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Also: What, should the entire apparatus of the civil state stand there, limp dick in hand, watching norm after law after precedent get dynamited?
The apparatus demands lubrication, and the only substance at hand is blood. It is good and necessary that blood should flow to feed the state. That is what the state is, that is what the state is for. The state is the threat of violence perpetrated against all by consent of all for the benefit of all.
There has been a defector; why should the government even exist if it can't punish one idiot failson of a fallen business empire?
One thing they shouldn't do is start throwing more dynamite in the flaming pile.
If you want to preserve institutions, constant escalation is not the way to do it. And that of course goes for both sides.
Not that any of this could have been avoided of course. Power can't abide competition so Trump has to be benign or be destroyed. And he wasn't benign.
On the contrary, that is exactly what they should do. Doubly so considering the top-down nature of the affair. The imperative is to send a message that you can play the game or you can sit out, but you cannot try to flip the table. If you can call for an insurrection and then call a mulligan when it fails, there's no reason not to do so every time you lose.
You are literally arguing for Pompey and Cicero's policy against Caesar.
If trying to contest election results inevitably gets repressed as such, there is no reason not to foment an actual insurrection if you think you might lose.
Trump was free to bring his objections in court (which he did, to universal failure) and his allies in Congress were free to raise objections (which they did, though their colleague found them unpersuasive). He was even free to hold a rally in which he whined about how he'd been cheated.
Any claim to merely "contesting" the election evaporated when he sent a mob to attack Congress. It would be irresponsible to let him go unpunished and irresponsible to let the threat of further treason from his followers be a deterrent.
Woah, when did this happen? I've been a keen observer of politics and kept up to date on the Trump presidency for a long while, but I somehow completely missed the point where he sent a mob to attack Congress. In fact if I look back over the records I can't find any instance where Trump asked people to break in and physically attack Congress - can you please be a bit more specific?
When leftists come into a Congress to protest (happened many times), it's the celebration of democracy. When leftists set cities on fire and destroy property, because they didn't like election results - it's regrettable, but understandable expression of understandable frustration about the democracy being subverted by fascists. When deplorables come into a Congress to protest (happened only once, as I remember?) - it's a fascist treasonous coup, which requires the harshest suppression measures to send them a message. When deplorables set cities on fire and destroy property, because they didn't like election results - well, I don't know, that never actually happened. There never was and never will be any equal treatment in these matters.
Set cities on fire? When deplorables hold burning tiki torches during a protest it's a hate crime.
Last time I remember they didn't even light the tiki torches up, and they weren't even the deplorables but the Trump-haters - and the right still got criticized for that happening.
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