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PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   28750 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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I was curious to read what people were saying as Jan 6th happened, but many comments and threads appear (poorly) removed, with only some contextless responses done as main comments instead of to whatever removed chain they belonged to: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/kq3o1s/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_january_04/

I do like to go back and check my old writing on occasion. Usually I nod along and think "dang I really agree with this guy". Jan 6th is no exception. I didn't write much on the themotte, but I did have a very upvoted comment on theschism (a sister subreddit):

https://old.reddit.com/r/theschism/comments/kocsoj/discussion_thread_12_week_of_1_january_2021/gih02cw/

[Jan 6th happened]

The strong reactions have confused me yet again. I have to wonder if my mind is broken, or if I am just so solidly gray tribe that I can't be bothered to care about these things.

To republicans and democrats I wish I could effectively communicate one thing: This is what protests look like from the other side.

It is scary to see lots of your political opponents gathered in one place and very angry about something you think isn't true. You can feel threatened just by the very existence of such mobs. They aren't accountable in the moment, anything could go wrong and they could hurt some innocent person.

And while they are at it protesting something that isn't real, they are also going to violate some things you hold sacred. Interrupt the national anthem, burn some flags, disrupt a legislative session, harass someone at their home, etc.

If I was stupidly optimistic I would have hoped that this event brought about a lot of mutual understanding. A big collective "ooohhh, that is what you were upset about this summer". Instead it has just deepened the divide.

2021 is off to a great start. Guess its gonna be more of the same.

Looking back three and a half years ago I feel that Jan 6th has not gone away. But the dispersed summer riots that resulted in lots of property damage and a few dozen lost lives have been mostly memory holed.

Perhaps the singular date helped, perhaps it was the national politicians being threatened, perhaps it was the ongoing court cases, perhaps it was the involvement of Trump. Those things all probably helped it stay in the public zeitgeist. But mostly its driven me towards a more conspiratorial mindset about the media landscape. They have kept it in the public mind. They could have chosen to cover all the riots for years on end, they chose not to.

I have a few comments there:

January 7, 2021

So what are some material outcomes of yesterday's event? I'm guessing:

*Patriot Act v2, this time we trade even more of our few civil liberties and become even more China-like in our surveillance state to secure ourselves from, "domestic terrorism"

*A possible crackdown on the 2nd amendment?, It doesn't really matter if guns weren't being used by yesterday's mob, but I feel with this emphasis on keeping weapons away from domestic terrorists will be used to justify all sorts of new restriction on guns

Any other effects you all think are plausible?

It will primary be used as a trump card to dismiss the months of violent leftwing violence across the country.

https://archive.is/owXYG

"I never want to hear how horrible and violent antifa or BLM are ever again"

Also to bolster the narrative that white men are the most dangerous element of society.

I think the comment I was replying to was overly hyperbolic. I have a minor quibble with my first claim, as I think democrats largely don't think much nefarious happened during the BLM riots, so January 6 stands alone as an insurrection and an attack on Our Democracy. No need to use January 6 as a counterweight when there's nothing to counter. I didn't anticipate Trump running for president again so that changed the dynamics around the narrative a bit.

January 8, 2021

I know this has been said over and over again but I'll go on the record.

Libertarian thoughts on "public property" and politicians being HVTs quibbles aside; I am not virulently against the norm of shooting people in these types of situation. I am against what I perceive to be a massive double standard. It's super clear that Kyle Rittenhouse is a mass murder, all these police shootings are racist, lives over property. But shooting a rightwing protester crawling through a window is a good shoot.

Norms need to be consistent or... They aren't norms. Ashli Babbitt saw the left violently rioting, looting, committing arson, and occupying government buildings for months without getting shot.

If we're gonna play the game this way, fine. Just as long as everyone knows that the rules are that it's legitimate to shoot you - even if you're protesting - when you start breaking stuff that's not yours or try to go places you're not supposed to go.

I still stand by this but I also acknowledge (and would have at the time) that normies aren't me and will consider attacks on the "Seat of Our Democracy" to be greater than attack's on private civilian property.

I think that if the roles were reversed and the right was destroying and killing what and who BLM killed and the left did a J6 equivalent... it's fair to say that the roles would also be at least partially reversed in how seriously these things were taken by the respective sides.

I'm honestly not sure how the right would react to a left-wing J6 equivalent, but I think it's pretty obvious how the left would react to a right-wing protest that had a similar level of buildings destroyed, areas occupied, etcetera.

I asked my mom and it wasn't a question she had thought to ask herself. People don't understand that... it doesn't make sense to treat bad things your own side does as justified just because your side is the good guys. Because what if everyone thought that way?

Society depends on a consistent set of rules that both sides of a conflict follow. Otherwise it really will be a world humans can't live in.

Democrats do something very similar to January 6, and I think Republican rhetoric is virtually the same (insurrection, overthrow the government, terrorism, etc.) as what the Democrats have been using. Democrats would probably riot over the death of their version of Ashli Babbitt.

BLM protests are difficult because I have a lot of trouble imagining what similar conservative kinetic actions would look like. Maybe it's a massive blind spot, but I just can't picture a realistic scenario. The closest I can think of are small groups or individuals attacking abortion clinics, which are very much affiliated. Or the Murrah building, but again, that was very specifically targeted.

Now, the next take would be that the protesters did very little rioting, but opportunists were attacking random private businesses. So what does a right-wing protest with violent opportunists look like? Probably the right-wingers would try to actively help the police stop the looting.

The point is not to imagine a realistic similar scenario that could happen. The point is to imagine what a similar scenario would be, realistic or not. If there is no realistic equivalent, that reflects well on the people who would not realistically do the bad thing.

I am very confident that Ashli Babitt (D) is a national martyr if roles are reversed. The endless op-eds about gunning down an unarmed woman for disobeying an instruction would be legion.

I thoroughly enjoyed 1/6 and still to this day felt like it had to happen. The right was boiling after years of covid lies etc. They needed to get a good riot in.

I enjoyed watching all the Dems complain about rioting after they had largely backed the summer of Floyd Riots.

As time goes on I have largely moved into the camp that Trump was directionally correct on it being a stolen election.

I’m still a bit pissed that the CIA (former guys) would straight up lie to the American people about Hunters laptop. Sure those guys were not current CIA but they did use their credentials. I think they all knew the laptop was real. I have a friend who had access to the hard drive so I knew it was real and the CIA guys could have investigated. Lying happens in politics but this always felt to me like crossing a line.

Re the laptop they knew. Everyone who looked into at the time knew. Greenwald discussed how you authenticate and he said it checked out at the time.

But worse we now know as early as 2019 the FBI knew it was real and we know the IC attempted to prebunk Hunter’s laptop with SM. So they knew it was real yet did what they could do pre condition SM to prevent it from being spread when it came out. This is evidence it wasn’t a free and fair election. Add in zuckbucks in Wisconsion were illegal. So the weak form of Trump’s claim is true.

But is it really a stretch that people who would do that, or the people who would engage in the current lawfare wouldn’t maybe fake some votes? We’ve learned things like dominion CEO lying about internet connectivity. We’ve learned the Georgia counts weren’t what they appeared. Is there evidence for the strong claim? No. But is it beyond the imagination it occurred? I don’t think so.

