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Notes -
Matt Yglesias made a good point about Trump and authoritarianism:
The article starts with examples of conservatives criticizing Trump in the wake of the 2021 riot and says "...I also respect (or at least understand) the decision of those who’ve decided they care more about other things than about Trump’s low character and basic unfitness for office. But what disturbs me is the extent to which the entire conservative movement has retconned not just the events of four years ago, but their own reactions to those events, such that these days, to be disturbed by them is considered some form of lib hysteria."At what point are Trump's allies tacitly seconding accusations that Trump is an authoritarian and his "movement" a cult of personality, by treating him as though the accusations are true?Edit: I think discussion of whether or not the 2021 riot should be a factor in the 2024 election is missing the point. Substitute whatever criticisms you think are warranted; Yglesias's observation of doublethink isn't dependent on people not making a specific criticism, it's that refusal to criticize someone for their history of at least failing to avoid the appearance of authoritarian or corrupt behavior can be a tacit admission of fear that the person is, in fact, authoritarian or corrupt. The question I asked is the bounds of when we should make that inference.
I saw this MattY thread contemporaneously with him putting it up and I think it is a classic example of left/progressives still not understanding right/conservatives at all.
What MattY and others need to ask is this question: What if people who freaked out about Jan 6 were just...wrong? What if people in Republicans in the orbit of DC that went along with the freakout initially were just swept up in a wave of panic because their neighbors were leftists and probably anxious leftists at that. And I remember Meghan McCain once said about Jan 6 that even going into it she'd never seen the people of DC on such edge. Well what if that was all, when evaluated neutrally, stupid. I think it was. I think most/all of the people who have flipped have flipped in the direction of it being stupid. And people flipping in that direction are correct.
Why?
Well, to start, Jan 6 is initially a political protest of the actions of the government. Held in the capitol city. And it progressed towards the building that houses the members of the government body being protested. In other words, there is no more legitimate time, place, and manner to conduct a protest. They were protesting government actions happening inside a government building in the vicinity of said government building. To think this was an illegitimate protest is to think protest itself is illegitimate, in which case, go join the Moldbug party.
Then what happened? A riot ensued. This happens from time to time with protests. But why did this one become a riot? The answer is simple: Incompetence by government officials. Security was understaffed. They did not establish a proper perimeter. THEY COULDN'T EVEN FIGURE OUT HOW TO CLOSE DOORS AND LOCK THEM. Let us really describe what happened on Jan 6: A cadre of armed men in body armor failed to hold the equivalent of a 16th century fort against unarmed, uncoordinated, mostly old people. They also happened to kill an unarmed woman who was jumping over some hastily assembled chair fort (are the Capitol Police toddlers? why are they making chair forts?).
Further, it has been revealed that intelligence about the size of the crowd was intentionally withheld from the leader of Capital Police. In addition his requests for overtime and other additional staffing requests were refused. In addition his requests for aid by outside agencies both before Jan 6 and on the day of the event were refused and/or delayed by several hours.
On top of that there are the less objective, but still suspicious things like the pipe bombs, Ray Epps, and other things that came out that increasingly made Jan 6 look like it was instigated/manufactured by anti-Republican/Trump elements within the federal government.
What does this boil down to? If you think Jan 6 is/was a big deal you are/were wrong. If you are right of center, there is a good chance you are religious or religious adjacent. If you are religious, what do you do when you were wrong? You repent. Now, Trump is not god, so you need no confess to your priest, but if you are a politician or media personality you need to confess to your constituents/readers. And I even Nancy Pelosi should do this. She should acknowledge how wrong and hysterical she and her movement were. But it is all the more pressing for someone on the right because of the culture and because of the fact they should have known better. The DC culture is almost a perfect reverse weathervane. They knew that and temporarily forgot it.
So this stuff has nothing to do with loyalty to Trump or authoritarianism. It all is about what a proper person does when they realize they were incorrect. Leftists can't see it through this lens because they dont understand the right because they 1) Can't see how Jan 6 isn't what they thought initially; and/or 2) Dont understand what repentance is.
I mostly agree with you that January 6th was not that big of a deal. From the moment it happened, I had the 1954 United States capitol shooting in the back of my mind, which I always felt was pretty justified: Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, the people who make all the big decisions about Puerto Rico are bureaucrats in DC, Puerto Rican nationalists go to the bureaucrats which decide their status and shoot the people responsible for their subjugated status. Notably, Puerto Ricans would not get the chance to vote on their status until 1967, so I think it is fair to say that the Puerto Rican nationalists were using one of the few avenues available to them, since there was no peaceful political process available to them to push for the result they wanted.
While I have pushed back against this elsewhere in the thread, I similarly think that if the January 6th rioters truly believed that the election was stolen, then their actions are somewhat justified. That said, because I don't believe the election was stolen, and don't believe that the evidence was particularly good that the election was stolen, I still think January 6th is a little worrying as an example of what epistemically misguided people can be manipulated into doing.
But I also acknowledge that January 6th posed only the tiniest threat to American stability. Taking over a single building, even if that building is congress, doesn't give you the keys of power, and we have processes in place for replacing congress members who are killed. The most likely scenario if congress members started getting lynched was that the military moves in, takes back the capitol and then after a few special elections we're back to business as usual. No big deal.
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