like Trump had half of each. He had the power to do so, was setting it up... people were in place. He thought he had enough public support. He was getting public support via lying and rallying etc.

He was very close to getting his way.
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 11:42 AM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
I'm not as confident about that as you seem to be. The psychos with guns constantly remind everyone that all of the psychos with guns are on one side.
Funny part is they don’t even need guns. They make the food.
     
andi*pandi
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Jan 19, 2022, 11:59 AM
 
I think the south made this argument, and the north proved the south's cotton is pretty worthless without the north's mills.
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 12:04 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
I think it's more like Trump had half of each. He had the power to do so…
Power and authority are distinct.

Trump had the explicit authority to push Pompeo and Haspel around. He demonstrably did not have the power to do so.
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 12:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
I think the south made this argument, and the north proved the south's cotton is pretty worthless without the north's mills.
Except the North’s mills are all in China now.
     
Laminar
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Jan 19, 2022, 12:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Funny part is they don’t even need guns. They make the food.
Well, they mostly make the HFCS, soy, and meat, all of which we'd probably be better off without.
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 12:28 PM
 
Breakfast of champions.
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 01:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Except the North’s mills are all in China now.
As an aside, anyone ever notice how it’s cheaper to outsource slaves than to own them?
     
subego
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Jan 19, 2022, 01:46 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
The text is weak, but that image is genuinely inspired.

It’s also Rock’em Sock’em Robots.
     
Laminar
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Jan 19, 2022, 03:34 PM
 
Must be old, because Iowa is definitely not a blue state anymore.

Also, MIL bought a set of Rock'em Sock'em Robots last week and I made my 9 year old cry by crushing him in a best-of-5 contest. We switched colors and I did it again, proving my elite skill regardless of any inherent fighter advantage.
     
 
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