I remember within days of the story coming out there was a guy who published a Github verifying that the DKIM signatures on the emails matched. Which means either they were legit, or were forged by someone who was able to steal Google's signing keys from five years prior, or who had the nigh impossible computing power to crack those keys.

What really sold the “six swing states were stolen” narrative for me was that, except for Michigan which was half a million more for Biden, they all had some dozen thousand more Biden votes. Miniscule.

With a margin that razor thin, finding three or four different illicit ways to tip it in those states, each one more feasible in a different set of swing states, is easily within the grasp of a coordinated effort between intelligence agencies, a handful of nonprofits, and the top ranks of real power.

I think that’s a tougher narrative than you think. You don’t know in advance those states will be that tight. So you run into a where and how many votes question for those states. It’s not worth doing 40k fraud votes if you actually lost by 60k. Hence you actually need to cheat a lot to clear the margin in enough states because you don’t know exactly how many you are going to need.

Well the whole “shut down for a few hours” thing could explain that.

I keep coming to a conclusion that Trump has amazing instincts. There are a bunch of areas where he ended up being correct even if he seemed like a no-nothing type. Chinese tariffs, Iran, monetary policy, immigration, German-Russian relations. I’ve gone from somewhat of a hater to now begging for him to be back. Things just work well with Trump in the White House. I’ll vote for him in 2024 and I’ll vote for him again in 2028. (He will just tell his son to run. He’s never leaving).

zoink 37 points 3 years ago*

I'm highly skeptical that this will lead to an equitable crack down on rioting

Give this man a prognostication medal. I enjoy looking at old threads because it becomes obvious who was trying to get at the truth vs shamelessly manipulate people.

I didnt know there were motte mods telling users "I'd put you in a concentration camp if I could"

Give this man a prognostication medal.

I'm not fishing for compliments what is the evidence you see for this being true? The aggressiveness of the prosecution of January 6th rioters, lack of action against Palestine protestors, or... ?

At the time people excusing 2020 were saying things like "let the justice system work, all those people will face charges!"
And a few years later they were all dropped except for that one guy who got time off his sentence for burning a man alive because "his heart was in the right place." Andy Ngo has been showing all the same individuals are part of the intifadah riots too, so none of them have been incapacitated or even discouraged.

Meanwhile old ladies who were wandering outside the capitol building are in their 4th year of pretrial detention.

You were spot on when everyone was insisting the response would be principled.

He said he wasn't going to ban him because he didn't want be like him and did in fact believe in the free exchange of ideas even when he held "the power". The most charitable interpretation of HlynkaCG's post was that we should tolerate everything except intolerance, and those that would call liberalism and free speech bullshit should perhaps experience what it is like to live in a society without those values, such as China, where they would not be allowed to share such views.

What a grotesque thing to say to someone! I wish I could tell lynka that since I care about Classical Liberalism (or whatever it's called, I'm not attached to that label), it's important to me that I try to persuade people of its utility and morality. And the best way to do that is by being considerate of others, both in terms of not saying cruel things to them and in terms of actually considering what they have to say.

Unless that person says that literally if the roles were reversed they would silence you, or worse. Then it is very charitable to only say they won't ban you and maybe you should think about what it would be like to live in a place that didn't have these classical liberal values.

I'm talking about how lynka said the concentration camp thing.

My reading is "you don't believe in free speech, the Chinese dissident does; if we could swap your places, you each would live under a government that matches your stated preferences."

Yes, so am I. He said Chinese re-education camp in exchange for a chinese dissident. I believe his point is that is maybe /u/2cimarafa wouldn't then end results following /u/2cimarafa's policy of silencing free speech and liberal values.

I think the other person is correct. Free speech is only protected when you feel extremely comfortable you have won. If you have an actual threat of a communists takeover or pick your bad ideology I am 100% game for not allowing free speech.

There are reasons why someone would allow free speech in that scenario. Just like there are reasons why someone might follow the Geneva Convention in a war they might lose, and indeed many people and societies have.

For one thing, it would be foolish to try to persuade people and then prohibit them from trying to persuade you. And persuasion does work. People don't like persuasion because it doesn't fit with their worldview of the other side being Chaotic Evil Orcs, and for other reasons. But really, it does work on enough people that it's always worth it. A lot of people who hate persuasion are just really bad at it because they're too mired in their own ideology and all the nuance in their brain has fled.

Persuasion is too harsh a word. People get in the mindset of trying to trick people with weird arguments, and that never works in the long run. Usually not in the short run either.

I got no problem with persuasion. But if it’s going to lose I would rather pick a different strategy that can win.

If I were a Cuban pre-Castro I would move to a strategy that can win and not a debating society. With perfect foresight I would have chopped off the heads of all the communists before they started winning.

I miss HlynkaCG as a mod actually

I do not miss Hlynka as a mod, but I kind of miss him as a poster. I'm a wannabee tough guy and he's start start to wax Soldier of Fortune and I couldn't wait for a take from that perspective and then it was just meandering and the point was really bad.

By sheer effort of will and an abundance of charity, I can go hours (sometimes even days!) without telling people I'm going to put them into camps. It's encouraging when site moderators are held to the same standards as the users.

You indicate through later context that you're specifically interested in reactions on the Motte, but to take the earlier part of your statement literally, you can't get closer than this:

https://projects.propublica.org/parler-capitol-videos/

Seriously, anyone interested in the topic needs to watch all of this (although it takes hours).

(Parler, a right-wing social media site, got hacked shortly after Jan 6. One of the things done with the data was to filter videos by time and location, and the result is a collection of videos from the event itself. ProPublica has a known but relatively mild left-wing bias, so if - like me - you come out of it thinking "oh, that wasn't so bad, then", it's probably not the result of propaganda.)

(Also I should probably note that yes, I'm aware that anyone present who actually had bad intentions would probably not have been posting videos to a social media site. At least, not if they had half a brain.)

I still stand by the the comments of mine I managed to track down:

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/kq3o1s/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_january_04/gic468m/

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/kq3o1s/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_january_04/gicml9z/

Pretty fascinating reading some of those responses. Didn’t age well for some.

  1. You have the now debunked Sicnick lie reported with zero credulity.

  2. You had people saying J6 were treated with kid gloves compared to BLM. List could go on.

Better link here.

I feel like mild facepalm and 'This is going to blow up way out of proportion' were generally the responses, lots of equivocating to the Floyd riots as well.

I'll have to find it later, but SlightlyLessHairyApe complaining that the police were treating the J6 protesters with "far lighter touch", me posting that they were about to get shot in the face, and then one of the protestors getting shot in the throat, all in less than thirty minutes, rather sticks in the mind.

He argued to me that J6 was obviously worse, because the protesters were much, much more violent, killing five people including a police officer. Within a week or two, we knew that the statistic was completely fake, but by the time it was provable, the social consensus was already set. A fantastic example of how the Press manipulates social consensus, and another example of "no matter how much you hate the media, you don't hate them nearly enough."

