Cont: Trump’s Coup - Part 2

[Susheel]

It's a matter of weekly education for millions of American children. They go to a weekly Sunday or Sabbath Day School where ... this way, they embrace the New Age wisdom that everyone has hir own truth, and it's a prejudice to 'attack' another's 'right' to believe whatever.

Also a good idea to investigate the state of basic secular education and its effects...which O think are far more insidious.

 

[Armitage72]

Also a good idea to investigate the state of basic secular education and its effects...which O think are far more insidious.

Such as when the platform of the Texas Republican Party opposed the teaching of critical thinking in schools because it has the purpose of "challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

 

[wareyin]

It's now being reported that Trump pressured senior Justice officials to declare the 2020 election corrupt: "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen"


Are we allowed to call this a coup yet?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Are we allowed to call this a coup yet?

No I'm sure the Trump Trolls will be along to tell us we're still being dramatic/hyperbolic since that is the only sin they are capable of recognizing.

 

[kookbreaker]

“Not uniquely bad….”

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Even Voltaire (when he wasn't rigging the lottery...) never accounted for Trolls.

Even that saying, which is 100% true, still only applies to people who are honestly wrong and have been honestly duped.

We're going to need a lot of work with the demographic of army of proudly wrong trolls to get even back to that place.

Not sure what you are suggesting. Do those trolled have a different degree of faith from believers in, say, religion? Trolling may start with a simple lie but within 15 seconds (estimate) the rotten meat attracts 40-million flies.

I'll just check that my sig is working. ""Reality is what's left when you cease to believe." Philip K. Dick". Yup.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Do those trolled have a different degree of faith from believers in, say, religion?

No. That's not exactly a good thing.

I don't most all religious people "believe" what they believe in the way they say they do.

Nothing they do in response to what the say they believe actually makes sense even within the context of their own belief 99% of the time.

Only a tiny fraction of religious extremists actually act like a person who honestly believed in what they claim to believe would act.

We're getting pretty esoteric with the language here but it's like what David Wong described growing up. His family would take him to church and he would sit there and hear about any day now the Liberals would round them all up haul them away and how they had to be prepared and everyone would raise their hand and shout "testify" and in the moment they believed but then church would be over and they would all leave and go watch the Bears play football or to a buffet for lunch. I mean in sense they did believe it, but they didn't in anyway act like they believed it.

I think Trumpers are the same way. Regardless of what they say (I've long since just made peace with the fact that stupid people's opinions of their own motivations and opinions are about as trustworthy as to their opinion about any other fact) they believe, most of them don't honestly think Trump won the election. They just believe in what claiming they have the beliefs lets them get away with.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I may be completely off base, but I've long suspected that the reason the US has a particularly large percentage of citizens who are happy to swallow the most blatant and transparent of lies provided they suit their prejudices is the prevalence there of religious belief. A society in which having unevidenced religious beliefs is considered not just acceptable but laudable is surely primed for the spread and acceptance of other unevidenced beliefs. The critical thinking skills which are required to evaluate sources of information and remove the effect of unconscious biases tend to be frowned on rather than taught, because they also undermine faith.

I share this suspicion.

It's a matter of weekly education for millions of American children. They go to a weekly Sunday or Sabbath Day School where they learn how to believe without empirical and rational foundation. ...

As for millions of Americans who aren't edjumacated this way, they embrace the New Age wisdom that everyone has hir own truth, and it's a prejudice to 'attack' another's 'right' to believe whatever.

Also a good idea to investigate the state of basic secular education and its effects...which O think are far more insidious.

Yes this too.

Such as when the platform of the Texas Republican Party opposed the teaching of critical thinking in schools because it has the purpose of "challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

And this.

... I don't most all religious people "believe" what they believe in the way they say they do.

Nothing they do in response to what the say they believe actually makes sense even within the context of their own belief 99% of the time.

