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This afternoon an armed mob, instigated and egged on by the President of the United States, broke into the U.S. Capitol Building and occupied it, forcing the evacuation of both houses of Congress, which were engaged in the normally-ceremonial task of certifying the electoral votes that were cast a month ago. The mob's goal, as they made quite clear, was a coup d'etat, to prevent Congress from certifying that the President lost his re-election. (Several members of both House and Senate had promised to dispute the electoral votes from certain states that Biden won narrowly, not because there was anything wrong with those votes or because there was any realistic chance of having them discarded, but in order to tell their constituents "we tried our best to keep Trump in office".) The invaders broke windows, stole statues, sat in the President of the Senate's seat, put their feet up on Nancy Pelosi's desk, replaced one of the Capitol Building's U.S. flags with a Trump flag, and I don't know what other desecrations. Fortunately, most of them weren't wearing masks and many took (and posted on the Internet) photos of one another in the act of committing felonies, so it should be pretty easy to prosecute them. Various elected leaders, both Republican and Democrat, called on the President to tell them to quit this nonsense and go home. The President, who only hours earlier had told them they need to fight harder, and he would never concede, and he would go with them as they marched to the Capitol Building to demand that he be declared the winner (he didn't -- he went home to the White House and watched on TV as they assaulted the Capitol Building), issued the most insincere message one can imagine, starting with "I feel your pain. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows that, especially the other side" and ending with "I love you; you're very special," but with one or two iterations of "go home" and "stay peaceful", as though they had ever been peaceful, tucked inconspicuously in between. Eventually the Capitol Building was reclaimed and the invaders dispersed with the aid of tear gas.
I can respect that many people sincerely believe Donald Trump won the Presidential election fair and square, and it's being stolen from him by massive, widespread fraud. You can believe whatever you want; I happen to have a different belief, that Joe Biden won the Presidential election fair and square, and the President is trying to steal it from him through mob violence. But what matters in the end isn't what you believe, or what I believe, but what election officials (and sometimes judges) believe. Because it's their job to run elections, investigate irregularities and allegations of fraud, and announce the winner, and they know a lot more about running elections than you or I. If you want to convince election officials or judges that your belief rather than mine is correct, it's not enough to just say there was massive, widespread fraud; you have to present evidence. And in half a dozen recounts and sixty lawsuits in the past two months, the President and his allies have failed to convince even one judge or election board (including many Republican appointees, and a number of Trump appointees) that there was any evidence of substantial fraud. (The Trump campaign won one lawsuit, with the argument not that there was fraud but that some official exceeded his authority in extending a deadline for mail-in ballots, so the judge ordered those ballots that arrived after the original deadline set aside.) Today's mob, with Trump's inflammatory word salad still ringing in their ears, decided that when you don't have facts on your side, you can always resort to violence.
Oddly enough, there have been indications for weeks that something like this might happen on this particular day, and Capitol Hill security apparently wasn't beefed up for the day. Also oddly enough, only one invader was shot, a few dozen were arrested, and the tear gas didn't come out for hours -- a far cry from how police treated mostly-peaceful BLM protesters this summer. But then, most of today's crowd were white.
Next to today's incitement to riot and attempted coup, the President's solicitation of voter fraud three days ago by haranguing and threatening the Georgia Secretary of State for an hour on the phone seems almost trivial. (The Secretary of State recorded the call, wasn't planning to release it but did when Trump tweeted his own account of the call. The recording makes quite clear that the President wants the Secretary to "find" just enough votes to make him the winner in Georgia, and threatens the Secretary with criminal charges if he doesn't.) The State Attorney General is considering filing criminal charges against the President for this felony.
One member of the House, at least, has started drawing up articles of impeachment. Unfortunately, it's one of "the Squad", a quartet of relatively-liberal, non-white, young, female House members who have become a favorite rhetorical punching bag of the right wing; I fear that anything associated with her will automatically be opposed. On the other hand, impeachment is certainly warranted: the President has indisputably committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanours", and although it won't get the President out of office any sooner, it enables Congress to bar him from ever holding any office under the U.S. government again, which would keep him from running again in 2024. And a number of Republican Senators, after seeing their own chamber defiled by a Trumpist mob (and in some cases hoping to run for President themselves in 2024), might actually vote to convict this time.
Meanwhile, the American Association of Manufacturers (a group of Fortune-500 executives) has called on V.P. Pence to seriously consider invoking the 25th Amendment to declare the President unfit for office.