Man, it’s great that all these posts from back then are still around. It’s not quite as good as your example, but I’m personally partial to the one that says “Nobody’s getting arrested”. Ages like fine wine, if that wine came out from the udder of a cow.

Also a certain amount of “(I warned you that) / (I never thought that) Reds would eventually manage to do organised meatspace resistance.”

So, by now everyone has heard about Biden's lackluster performance in the debate.

I don't want to talk about Biden. I want to talk about the fact that everybody has heard about it. There has been very little effort to suppress it.

If CNN, the NYT, and Time Magazine, and the rest had all held ranks and denied everything, this would probably have blown over. Most people didn't even watch the debate. Those who did could be persuaded to remember it differently. The general public isn't reacting to the debate, they're reacting to the reaction to the debate. Let's face it, this isn't the first time Biden has had a senior moment in public. This was unusually public and unusually difficult to edit around, but it's just a difference in scope, not a difference in kind. The media could easily have put the spotlight on Trump's deranged rambling about abortion clinics murdering babies, or that time he said that under his Presidency America had all the H2O.

Instead, CNN started openly freaking out the moment the debate was over. Prominent Democrats were apparently sending frantic texts to prominent journalists even before it ended. The NYT is openly speculating about replacing Biden. Time Magazine's new cover shows Biden wandering off the page with the caption: 'panic'. They didn't have to do this.

What I find interesting about this isn't the fact that Biden made his biggest gaffe yet. What I find interesting is that everyone broke ranks at once.

That's not necessarily surprising. Nobody wants to be the last person trying to hold the line after everyone else has run away. Still, it was so fast it almost looked coordinated. Were prominent figures prepared for something like this to happen? Were certain powerful individuals thinking to themselves, 'If Biden really acts his age during the debate, we might get the chance to replace him'? Could this perhaps have been the reason that this debate was scheduled unusually early - scheduled, in fact, before the convention where Biden is expected to be formally nominated by the party? Perhaps to give them a reason to nominate someone else?

Even if it wasn't, I think it's obvious that a lot of people have been thinking about this for a long time. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have all suddenly found themselves on the same page.

In my paranoid mind, if we wanted to believe in a conspiracy line of thinking, I think a theory for the surprisingly unified harsh open acknowledgement of the emperor's clothes would be:

a. In the mainstream media's supreme narcissism and entitlement to (attempt) socially engineer, they believe as a gestalt that only they could save the Republic and the Democratic party system (for most of the MSM it's one and the same) by setting the narrative for the Democrats to force them to swap out Biden. In their mind, because the media can shape the public's mind at whim, they can force people to abandon Biden by smearing him, and thus force a swap. So they got in their backroom group chats and all agreed "this is the talking points memo."

b. The American Deep State is genuinely concerned about Trump. Actual, important people, lives are on the line, because if he gets elected he might start putting allies of theirs in legit jail in vengeance. Perhaps he really is a rogue free agent from the usual bread and circuses show with its vetted actors, and that's always been a concern. Similar to point a, but this presumes most of the MSM basically takes marching orders from entrenched shadow elites from the likes of the CIA or whatever. An order was given out that "Biden really can't be the one to win against Trump. We tried our best with him with this performance and it's still not enough. Force a swap now before it's too late - or we are fucked."

As an addition to b. While I don't fully believe it myself, a predictive test of this theory might be that said elite influencers will go full gun blasts against Trump and do something really nutty. Like actually sentence him to prison this coming July criminal trial sentencing. Again I don't believe this will likely happen, I'm betting on a more level headed slap on the wrist since the real goal was the prestige of calling Trump a convicted criminal, but I want to get it in writing for a still "you heard it hear first" rights - just in case.

Either way it's astounding to me this event is what finally made people acknowledge Biden's obvious mental decline. So much so it's weird and suspicious.

I think if they jail him they turn him into a martyr. Everyone would ask what did he do and what was the evidence. It won’t be east to explain.

Also I heard in NY you can basically appeal a jail sentence to a single appellate judge to put the sentence on hold if the judge thinks it’s likely that you win on appeal. You get to hand pick that judge. Trump has a good shot to win that and will then be able to say “see it was a witch hunt.”

No the only reasonable approach is a fine and probation (which of course also underscores the silliness of the whole thing).

I think people like the NYT have been pretty explicit about what happened: Biden's age was a known issue to voters, the media was happy to simply...give him the benefit of the doubt in a variety of ways with the expectation that he'd clean it up at some point. Enough to get over the finish line.

He utterly failed to do that. So the issue blew up beyond anyone's control.

The media can't actually suppress something like this, it's been consistent in the polling. They can delay. They can trim. They can buy the guy time to study and perform so they don't have to deal with it (which is what happened with the State of the Union). But they can't kill the topic.

Biden shitting the bed not only made it impossible for them to do their jobs, it likely triggered a "we were all rooting for you!" frustration. They did their parts, after all.

If CNN, the NYT, and Time Magazine, and the rest had all held ranks and denied everything, this would probably have blown over. Most people didn't even watch the debate.

Even the maestros can't sweep something like this under the carpet. People saw it, those 30 second clips would've circulated around facebook and twitter, not to mention international news media. They can't exactly say it was Russian misinformation. They've tried to reframe it, 'oh it was a cold' 'oh it was because it was late in the day', 'Trump lied'... That's really only damage control. If they directly lied in such a blatant way it would be a major blow to their credibility.

Effective media work maximizes use of the truth. Take Russia Today: they mostly present true events that show them favourably or advance their favoured narratives: 'we dropped a big bomb on the Ukrainian town of New York' 'we blew up this drone' 'former colonial empires are doing stuff in Africa.'

Still, it was so fast it almost looked coordinated. Were prominent figures prepared for something like this to happen? Were certain powerful individuals thinking to themselves, 'If Biden really acts his age during the debate, we might get the chance to replace him'?

Preference cascades often look like coordinated action.

Preference cascades often look like coordinated action.

Another thing that often looks like coordinated action is coordinated action.

I kinda tend to agree with this. I don’t see how anyone in Biden’s orbit would be unaware of his mental state. And if they really wanted to get people behind getting him out, this seems like the best way to do so while maintaining the idea that they had no idea. And it also gives the public sympathy for Biden in a way that him just deciding to drop out would not. And it does protect the person replacing Biden seem less like someone pushing Biden aside and more like someone coming to the rescue.

The republicans need to hit them and say people knew about Biden for a long time but here we have the democrats again using undemocratic means to get what they want.

That would probably be the best response they could give. But then you’d open yourself up to calling it a conspiracy or kicking Biden while he’s down.

And the response is “of course it was a conspiracy — it wasn’t a super top secret that Biden was mentally deificient. We’ve seen it for years. We take no joy in that but remember who you are dealing with — the Dems were willing to risk the safety of the country for their own silly democratic games.”

This will be less obvious as time goes on so it's important to make explicitly clear: the betting markets didn't have Biden's probability of winning the election drop until after the debate.

I saw some headlines partway through the debate and immediately pulled up Manifold Markets to see if it was really as bad as the headlines made it sound. The red line was indeed spiking upward at that point. So I watched the debate later that evening.