Only a tiny fraction of religious extremists actually act like a person who honestly believed in what they claim to believe would act.

This is not off-topic because it's relevant in that it has a major impact on believing in the Dump cult which was required for the idiots to follow the mob into the Capitol at Dump's urging.

No the religious adherents don't all practice what the preachers preach. And many of them hear what they want to hear thus you have things like Prosperity Christianity (or whatever it's called) and all the usual hypocrisy such as following the False Profit: Dump.

Regardless of the proportion of true believers to those who don't really buy it all despite considering themselves believers, the true believers have been sticking their noses into politics since Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms. And in doing so they courted the believers' votes.

And there are definitely people taking advantage of the lack of critical thinking skills including Dump, GOP legislators, the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. Courting those believers' votes led to the GOP catering to non-critical thinkers, which led to the TEA Party which finally led to the Dump cult. And that hopefully is where it will finally stop though that is still a long way off.


But I think the pressure on education curricula to not teach anything that contradicts people's beliefs (from the Christian religious tenets to racists which we still have plenty of here), that has influenced what the kids are learning (or rather not learning) in public schools. You can't teach critical thinking because that pops the other bubbles.

And TX has way too much influence because they are the biggest school text book purchaser and publishers cater to them meaning the rest of the states are stuck with the TX version of the books. Publishers want to sell the same texts to all public schools.

Any attempt to teach critical thinking skills goes nowhere because that is key to not rocking the religious and racist boats. Sigh, remember the good old JREF days?

 

[dudalb]

No. That's not exactly a good thing.

I don't most all religious people "believe" what they believe in the way they say they do.

Nothing they do in response to what the say they believe actually makes sense even within the context of their own belief 99% of the time.

Only a tiny fraction of religious extremists actually act like a person who honestly believed in what they claim to believe would act.

We're getting pretty esoteric with the language here but it's like what David Wong described growing up. His family would take him to church and he would sit there and hear about any day now the Liberals would round them all up haul them away and how they had to be prepared and everyone would raise their hand and shout "testify" and in the moment they believed but then church would be over and they would all leave and go watch the Bears play football or to a buffet for lunch. I mean in sense they did believe it, but they didn't in anyway act like they believed it.

I think Trumpers are the same way. Regardless of what they say (I've long since just made peace with the fact that stupid people's opinions of their own motivations and opinions are about as trustworthy as to their opinion about any other fact) they believe, most of them don't honestly think Trump won the election. They just believe in what claiming they have the beliefs lets them get away with.

I think the real problem with religion in the US is the prevelance of Fundy Christinity ins so much of the country.
If a majority of Americans were Episcopalians or Catholics we would not be having this problem.

 

[Jim_MDP]

Exactly. Just look at Laura Ingraham claiming those officers that testified were acting.

Can't watch her, but that's disgusting.
One might say... deplorable. [emoji3525]

 

[Jim_MDP]

Deplorable.

Crap... ninja'd on the obvious.
Who'd a thunk it? [emoji2]

 

[jimbob]

And the thing is that I think Fast Eddie B, mgidm86, and dudalb, for example would probably generally be happier considering themselves as conservatives rather than liberals.

But also with honesty and honour. So utterly repulsed by the current GOP.

Apologies if I've mischaracterised any of your views.

 

[Craig4]

It's now being reported that Trump pressured senior Justice officials to declare the 2020 election corrupt: "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen"


Are we allowed to call this a coup yet?

Sure. Just because the coup plotters sucked at it, doesn't mean it wasn't a coup.

 

[Stacyhs]

Sure. Just because the coup plotters sucked at it, doesn't mean it wasn't a coup.

Try telling that to some people around here.

 

[Thermal]

Try telling that to some people around here.

