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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   28988 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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I'm reminded of my favorite counter-factual: suppose that the BLM-adjacent riot at the White House that one night in summer (which resulted in dozens of injuries to the Secret Service) had succeeded in breaking down the doors. Would that have been an insurrection? I feel like the current battle lines would, for the most part, swap entirely.

I'm not sure what definition the authors are using for "insurrection" (once again, it would be great if we could read the actual damn paper), but I believe the modern one is "a violent uprising by a group or movement acting for the specific purpose of overthrowing the constituted government and seizing its powers". So just forcing your way into the White House doesn't count. If they did it with the aim of killing the President or otherwise installing someone else in his position though, it would.

If i recall, that was the night after protesters had shown up with a guillotine for their demonstration. So depending on how seriously you want to take that or other generic "Trump must go" rhetoric... note: I don't think tbey were serious, personally, but I also don't think either that or Jan 6 rose to the level of "insurrection ". But if people are going to use the symbolic gallows that the Jan 6 protestors had as evidence, it only seems fair to take into account the symbolic guillotine.

They have a (mostly) weaker definition for insurrection than rebellion. Now that the pdf works again, I can provide their tentative ones.

They give as their working definitions: "Insurrection is best understood as concerted forcible resistance to the authority of the government to execute the laws in at least some significant respect." "Rebellion implies an effort to overturn or replace lawful government authority by unlawful means."

Oh neat so the republicans can call the entire summer of love an insurrection and we can shoot everyone running for office.

Yep. Biden supported it. I guess Baude is claiming Biden cannot run for office?

Also how the fuck could he claim Trump did this? At no point did Trump ever lead any violent uprising. Pretty much everyone agrees what Trump did did not reach the level of incitement. Yet Baude thinks this…reached the non-incitement reached the level of insurrection? Crazy pills.

While Baude absolutely does claim that Trump meets the standard of "insurrection" as understood at the time of the passage of the 14th amendment, I'l note that even if you don't agree with him, disqualification may still apply under section 3 to those who took no active part in insurrection. It is enough if you merely give "aid or comfort" to an insurrection.

Which again proves too much. What aid or comfort did Trump give them? How was that different compared to the aid or comfort given the BLM rioters (Kamala raised legal funds for them). If Baude is right, there are many people in Congress right now who have no right to be there.

Of course, since we know this will only be used against Trump and his supporters (much like the Jack Smith legal theory) the right response is to say (correctly) this novel legal theory is bullshit and the people who propagate it (eg Baude) should never be taken seriously again.

I am still continually surprised by people who find obscure penumbras or clauses and think that THIS is going to be the magic bullet that makes Trump go away. They don't pay attention to any of the serious problems or issues that allowed a figure like him to gain popularity, the sheer size of his base and the emotional energy behind it... I don't like to call it magical thinking because magical thinking is a fair bit more rigorous. The idea that some novel legal theory or understanding will allow them to just neatly bypass Trump without doing anything to address the substantive issues behind his rise or support is substantially less connected to reality than theories about sidereal astrology.

The claim is any court can simply do as the DC Courts have been doing with the January 6 defendants and the New Mexico courts with the case mentioned earlier, and accept the media consensus that January 6 was indeed an insurrection led by Trump, and declare Trump is disqualified on those grounds. No substantive determination need be made because the provision is "self-executing". This may fly for New Mexico politicians no one likes and the QAnon shaman, but when it involves a major candidate for the US Presidency you're not going to be able to depend on friendly courts accepting this stuff, and all you'll get is an acerbic (and probably per curiam, which for the Supreme Court does not necessarily mean unanimous) rejection from the Supreme Court.

Perhaps. For some reason I doubt the media would buy a Trumpian argument that his own secret service's incompetence means we should jail Nancy Pelosi. I'll note that more police and secret service were injured on that day than were injured on J6 (both being far too trivial to be considered a serious coup attempt).

Was wondering where you got the numbers to show the white house attack injured more than the capitol riot. A quick google says 60+ at white house and 100+ at capitol.

Police injuries? The numbers I saw were like 4 and 10.

Yes. It is weird in that the WH attack was objectively more violent yet it isn’t often mentioned.

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