So I guess it depends on which betting markets you were watching. Manifold in particular seemingly moved in realtime.

No? I'm pretty sure it dumped after the, "if... we finally beat Medicare," line.

I read glassnosers comment as meaning "the drop didn't happen before the debate" not the difference between during/after.

I had that idea too, but it didn't seem to make any sense. No one would think the big swing in odds on June 27 occurred before the debate, but it is conceivable that one would think that it happened as a result of the debate reactions, not the debate itself. Indeed, this thread seems to be about the distinction between the debate itself, and the reaction to the debate.

I feel like I've said this before, but it feels like the establishment has just kind of bluntly acknowledged Biden is going to lose and Trump will be presidents #45 and #47. In that context, 'holy shit Biden's too old' is probably just the default response to seeing that debate performance, and these people are both highly conformist and all on groupchats with each other.

What's remarkable in the left wing circles that I frequent is that "70% chance of Trump being President" is not far removed from "government agencies should be able to fine people without trial" and "courts should defer to whatever the appointed heads of federal agencies say".

Is that not just how the federal government operates?

Which one? And not any more.

Not anymore (hypothetically)

What I find interesting is that everyone broke ranks at once.

I don't think it was coordinated. It just seems to be human nature.

These things have happened before. In 1989, the dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu, was giving a public speech. Suddenly a single person started booing. And then another. Within a day, Romania was in revolt and four days later Ceaușescu had been tried and executed.

Tipping points can happen with staggering speed. Biden was the emperor who had no clothes, and suddenly as of Thursday, it's okay to talk about it.

Suddenly a single person started booing. And then another.

From Romanian Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

The population, however, remained indifferent, only the front rows supporting Ceaușescu with chants and applause. His lack of understanding of events and inability to deal with the situation was again highlighted when, in an act of desperation, he offered to increase workers' wages by 200 lei per month and continued to praise the achievements of the "Socialist Revolution ", not realizing that another revolution was unfolding right in front of him.

"For a long time it was not known who "ruined" Ceaușescu's rally on December 21, 1989. Various characters appeared who claimed this credit. Now it is known that this fact is due to some groups of Timișoara residents who moved to Bucharest." [32]

Sudden movements from the periphery of the gathering and the sound of firecrackers turned the demonstration into chaos. Frightened at first, the crowd tried to disperse. Some of the participants in the meeting regrouped near the Intercontinental Hotel and started a protest demonstration that later became a revolution.

Subsequent attempts by the Ceaușescu couple to regain control of the crowd using formulas like "Hello, hello!" or "Stay quietly in your seats!" they remained without effect. The live television broadcast has been interrupted for the moment. A large part of the crowd went to the streets, the party activists, the members of the patriotic guards, the soldiers in civilian clothes, the most loyal people of the dictator remained in the square. After a few minutes, Ceaușescu was able to continue his speech, promising salary increases and pensions, then returned inside the CC building.

People who left the square were panicked, throwing flags and placards with slogans on the ground. Many of them regrouped in the streets adjacent to Palatului Square and began to shout anti-communist and anti-Austrian slogans

In short, it was all very much coordinated by groups of provocateurs setting off explosives with the specific aim of causing chaos and a general sense of uncertainty in the capital. Which should not be surprising, because in reality the revolution was a coup by the Party leadership in order to dispose of him and his family and seize power, with the help of the regular army, using false flag methods, with (at least) the tacit approval of the American and Soviet intelligence services, as his regime was by that time a nuisance for both superpowers and long outlived whatever usefulness it ever had.

In 1989, the dictator of Romania, Nicolae Ceaușescu, was giving a public speech. Suddenly a single person started booing. And then another. Within a day, Romania was in revolt and four days later Ceaușescu had been tried and executed.

The context for that was that the rest of Eastern Europe was already in revolt.

If by 'revolt' you mean objectively peaceful political mass demonstrations, then yes. If we use the word in its normal everyday definition, Romania was the only example of a revolt in Eastern Europe in 1989.

The context for Biden getting shivved is that he was already losing before the debate. If he was polling well the media wouldn’t have broken ranks.

As a factual matter, all Democrats did not break ranks at once. The biggest ones have not broken, such as the head of the DNC, either Congressional main leader, etc. Most people saying things were still doing so anonymously. The fact Democrats did not have a plan B was well-known for months. Personally, I think that both the decision not to explore a plan B was both cynical as well as effective. If the whole thing were really planned, at least one major leader would have said something sooner.

As it currently stands, only a select few people can practically change Biden's mind: Harris (maybe), Jill (most effective), a few inner-circle staffers, and that's it. Maybe a larger revolt in the DNC offices.

Have any Democrats actually broken ranks? The only suggestion I've seen that Biden should step down is from the media and one article that cited three big donors (speaking anonymously). I haven't heard calls for him to drop out from anyone who matters.

A few advisor-types, including a former DNC head, and a handful of newspapers, but leadership ended up circling the wagons.

However, apparently there is still some vocal non-public movement among House Democrats, who are (rightly) worried that this is going to doom down-ballot efforts. A few of them have had "let's have a conversation" type quotes. At this point the biggest question is probably whether or not some House Dems decide to explicitly run on a "limit Trump's power" platform as opposed to a traditional "help me help Biden" platform or prefer it even over the more mild ignore-Biden, local-focus approach.

The interesting thing is that there are people in this very thread who believe that the media will do an about face, fire those responsible, and switch to propping up Biden any day now. It really is two movies, one screen.

I don't know that there's a conspiracy to move the debate earlier. I'm not sure how the sausage is made, but it seems to me that the people setting the date of the debate could probably get Joe to step aside. Instead, some prominent gray eminences (e.g. Obama) continue to support Joe. We may be seeing a kind of power struggle in the party.

This is the first general candidate debate I can ever remember that occured prior to the conventions. This was planned to rally support for removing Biden from the ticket to the rank and file.

The debate was so early because: a) Biden wanted to, related to b) the typical debate committee in charge for years was blown up, leaving both more flexibility and doubt, c) both candidates wrapped up their nominations way earlier than usual, d) mail-in ballots are an ever-growing thing and some states mail them quite early nowadays.

The first reason is the most interesting one, but we still have to take the others into account. This NYT article from May outlines three reasons for part a, Biden's preference. One, Biden was trailing in the polls and wanted to try and change the narrative as soon as possible. Two, they were worried he might have a bad performance and wanted to give him time to recover if so. Three, both Dems and Reps happened to want to make sure RFK Jr was shut out of the debate, and race overall. The earlier the better, for this purpose. This is pretty interesting and speaks to how even the big party leaders in both parties weren't sure if RFK would be a helpful spoiler or not for them.

So yes, it was early, and yes, a bad debate possibility was one of the reasons, but the other reasons are strong enough I could plausibly see the debate being held this early even if that were not a concern.

Limiting the debates to only two, however? That is probably due to Biden's age. Normally the one behind in the polls wants more debates, not less, as a pretty hard rule.

Nate Silver thinks the earliness is also age: give any bad impressions extra time to wear off.