You still have a long way to go in demonstrating a plot, as in a concerted effort to achieve a goal. The dingbats had not the most remote idea what they were doing. No collective and specific goal, objective, etc. They came to scream and disrupt and generally be ass holes. They built prop gallows, set it up, and calmly broke it down for the casual ride home for dinner, just like a Halloween parade. They his caches of guns and other violent equipment, and also left them in the trucks for the aforementioned casual ride home.

What they did was felonious and profoundly unAmerican. It just wasn't an attempt to overthrow government. It was a very successful attempt to be violent jerks with no clear purpose, individually or collectively.

 

[Stacyhs]

You still have a long way to go in demonstrating a plot, as in a concerted effort to achieve a goal. The dingbats had not the most remote idea what they were doing. No collective and specific goal, objective, etc. They came to scream and disrupt and generally be ass holes. They built prop gallows, set it up, and calmly broke it down for the casual ride home for dinner, just like a Halloween parade. They his caches of guns and other violent equipment, and also left them in the trucks for the aforementioned casual ride home.

What they did was felonious and profoundly unAmerican. It just wasn't an attempt to overthrow government. It was a very successful attempt to be violent jerks with no clear purpose, individually or collectively.

Nope. Several have been charged with conspiracy to stop the certification of the election. The goal of that was to prevent Biden from becoming POTUS and to reinstate Trump as POTUS. That is a coup. You can nit pick all you want but that was what that they wanted to happen.

Coup: a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.

By attempting to stop the certification, they were attempting to seize power from Congress.

On May 26, 2021, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., handed up a superseding indictment in case number 21-CR-00028, charging Jessica Watkins, Donovan Crowl, Thomas Caldwell, Sandra Parker, Bennie Parker, Graydon Young, Laura Steele, Kelly Meggs, Connie Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Roberto Minuta, Joshua James, Jonathan Walden, Joseph Hackett, Jason Dolan, and William Isaacs on counts of Conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §
371;

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/case-multi-defendant/file/1408901/download

There was an organized conspiracy carried out by a group of Oath Keepers:

As federal prosecutors appear to continue to home in on Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes for his potential role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, court documents describe further communications between Rhodes and members of the militia group during and after the attack, including an alleged message from Rhodes that suggests he was expecting President Donald Trump to take action during the attack.

Federal prosecutors alleged in the latest filing that Rhodes, identified as "Person One" -- which previous filings in the investigation have described as the Oath Keepers' leader and founder -- had a brief phone call with another Oath Keeper as that person positioned themselves among a group of rioters working to force open the east entrance to the Capitol just minutes before breaching the building.

According to prosecutors, Rhodes, referred to not by name but as "Person One," exchanged a 97-second phone call at around 2:32 p.m. with Florida Oath Keepers leader Kelly Meggs, who's been charged in the Capitol riot conspiracy case, as Meggs and other members of a tactical "stack," dressed in militia gear, pushed through crowds to enter the Capitol.

Minutes later the stack of Oath Keepers forcibly entered the Capitol, according to the court filing.

Other new messages included in the court filing show Rhodes at 5:50 p.m. asking leaders to "check to be sure you have all your team members. If anyone is missing, post here," and later in the evening sending a long message that served as a rallying cry, comparing the events of Jan. 6 to the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

"We have one FINAL chance to get Trump to do his job and his duty," Rhodes wrote according to prosecutors. "Patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what's coming if Trump doesn't take decisive action right now."

Rhodes went on to say that it was most important for Trump to see the Capitol riot, adding, "I hope he got the message."

The following morning, on Jan. 7, Oath Keeper Joshua James allegedly messaged the group: "Trump conceded...its over. We lose."

 

[CapelDodger]

It's now being reported that Trump pressured senior Justice officials to declare the 2020 election corrupt: "Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen"


Are we allowed to call this a coup yet?

You've always been allowed to call it a coup. Had it succeeded you wouldn't be.

 

[mgidm86]

And the thing is that I think Fast Eddie B, mgidm86, and dudalb, for example would probably generally be happier considering themselves as conservatives rather than liberals.