In happier news, voters in Georgia yesterday (and over the past few weeks of early voting) flipped both Georgia Senate seats from Republican to Democrat, which makes that chamber split 50/50, with incoming V.P. Harris breaking ties, so Mitch McConnell will no longer be able to stop nominations and bills from even being discussed. Some Republicans are honestly afraid (because Trump told them to be afraid) that with Democrats holding the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, we're on the fast track to socialism... which is ridiculous, first because there are no real socialists in any of those branches, and second because in a closely-divided house the moderates of the majority party have enormous leverage. For example, as long as Joe Manchin is a marginal Democratic vote, nothing will be passed that hurts the West Virginia coal industry.
Enough of this. It's after 1 AM; I need to go to bed.
I can respect that many people sincerely believe Donald Trump won the Presidential election fair and square, and it's being stolen from him by massive, widespread fraud. You can believe whatever you want; I happen to have a different belief, that Joe Biden won the Presidential election fair and square, and the President is trying to steal it from him through mob violence. But what matters in the end isn't what you believe, or what I believe, but what election officials (and sometimes judges) believe. Because it's their job to run elections, investigate irregularities and allegations of fraud, and announce the winner, and they know a lot more about running elections than you or I. If you want to convince election officials or judges that your belief rather than mine is correct, it's not enough to just say there was massive, widespread fraud; you have to present evidence. And in half a dozen recounts and sixty lawsuits in the past two months, the President and his allies have failed to convince even one judge or election board (including many Republican appointees, and a number of Trump appointees) that there was any evidence of substantial fraud. (The Trump campaign won one lawsuit, with the argument not that there was fraud but that some official exceeded his authority in extending a deadline for mail-in ballots, so the judge ordered those ballots that arrived after the original deadline set aside.) Today's mob, with Trump's inflammatory word salad still ringing in their ears, decided that when you don't have facts on your side, you can always resort to violence.
Oddly enough, there have been indications for weeks that something like this might happen on this particular day, and Capitol Hill security apparently wasn't beefed up for the day. Also oddly enough, only one invader was shot, a few dozen were arrested, and the tear gas didn't come out for hours -- a far cry from how police treated mostly-peaceful BLM protesters this summer. But then, most of today's crowd were white.
Next to today's incitement to riot and attempted coup, the President's solicitation of voter fraud three days ago by haranguing and threatening the Georgia Secretary of State for an hour on the phone seems almost trivial. (The Secretary of State recorded the call, wasn't planning to release it but did when Trump tweeted his own account of the call. The recording makes quite clear that the President wants the Secretary to "find" just enough votes to make him the winner in Georgia, and threatens the Secretary with criminal charges if he doesn't.) The State Attorney General is considering filing criminal charges against the President for this felony.
One member of the House, at least, has started drawing up articles of impeachment. Unfortunately, it's one of "the Squad", a quartet of relatively-liberal, non-white, young, female House members who have become a favorite rhetorical punching bag of the right wing; I fear that anything associated with her will automatically be opposed. On the other hand, impeachment is certainly warranted: the President has indisputably committed "high Crimes and Misdemeanours", and although it won't get the President out of office any sooner, it enables Congress to bar him from ever holding any office under the U.S. government again, which would keep him from running again in 2024. And a number of Republican Senators, after seeing their own chamber defiled by a Trumpist mob (and in some cases hoping to run for President themselves in 2024), might actually vote to convict this time.
Meanwhile, the American Association of Manufacturers (a group of Fortune-500 executives) has called on V.P. Pence to seriously consider invoking the 25th Amendment to declare the President unfit for office.
In happier news, voters in Georgia yesterday (and over the past few weeks of early voting) flipped both Georgia Senate seats from Republican to Democrat, which makes that chamber split 50/50, with incoming V.P. Harris breaking ties, so Mitch McConnell will no longer be able to stop nominations and bills from even being discussed. Some Republicans are honestly afraid (because Trump told them to be afraid) that with Democrats holding the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate, we're on the fast track to socialism... which is ridiculous, first because there are no real socialists in any of those branches, and second because in a closely-divided house the moderates of the majority party have enormous leverage. For example, as long as Joe Manchin is a marginal Democratic vote, nothing will be passed that hurts the West Virginia coal industry.
Enough of this. It's after 1 AM; I need to go to bed.