This is pretty interesting and speaks to how even the big party leaders in both parties weren't sure if RFK would be a helpful spoiler or not for them.

Both parties presumably have a shared cartel interest in maintaining a duopoly. They're effective enough in it that people just take it for granted, so it doesn't really come off as a joint mutual operation.

I don't suspect anyone with his own interests has much power left.

I guess he could run as an independent? By my understanding, Biden isn't entitled to the Democratic nomination, so if the party wants him gone, he's gone.

I mean why would Biden agree to debate early if a foreseeable consequence was that he would be couped.

In order to give any bad impressions extra time to wear off.

Biden is an extremely arrogant, compulsive liar. He probably does genuinely think that he is saving democracy, that he is the only person who can beat Trump, that he has some unique geopolitical insight, etc.

Here's a clip from 1988 where Biden is basically just making shit up about his academic credentials and achievements on the fly, as a way to make some guy at a campaign stop look stupid: https://youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho

Here's a list of a bunch of things he plagarized, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/trump-campaign-press-release-copy-that-joe-bidens-long-record-plagiarism

There's also the recent amtrack lie.

He's a narcissist. He thinks he's the smartest guy in the room, thinks he's playing some complex manipulation game, and just makes random shit up all the time. Funnily enough, this is exactly what his compatriots accuse Trump of.

During the 2020 primary season, I was still clinging to my last shreds of belief in the Democratic Party’s ability to steady the ship of state and eject Trump in favor of a staid, professional, competent, technocratic Leader™️. (I was, until her candidacy was unceremoniously double-tapped in the back of the head by shadowy DNC insiders, genuinely feeling the Klomentum.)

So, when Joe Biden was installed as the nominee, I started pointing out to all my liberal friends just how much Biden resembled Trump in several quite unflattering ways. I showed that clip, among others, to people who for some reason had either failed to notice Biden’s tenuous (at times verging on hostile) relationship with the truth, or else misidentified it as the sort of jocular and harmless embellishment you’d expect from Grandpa telling you the fish he reeled in that one time was the size of a Ford Pinto.

No, I said, Joe Biden’s lies are just as often of the maliciously and vindictively self-aggrandizing and ass-covering variety. His ego is, if anything, even more fragile than Trump’s; blame it if you want on his struggles with a stutter growing up, or his insecurity about being a fairly working-class guy forced to deal with effete moneyed DC snobs for fifty years, but the man clearly has a massive chip on his shoulder about his perceived limited intelligence and Springer-esque family scandals, and he’s willing to say anything, no matter how outlandish, to try and pump up his own self-image. Add to that the obvious corruption and influence-peddling his immediate family members are involved in, likely with his direct and explicit involvement, and you’re talking about someone every bit as vulgar and un-Presidential as Trump, albeit with more finely-honed optical instincts and a wider network of enablers/brand managers. He’s Irish Catholic Trump, except rather than slapping his name on chintzy hotels, Biden has just been a stooge for Delaware-based credit card companies for his whole career, with a moonlighting side gig as the central hub of a family grift.

Klobuchar? She would have been awesome. What an alt-reality.

Can you tell me why you think she would've been awesome? This is a genuine question. I definitely preemptively disagree with you, but I'm not going to argue and your posts of the past make me think you're intelligent.

So, again, genuinely want to know.

More comments

If he was incompetent, controlled, deceived, or otherwise making a bad decision.

I agree that there's no good reason, but this theory already requires that he's past his prime.

Thursday's Presidential debate revealed to the world that President Biden is mentally incompetent and that an unelected and unaccountable group of people is running the country, and likely has been running the country for some time. This unavoidable truth has likely doomed Biden's 2024 campaign. However, it has likely also struck a crippling blow against the Democrat Party's primary value proposition: "Democracy."

The Democrat's have made "Democracy" the party's core identity, its primary rhetoric, and indeed, its very reason for being. The Democrats insist that the right to vote for one's representatives is sacrosanct, that voting is "Democracy," that the country is "Democracy," and that the Democrats are "Democracy." Directly or indirectly preventing or diminishing the right to vote for the representative of one's own choosing is, according to the party, fundamentally anti-democratic. Moreover, they loudly and repeatedly insist that a vote for the Republicans is a vote "against Democracy" and will "end Democracy" in the United States. The rhetoric is existential, black and white, and leaves no room for maneuver.

Thursday's debate transformed the party's "Democracy" rhetoric into a mortal wound. If Joe Biden is mentally incompetent, then the only value of his candidacy lies in the proposition that the party will wield Biden's executive power without his knowledge or control. But, according to the Democrats, being forced to vote for an unnamed, unelected cabal of unaccountable lobbyists, bureaucrats, and special interests is no vote at all. Indeed, it is anti-democratic according to the party's own terms.

The Democrat's only argument is that "if we don't run the country anti-democratically, it will be the end of Democracy!" This is rhetorical checkmate. The Republicans and left-leaning, dissident democrats will turn the Democrat Party's super-weapon against them and there will be no escape. By jettisoning every other value but "Democracy" from the party, the Democrats have left themselves nowhere to retreat. The Republicans will use the last decade of the Democrat's own histrionic statements against them, rightly painting them as tyrants perpetrating a coup. Dissident, left-leaning Democrats will do the same, and claim the mantle of genuine "Democracy" for themselves.

Its actually, literally Joever.

The Democrats insist that the right to vote for one's representatives is sacrosanct, that voting is "Democracy," that the country is "Democracy," and that the Democrats are "Democracy."

Rhetorically, this might be true, but if you look at the actual comments on the issues, "democracy" seems to get quickly pushed aside in almost every instance I can think of where a democratic vote doesn't lead to the "correct" outcome. Look at the reaction to California's Proposition 8 in 2008 where the state voted to ban same-sex marriage: did Democrats adhere to the will of the people expressed at the ballot box? Or the reaction to Dobbs, which wasn't rallying the democratically-elected (blue!) majority in Congress to pass an abortion rights bill, but to largely rally around the idea that such rights are absolute and don't even deserve codification by the legislature. Or the entire Russia-gate thing, which seems to have been largely based on the idea that a bunch of questionably-funded internet ads might sway naive voters to the extent that we should question the validity of their counted ballots.

But I think it's really only true rhetorically: in practice it seems to be far more pragmatic questions of what power can let them get away with.

I agree that Biden’s in no shape to be president, but you’re catastrophizing. The “unelected and unaccountable group of people running the country” are the west wing staff, same as always. Staffs are elected and accountable as extensions of their respective candidates. Like in this election it’s looking like voters will boot Biden and his people.

The whole defending democracy meme is both an incredibly potent and incredibly sad choice of strategy for Dems. In this age of partisanship, it was entirely predicable that if the Dems become the party of democracy, people on the other side will reflexively drift toward being explicitly against democracy. I find myself going that direction. If the current establishment is synonymous with our new definition of democracy, well, I’m not for that.

Democracy isn’t fundamental to the USA. “Western Liberal Democracy” is only 30 years old. The postwar system is only 70ish years old. And universal sufferage only 100 years old.

