Coup and Context
Obviously, the events of earlier this week have been sticking in my mind and in the news:
Fortunately, most of the crowd barging into the Capitol was there for mischief, not murder. And it's a really good thing that the situation didn't escalate to Capitol security opening fire on crowds. But this was still an unusually deadly protest. It was also one of the most serious breaches of US government security in recent history, in terms of both security of information and equipment (a large crowd had unrestricted access to the building for hours, a dream opportunity for any professional troublemaker that had the foresight to insert themselves into the crowd in advance) and the physical security of government officials and employees.
Furthermore, some of those there in the crowd were prepared for more significant violent action. And I wouldn't want to find out how serious those constructing a makeshift gallows and chanting "hang Mike Pence" were by allowing them to get their hands on the Vice President and/or legislators.
The thing is, while the rioters didn't have a credible plan to seize control of government operations themselves, the riot was part of President Trump's coup attempt. And there's certainly a plan there, even if it's not that focused or coherent (any plan will do, repeat until it works): Create a crisis, prevent or delay the certification of the election, create political cover for the argument that because people are angry, this must be resolved via implementing some procedure that can overturn the election. Republican members of Congress literally made that argument and suggested several: Toss entire state's elections outright, remand those back to state legislatures somehow so that the state legislature can "fix" it, appoint an "electoral commission" to decide.
I've seen conservatives in the media and online attempt to misleadingly defend this effort to implement some process to toss out state Presidential elections as "just following the constitutional process", since they're following the procedure laid out in the Electoral Count Act. But that's legislation, not the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't allow Congress (or the Vice President) to choose which recipients of electoral votes become the next President or Vice President. The Constitution (and probably state constitutions) also doesn't allow states to select their electors by popular election, then retroactively change that when they don't like the election result. The Constitution doesn't let Congress disenfranchise entire states because they think court cases were decided incorrectly.
(And, of course, it's a pretense that the Republicans' objection is about process in any consistent or principled way. Their objection solely hinges on the election result.)
There's also a lot of false equivocation between this and Congressional objections to the electoral vote with a very different context. Here, the losing candidate refuses to acknowledge the result of the election, falsely claims he won, and frames legislative efforts to object to electors as being primarily about altering the election result. Also, he's the incumbent President. Who said he wouldn't recognize the election as legitimate if he lost, and refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
There's also some debate about whether President Trump's pre-riot speech met the criminal standard for incitement. I think Trump sought, reasonably expected, and got imminent lawless action. If it only counts as criminal incitement if you, say, specifically tell people which section of the US code you want them to violate, well, Trump is rarely that explicit when encouraging other people to break the law. When he says, "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes" (remember that earth-shattering scandal from the distant era of a week ago?), Trump is saying that the election should be overturned somehow. When he says, "We're going to have to fight much harder and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us," this is also a "make that happen somehow". It's true that Trump's incitement is not as explicit as, say, Giuliani's "trial by combat" remarks. But context.
Speaking of context, one of the most remarkable things to me about Trump getting banned from Twitter is that the decision was justified based on Trump's posts taken in context. Which seems to be breaking new ground in social media moderation.
Anyways, I really do hope the full details come out about how Trump and his organizations were coordinating with Republican legislators, security forces, and (possibly) the rioters themselves. For one example, in yet another WTF Giuliani moment, it seems that both Trump and Giuliani called the wrong number while trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville. Trump reached Mike Lee, who handed Tuberville his phone. It seems there was nothing so remarkable about that call from what Lee could overhear on his end, but that was interrupted by protesters breaching Capitol security a few minutes later. After that, Giuliani tried to contact Tuberville but reached the wrong (this time unknown) Senator again, and either that Senator or their staff leaked the recording to the press. Giuliani asked Tuberville to delay the process as much as possible, implying that they were on the verge of convincing state legislatures to go along with the "send the election back to the state legislatures so they can disenfranchise their own states" plan. Obviously, not saying that Giuliani is telling the truth, the plan could well have been "delay and then maybe something somehow", but I'd like to know which something somehows Trump and his teams were working on. This entry was originally posted on Dreamwith.
comments are there.