But also with honesty and honour. So utterly repulsed by the current GOP.

Apologies if I've mischaracterised any of your views.

Not me, no apology necessary. I am 100% repulsed by Republicans, and in a large part, conservatives in general including those in my family, two of which aren't speaking much to me currently.

I'm not religious, I am pro women's right to choose, don't like guns, hate the south , hate the rebel flag, shake my head at the Trumpers who fly our flag, am for free health care (to a point), think voting should be easy....and see racism as a giant problem.

I have completely abandoned them, however I don't consider myself liberal. Really not sure right now, I'm still transitioning haha. I wrote a huge post about my epiphany back around January.

My posts from 2 years ago are completely different and I cringe to think about some of them.

I never considered myself conservative, though I may have claimed it in the past. I just hated the libs because I believed the BS from the right.

And that is how a LOT of conservatives feel. When I ask them about Trump it is ALWAYS without fail, "well look at Biden, he's worse because________" It's never about Trump. Not in my experience. They have no argument for him.

I don't care if people call me left, right...it's narrow thinking. I'm an issues person (especially now), and the conservatives fall on the wrong side of a whole lot of them. Most of them maybe.

I don't like a lot of the politics of my own state, which is liberal. I wouldn't if it were conservative either, pretty sure of that.

I have no party to embrace and no side, but the Dems are the only thing saving us from chaos. I'm not sure they can do it.

I think I woke up in a Twilight Zone episode, the stupidity of Republicans is something out of Alice In Wonderland. I'm just kinda freakin' out, and that's not hyperbole. I'm having trouble dealing with some of it.

 

[CapelDodger]

Not me, no apology necessary. I am 100% repulsed by Republicans, and in a large part, conservatives in general including those in my family, two of which aren't speaking much to me currently.

I'm not religious, I am pro women's right to choose, don't like guns, hate the south , hate the rebel flag, shake my head at the Trumpers who fly our flag, am for free health care (to a point), think voting should be easy....and see racism as a giant problem.

I have completely abandoned them, however I don't consider myself liberal.

I'm sure you are, just not in the peculiar US sense of the word (I speak as a Brit). "Liberal" stands in opposition to "authoritarian", and I doubt you're the latter. "Conservative" stands in opposition to "radical", and you may well be the former.



I'm no great fan of radicalism myself, but I won't deny circumstances sometimes demand it.

 

[Stacyhs]

Not me, no apology necessary. I am 100% repulsed by Republicans, and in a large part, conservatives in general including those in my family, two of which aren't speaking much to me currently.

I'm not religious, I am pro women's right to choose, don't like guns, hate the south , hate the rebel flag, shake my head at the Trumpers who fly our flag, am for free health care (to a point), think voting should be easy....and see racism as a giant problem. I have completely abandoned them, however I don't consider myself liberal. Really not sure right now, I'm still transitioning haha. I wrote a huge post about my epiphany back around January.

My posts from 2 years ago are completely different and I cringe to think about some of them.

I never considered myself conservative, though I may have claimed it in the past. I just hated the libs because I believed the BS from the right.

And that is how a LOT of conservatives feel. When I ask them about Trump it is ALWAYS without fail, "well look at Biden, he's worse because________" It's never about Trump. Not in my experience. They have no argument for him.

I don't care if people call me left, right...it's narrow thinking. I'm an issues person (especially now), and the conservatives fall on the wrong side of a whole lot of them. Most of them maybe.

I don't like a lot of the politics of my own state, which is liberal. I wouldn't if it were conservative either, pretty sure of that.

I have no party to embrace and no side, but the Dems are the only thing saving us from chaos. I'm not sure they can do it.

I think I woke up in a Twilight Zone episode, the stupidity of Republicans is something out of Alice In Wonderland. I'm just kinda freakin' out, and that's not hyperbole. I'm having trouble dealing with some of it.

Sounds to me like your more of a slightly left of center Dem.