They couldn’t resist using it though. And as I said, it seems potent with a certain type of person. I agree with comments here that say that reelecting Biden despite any handicap is consistent with their definition of democracy. They’ve totally redefined the term to be consistent with rule by the “adults in the room”.

And universal sufferage only 100 years old.

Suffrage without respect to class is significantly older in this country and glimmers of it date back through initial settlement.

I've said multiple times on here and the old site that "democracy" is best understood as rule by the managerial elite - if Trump won with a majority of the popular vote, then got disqualified and replaced with the Clinton caretaker government by the CIA, that would count as a victory for democracy as the term is used.

Exactly the same point I keep making as well.

It's kind of like the difference between equality and equity isn't it. Whereas equality means "equality of opportunity", equity means "equality of outcome".

In the current progressive mindset, democracy doesn't necessarily mean every citizen gets a vote and we determine the winner. It means getting the correct result at the end of the process. Voting for Trump is "undemocratic" and therefore unelected leaders must deny people the ability to vote for him by taking him off the ballot.

To be fair, the only time Trump has accepted the outcome of an election he was involved in was when the election went in his favor. Say what you will about HRC, but she did not contest the outcome of the election for the next four years.

I think keeping Trump of the ballot is bad because one of the advantages of democratic elections is that they are a means of avoiding armed confrontations within a country. The deal with democracy is that everyone gets to vote for their guy, and if your guy did not win this time, the best path forward is to try to convince more people of your point of view next time. If your guy is not on the ballot, you might decide that the best way forward is armed resistance, and get utterly crushed by the federal government.

There are situations where it is a good idea to keep an enemy of democracy off the ballot. Kicking the NSDAP off the ballot in 1933 would have been worth however many shootouts with their Sturmabteilung that would have resulted in, because the Weimar republic was fragile, with a lot of the government apparatus not sold on democracy and very willing to help Hitler along.

But Trump 2024 is not Hitler 1933. If he is elected and has a majority in Congress, he will still not be able to transform the US into a Fuehrerstaat. The SCOTUS may be friendly to him, but they are not his minions. And unlike Weimar, the US is full of bureaucrats who are very invested in the status quo. They might gerrymander a bit here and leak a bit of embarrassing info there for partisan reasons, but they will not dismantle democracy.

Say what you will about HRC, but she did not contest the outcome of the election for the next four years

Well, Hillary never stormed the capitol with her army of fanatical HillDawgs(tm), but she (and the mainstream media) did spend four years strongly implying that Russia had rigged the elections in Trump’s favor. An argument that they kept on using until about a day after Biden’s victory in 2020, after which the argument that any American election had ever been stolen immediately became a laughable conspiracy theory. Twenty years of carping about dimpled chads in Miami Dade county also suddenly went down the memory hole.

Well, Hillary never stormed the capitol with her army of fanatical HillDawgs(tm)

The inauguration riots (DisruptJ20, not HillDawgs) have been memory holed by the media.

To be fair, the only time Trump has accepted the outcome of an election he was involved in was when the election went in his favor.

This is probably excessively pedantic, but despite winning several states, he withdrew from the Reform Party primary for president in 2000 with a fair amount of drama, but not denying the outcome of the elections.

This unavoidable truth has likely doomed Biden's 2024 campaign.

I see people saying this, but I don't see it. I don't get why this really makes much of a difference; many of the scenarios I see circulated and speculated about in many of the other places I frequent are of the sort that won't be affected by this.

However, it has likely also struck a crippling blow against the Democrat Party's primary value proposition: "Democracy."

Except, as I've noted before, many on that side tend to define "Democracy" rather differently than what you imply. The people voting for whatever representative they want — whether approved by elites or not — is "populism," which is the greatest threat to Our Democracy; "Democracy" meaning rule by an intellectual vanguard party of elite technocrats who are the only people with the smarts to enact the Rousseauan "general will," which is what the masses would vote for were they all properly educated and enlightened enough to know what's truly good for them, instead of being loaded down with ignorant bigots and bitter clingers, vulnerable to exploitation by the next Hitlerian populist demagogue.

But, according to the Democrats, being forced to vote for an unnamed, unelected cabal of unaccountable lobbyists, bureaucrats, and special interests is no vote at all.

Do you have a citation for this, because I've only seen the reverse — people on the left arguing that "being forced to vote for an unnamed, unelected cabal of unaccountable lobbyists, bureaucrats, and special interests" is the very definition of Democracy.

The Democrat's only argument is that "if we don't run the country anti-democratically, it will be the end of Democracy!"

Yes, which, via redefinitions of "Democracy" along the lines of places ranging from Germany to Ukraine to China, will work just fine — because "if we don't run the country anti-democratically insulated from people who vote wrong, it will be the end of Democracy rule by those who know best."

(I can't find it via a quick search, but I remember back in 2016 over at the subreddit linking to a professor who argued for stripping the franchise from Trump voters, on the grounds that it's legitimate — the right thing for democracy, even — to remove the vote from those who've demonstrated that they will misuse it by supporting an unacceptable candidate.)

Again, we saw once and for allwhat happens when you let the people vote for whoever they want — instead of from a carefully-curated menu of elite-acceptable figureheads for the "unnamed, unelected cabal of unaccountable lobbyists, bureaucrats, and special interests" — and let said representatives have actual power… in 1930s Germany. "Never again" means never again.

(I can't find it via a quick search, but I remember back in 2016 over at the subreddit linking to a professor who argued for stripping the franchise from Trump voters, on the grounds that it's legitimate — the right thing for democracy, even — to remove the vote from those who've demonstrated that they will misuse it by supporting an unacceptable candidate.)

There are things like that:

https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2024/01/states-are-well-within-their-rights-to-take-trump-off-ballots/

I find it odd how reluctant Democrats are to defend the concept of democracy. Of course they say how important democracy is, but do they ever explain why? Their rhetoric assumes the correctness of democracy, as though it is an end in itself and not simply a means to an end.

Is this cope? Crimestop? Much like other taboo topics, thinking too hard about the issue leads to the possibility that deeply-held convictions could be wrong. You can't build your argument for democracy out of the wisdom of crowds. Half of the population will demonstrably vote for Donald Trump. Either you're wrong about the wisdom of crowds, or you're wrong about Trump. You can make an argument that democracy is good. You can make an argument that Donald Trump is bad. But it is quite hard to make an argument that democracy is good and that Donald Trump is bad at the same time.

It really isn't. Democracy is about letting people have a say. They may be wrong, they may vote for candidates I think are stupid. They may hold ideas I think are harmful. But democracy isn't about making the best decisions. There is no wisdom of crowds in this situation. Thats not why democracy is good.

It's about ensuring everyone has a buy in and a stake in society. Their choices may well be awful. Doesn't matter in the slightest. IQ 90 voters get just as much say as IQ 140 voters. Because they have to live in society too. And giving them a say in how it is run helps societal stability. Whether their choices are good or bad is orthogonal to the value of democracy.

Now I don't think Trump is all that bad really. But even if he were, the fact many people would vote for him doesn't mean democracy is bad. People should be allowed to make bad choices, and those choices should impact the society they live in, if enough people make the same one. If everyone wants to ban cars, we should ban cars, even if objectively it's a stupid idea. We get to decide what is important to us. That is the value of democracy.