Fortunately, most of the crowd barging into the Capitol was there for mischief, not murder. And it's a really good thing that the situation didn't escalate to Capitol security opening fire on crowds. But this was still an unusually deadly protest. It was also one of the most serious breaches of US government security in recent history, in terms of both security of information and equipment (a large crowd had unrestricted access to the building for hours, a dream opportunity for any professional troublemaker that had the foresight to insert themselves into the crowd in advance) and the physical security of government officials and employees.
Furthermore, some of those there in the crowd were prepared for more significant violent action. And I wouldn't want to find out how serious those constructing a makeshift gallows and chanting "hang Mike Pence" were by allowing them to get their hands on the Vice President and/or legislators.
The thing is, while the rioters didn't have a credible plan to seize control of government operations themselves, the riot was part of President Trump's coup attempt. And there's certainly a plan there, even if it's not that focused or coherent (any plan will do, repeat until it works): Create a crisis, prevent or delay the certification of the election, create political cover for the argument that because people are angry, this must be resolved via implementing some procedure that can overturn the election. Republican members of Congress literally made that argument and suggested several: Toss entire state's elections outright, remand those back to state legislatures somehow so that the state legislature can "fix" it, appoint an "electoral commission" to decide.
I've seen conservatives in the media and online attempt to misleadingly defend this effort to implement some process to toss out state Presidential elections as "just following the constitutional process", since they're following the procedure laid out in the Electoral Count Act. But that's legislation, not the Constitution. The Constitution doesn't allow Congress (or the Vice President) to choose which recipients of electoral votes become the next President or Vice President. The Constitution (and probably state constitutions) also doesn't allow states to select their electors by popular election, then retroactively change that when they don't like the election result. The Constitution doesn't let Congress disenfranchise entire states because they think court cases were decided incorrectly.
(And, of course, it's a pretense that the Republicans' objection is about process in any consistent or principled way. Their objection solely hinges on the election result.)
There's also a lot of false equivocation between this and Congressional objections to the electoral vote with a very different context. Here, the losing candidate refuses to acknowledge the result of the election, falsely claims he won, and frames legislative efforts to object to electors as being primarily about altering the election result. Also, he's the incumbent President. Who said he wouldn't recognize the election as legitimate if he lost, and refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
There's also some debate about whether President Trump's pre-riot speech met the criminal standard for incitement. I think Trump sought, reasonably expected, and got imminent lawless action. If it only counts as criminal incitement if you, say, specifically tell people which section of the US code you want them to violate, well, Trump is rarely that explicit when encouraging other people to break the law. When he says, "All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes" (remember that earth-shattering scandal from the distant era of a week ago?), Trump is saying that the election should be overturned somehow. When he says, "We're going to have to fight much harder and Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us," this is also a "make that happen somehow". It's true that Trump's incitement is not as explicit as, say, Giuliani's "trial by combat" remarks. But context.
Speaking of context, one of the most remarkable things to me about Trump getting banned from Twitter is that the decision was justified based on Trump's posts taken in context. Which seems to be breaking new ground in social media moderation.
Anyways, I really do hope the full details come out about how Trump and his organizations were coordinating with Republican legislators, security forces, and (possibly) the rioters themselves. For one example, in yet another WTF Giuliani moment, it seems that both Trump and Giuliani called the wrong number while trying to reach Senator Tommy Tuberville. Trump reached Mike Lee, who handed Tuberville his phone. It seems there was nothing so remarkable about that call from what Lee could overhear on his end, but that was interrupted by protesters breaching Capitol security a few minutes later. After that, Giuliani tried to contact Tuberville but reached the wrong (this time unknown) Senator again, and either that Senator or their staff leaked the recording to the press. Giuliani asked Tuberville to delay the process as much as possible, implying that they were on the verge of convincing state legislatures to go along with the "send the election back to the state legislatures so they can disenfranchise their own states" plan. Obviously, not saying that Giuliani is telling the truth, the plan could well have been "delay and then maybe something somehow", but I'd like to know which something somehows Trump and his teams were working on. This entry was originally posted on Dreamwith.
comments are there.