It really isn't. Democracy is about letting people have a say. They may be wrong, they may vote for candidates I think are stupid. They may hold ideas I think are harmful. But democracy isn't about making the best decisions. There is no wisdom of crowds in this situation. Thats not why democracy is good.

That's one way of defining democracy. But it's very different from the Rousseauan view (particularly the Jacobin variety), wherein "democracy" becomes about government acting in accord with Rousseau's "General Will" — which is not the same thing as the will of the majority. As you note, the latter can be wrong, while the former is always correct by definition.

Yes but Rousseau seems to be entirely incorrect. His claim basically is that individual men of simplicity will by deliberation in small groups find that the common good will be so obvious that only common sense is required to identify it. Likewise he believes that such simple folk cannot be fooled or confused by stratagems.

Looking around I see that conception to not actually tally with reality. So whether there is such a general will may be irrelevant, even in small groups making the right choices is not clearly obvious. And even if it were it only applies in small groups (groups of peasants making decisions around an oak tree being his rather picturesque vision), given that is not the type of democracy we are operating in even Rousseau wouldn't think it could apply here. The General will is simply not available to us at this scale.

Yes but Rousseau seems to be entirely incorrect.

I agree, but it doesn't stop people from invoking concepts from his work… or, more specifically, Jacobin-derived interpretations thereof.

The General will is simply not available to us at this scale.

Here, the people I've read break from Rousseau, in that it's not the simple peasants who identify the common good. Instead, it is only elite technocratic experts who have the right mix of talent and education to work out the correct choices, and it is by "deliberation in small groups" of these rare people that the General Will can be divined. And thus, "democracy" is when these experts become the intellectual vanguard of the ruling elite, and the greatest threat to "democracy" is the "populist" who would unseat them by appealing to the superstitions and prejudices of the less-enlightened masses.

We're a representative democracy, and the elected officials are to represent the people. Well, to quote from a previous comment of mine:

…consider individuals who need a “representative” to act on their behalf. Children, the senile, the mentally ill, and so on. What makes a parent, a legal guardian, a representative with “power of attorney,” a good representative? Well, one who acts to their own personal benefit, to the expense of the person they’re representing — one who embezzles funds, for example — is definitely a bad one. This is analogous to the “non-democratic elites” outlined above

But consider the opposite end. I’m reminded here of Bill Cosby’s “chocolate cake for breakfast” stand-up routine. If your kids answer the question of what they want for breakfast with chocolate cake, should you give them what they want? If a schizophrenic wants a doctor to open up their skull and remove the CIA mind-control chip beaming thoughts into their head, does a good guardian start looking for a brain surgeon?

No, a good representative acts in the best interest of the person they represent. A good representative respects their clients wishes… so long as it isn’t against their best interests. Here, the analogy to the overly-permissive parent or guardian is the sort of politician people like the essayist denounce as a “populist” (with or without the “authoritarian” modifier), and you or I might call genuinely democratic. Someone who enacts the popular will — which, per Rousseau, is just another “particular will” — instead of the “general will”. (As I once saw it put, the difference is that the “popular will” is the will of The People (plural) while the “general will” is the will of The People (singular).)

Note that there’s not a strict binary. It’s not “let your kids have chocolate cake or ice cream for breakfast” vs. “you dictate entirely what your kids will have for every meal, they get no choice at all.” You can let them pick which breakfast cereal they might want, or between pancakes and waffles, between oatmeal or French toast, and so on. You can give them a constrained choice among a menu of acceptable meal choices. Even an institutionalized schizophrenic, or an elderly person with senile dementia, has rights to some measure of choice around their activities, circumstances, treatment, and so on; but only when it’s not counter to their own best interests.

Hence, a “stage managed” “defensive democracy” with a strictly limited menu of choices for an electorate who, between public choice theory “rational ignorance” and Marxist “false consciousness”, don’t always know what’s in their own best interest, nor which potential representative is most skilled at determining what that societal best interest is.

Generally, it seems to me like many have come to hold two apparently contradictory propositions:

  1. Liberal democracy is the only legitimate form of government. Our governments are democracies, and it is from this that they draw their legitimacy.

  2. The masses are too ignorant, misinformed, bigoted, and superstitious to generally know what's in their own best interest; nor to determine which potential representative would be most skilled at determining what that societal best interest is; and thus the government cannot afford to allow their input much weight on how it governs them.

One way to square these is to simply ditch #1 — this is the Moldbug "formalist" position. Tell people our "Brahmin/Elf" elite caste are legitimate rulers not because of "consent of the governed," but because they're literally the only people with the smarts and know-how to be capable of governing a complex modern society.

Of course, this runs against centuries of deeply-ingrained cultural mythology, particularly in the US. I mean, we're coming up on the 4th of July. Freedom, democracy, the Founding Fathers standing up to King George, et cetera. Many wouldn't take such an ideological u-turn very well (hence Yarvin's cryptographic weapon locks, VR, and so on).

But then, we notice that #1 and #2 are only actually incompatible if we define "democracy" in #1 to mean something that includes "the masses having significant input on how they are governed." And, like Carroll's Humpty-Dumpty noted, definitions are flexible; modern academia has made an artform of playing games with the definitions of words. Thus, one can resolve the paradox by adopting a definition of "democracy" wherein the influence of the electorate plays little role, a “stage managed” “defensive democracy” where the voters are free to choose… among a strictly-limited menu of elite-acceptable choices. And if you look at the methodologies used by many of the "democracy indices" that purport to measure how "democratic" various countries are, you'll see something that puts a lot more weight on 'does it have these various things left-leaning technocrats like?' and less on 'how responsive to the electorate is it?'

In short, we're definitely still a democracy… where "democracy" means whatever our unaccountable elites say it does.

I can see, perhaps, an argument for benefit to social stability by everyone having buy in. "Stupid, terrible things will happen if enough people can be convinced they should happen, and that's the value of democracy," seems like the strongest argument against democracy.

That being said, it seems like the trend line for social stability is pointed in only one direction, so the argument that we should have democracy to keep things stable is looking pretty weak these days as well.

"Stupid, terrible things will happen if enough people can be convinced they should happen, and that's the value of democracy,"

Contrarily of course, "Amazing, great things will happen if enough people can be convinced they should happen" would then be the strongest argument for democracy no?

And whatever the trend line of democracies might be, communism, feudalism and the like appear to be worse. We are not in a vacuum here, some kind of method of governance will be in place.

What's disturbing me is that the conversation around this isn't "is Biden fit to lead" it's "does Biden look presidential enough?" Competence at the top of a ticket should pale in comparison to competence as President. The country should be considering the 25th Amendment, not just the ballot. The punditry seems more concerned with the appearance of the thing than the thing itself, and that thing is that Biden maybe shouldn't continue to serve in the current moment - far less the next four years.

Competence at the top of a ticket should pale in comparison to competence as President.

What constitutes "competence" for a president? How much does he need? How much "competence" does King Charles III need to do his job?

and that thing is that Biden maybe shouldn't continue to serve in the current moment

Why not? He seems to be doing his job quite well — said job being a powerless figurehead while the unelected "deep state" permanent bureaucracy does all the actual governing.

How much "competence" does King Charles III need to do his job?

More than you’d think. We’ve had bad kings before. Bad princes too (looking at you, Harry).

We’ve had bad kings before.

Sure, but how much more power did the monarch wield back then?

I was thinking of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdication_of_Edward_VIII

Who was basically forced to resign (so not much power) but like Harry was incapable of keeping it in his pants when confronted with beautiful American divorcees.

What constitutes "competence" for a president?

Ironically, the ability to convince people that he's in charge even though he is not.

The kayfabe is the thing in itself.

However, it has likely also struck a crippling blow against the Democrat Party's primary value proposition: "Democracy."

I doubt it. The central thrust of the "Donald Trump wants to destroy democracy" critique is that Donald Trump tried to seize power when he lost in 2020, and nothing has changed on that front.

The central thrust of the "Donald Trump wants to destroy democracy" critique is that Donald Trump tried to seize power when he lost in 2020, and nothing has changed on that front.

I mean, Trump hasn't, but the alternative to him at least somewhat has. Trump did lawfare to try to overturn an election. Colorado did lawfare to try to fix an election. So, well, okay, Trump wants to destroy democracy*, but if the alternative to him also wants to destroy democracy*, that's not really much incentive to vote against Trump, is it? It's just, shit, guess democracy's getting destroyed.

*Both Trump and the Democrats legitimately believe their antidemocratic actions are justified attempts to save democracy. They are both wrong. I wouldn't use the phrase "wants to destroy democracy" to describe that state of mind, but I'll echo your word choice for now.

Donald Trump tried to seize power

Can we please stop with this? This type of claim is just absurdly bad faith.

Trump attempted to use some esoteric lawfare to force a debate about the merits of election interference claims.

Until such time as Trump's supporters unstorm the capitol and Trump didn't try to have his VP declare him the winner despite losing, it seems entirely reasonable to say that Trump tried to seize power. "It was to force a debate" is just another flavor of Trumpist cope deploy to reconcile the gap between their self-image as patriotic Americans and the reality that they prioritize loyalty to their wannabe caudillo.

  • -10

Trump did not try to have Pence declare him the winner.

John Eastman may have suggested to Pence that he had the authority to do this (although as far as I can tell this is hearsay), but the plan was to have Pence reject some of the electoral slates, and force a debate within the house over the merits of the fraud claims.

It has been nearly FOUR YEARS since this happened. The evidence for this is well documented, and the plan has internal coherence.

Please just spend a few minutes reading about this and try to read it with the context that the people involved aren’t stupid, and their plan wasn’t lifted from a children’s cartoon.

but the plan was to have Pence reject some of the electoral slates, and force a debate within the house over the merits of the fraud claims.

If the election is thrown into the House because neither side gets a majority in the Electoral College, that is the opposite of "forcing a debate over the merits of the fraud claims". The process for forcing a debate over the fraud claims is an objection to a State certificate under the rules set out in the Electoral Count Act. Such objections were made, in the cases of AZ and PA debated, and rejected in Congress on January 6/7 2021. (It was during the AZ debate that the rioters entered the Capitol building and forced an adjournment.)

The contingent election that Eastman was trying to use isn't a procedure for debating who won the Electoral College vote - it is an alternative procedure specified by the Constitution for use when it is clear that no-one won the Electoral College vote. Consistently with most of Trump's strategy, it isn't an attempt to litigate the counting of the votes cast in November, it is an attempt to throw them all out and decide the election without reference to them. (In this case, a party-line House vote with unequal weighting of votes). In fact, the simple, obvious reading of the Constitution is that it doesn't even allow a debate - the Constitution says that the House should vote "immediately".

What should I read?

He was aiming for more than a debate, I think. He wanted to overturn the election because he thought it was stolen from him. If it was, that is a reasonable position to hold!

But saying he just wanted to force a debate seems to ignore his own words. That's not how Trump operates. He is pretty straightforward on things like this. Thats why he put pressure on Georgia and Pence. To recognize the election was stolen and act accordingly.

Calling him a danger to democracy is hyperbole, but claiming he just wanted to force a debate on the merits, seems plainly wrong. He didn't want a debate, he wanted action.

The difference between “Jack slandered Jill” and “Jack warned the community about Jill” is evidence of Jill’s misdeeds.

The difference between “Don stole the election” and “Don rescued the rigged election” is evidence that the election was rigged.

Claiming the election had been stolen would’ve been reasonable if there’d been compelling evidence for it. Doing so without evidence is the same thing as trying to stealing the election. If Trump had succeeded in overturning the election, it would’ve been stolen. Like if Jack’s convinced everyone that Jill is wicked without evidence, he’s slandered her.

Sure, I don't believe Trump is correct. Which is why I said "if it was".

I'd say the real intent on J6 was to deliberately engineer a constitutional crisis, the Capitol mob was just a convenient, possibly useful tool Trump didn't intend (but also didn't have strong feelings about, thus sitting back and letting it play out until it failed). The original effort, we must recall, was this: pressure directly from Trump and abetted by what courts have determined to be lies, onto Mike Pence, to take what scholars also consider a plainly illegal action, which pressure was cynical and self-serving. For what it's worth, I happen to think that this effort would fail. Most Dems seem to think that the SC would obviously side with Trump, against the law, simply because they were selected by him, but I don't think this would have been the case. However, triggering a constitutional crisis on purpose is, in a word, bad. Especially the reason why. It was not some big important issue worth fighting for... it was just self-interest, pure and unadulterated.

But yes, Democrats making it about "democracy" is also a little bit cynical, and a bit misleading. The core message is actually "We can't trust Trump's morality with power". Said morality might threaten democracy. Probably does. Just not as directly. The other parallel that needs to be mentioning is the view that Republicans have been trying to subvert the actual election mechanics as well, via gerrymandering, VRA-violating discriminatory efforts, and general denialism to question turnout. I think the objective record of Republicans on this front is mixed. I don't think it's an existential-type threat.

Thus, the calculation to call it an attack on democracy itself is a political ploy, and somewhat dangerous. On balance, I'd rate it as less dangerous than election denialism (one of the worst poison pills), but still dangerous in practice to the stated goal of actually preserving democracy. Now, part of this rests on a key assumption: Would the SC actually have sided with Trump? If yes, the concern is at least logical/understandable but you can also see how the seeds of devaluing the system in a misguided attempt to defend it are laid.

Most Dems seem to think that the SC would obviously side with Trump, against the law, simply because they were selected by him, but I don't think this would have been the case.

Indeed, the supreme court chose not to when Trump's favorite state AG sued Pennsylvania over allegations they were certifying a fraudulent election.

The esoteric legal theories were one thing.

The actual evacuation of Congress during the process was another, and you can't possibly call that lawfare.

Notably J6 harmed his esoteric legal theories. Now maybe you think Trump is a dumb dumb. But if his lawfare had any chance of working, J6 riot killed it.