One key takeaway from 1/6 is that a sizable chunk of the mob had no idea that they were doing anything wrong, and are surprised to find themselves in handcuffs after the fact.
At least most historical revolutionaries had the self awareness to understand that trying to overthrow the state is super illegal, and maybe a bit of clandestine-ness is in their own best interest.
I'm not sure self awareness is the best way to put it though if they thought they had the blessing and encouragement of the sitting president. That's what makes this hard to compare to most of the revolutionary uprisings of the past.
We could probably quibble on the precise definition of “revolution”[0], but it sure wouldn’t be the first time one part of a government has riled up a mob to attack another part of the government. The results are usually what you’d enthusiastically call “not a good time”. Seeing the executive attack the legislature with a mob is unusual though, as usually the executive leverages their control of the military in these sorts of self-coups.
0 - While I would argue that installing trump for a second term would constitute a revolution, it’s an interesting question whether or not the rioters saw themselves as revolutionary. Calling 1/6 the new 1776 certainly implies yes, but a lot of them seem to think that they were actually a pro-constitution group there to undo a coup done by “the deep state”. Long story short, it’s complicated.
I mean, even if they had a signed letter from Trump saying "this is bigly good, do this" that doesn't stop it from being super-illegal. He's not a dictator; he can't just give people license to do illegal things. As they should know very well.
well, as president he could always give them a pardon, couldn't he? (actually, I have no idea for what he could give pardons. And he won't be presdient long enough to do it for those people. But still...)
The president can pardon all federal offenses excluding impeachment. Whether or not he can self pardon is an untested question; it’s not exactly clear.
Him pardoning the rioters is a nightmare scenario, both politically and for the long term survival of the republic. But the only real solution for this is impeachment and conviction, as generally the pardon power is not subject to judicial review.
> I mean, even if they had a signed letter from Trump saying “this is bigly good, do this” that doesn’t stop it from being super-illegal.
It can make it impossible to prosecute, because the President is the Chief Executive and ultimately the authority to which all federal law enforcement answers.
(1) Honest, even if mistaken, belief that action is taken in cooperation with the government defeats the mental state requirement for most crimes.
(2) The doctrine of “entrapment by estoppel” bars criminal conviction where a defendant reasonably relied on misrepresentation of law by an official in undertaking action that is prohibited.
(3) The more common doctrine of entrapment bars criminal conviction where a defendant was induced by a government agent to commit a crime and was not otherwise inclined to commit the crime.
I guess that's because the world is not black and white. You see corrupt cops hurt you while the nice mob helps your family.
It's one of the reasons why successful criminals always have a good community outreach program. Once you have the people on your side, it's very hard for the police to do much.
When gangs selling drugs in Colombia originally started, while they were quite violent, they did take care and look after the local community they were based in. And in return, they local community took care of them by alerting them when the military was closing in as an example.
If you're a young kid growing up in that environment, it's easy to see how you'd consider the military as the bad guys since all you see them do is come in and create chaos / hurt people etc. while the local drug dealer on your street is ensuring that you have food to eat.
As a group they more often value personal and property rights above government institutions. A more common view in rural areas where you can be quite far from community/govt. services. After seeing months of property rights violations by large groups of people doing the same/similar in D.C. seems reasonable. It’s simple trespassing on govt. property. If someone does something malicious there should be repercussions for them but nearly everyone just trespassed.
Not being sarcastic, but a lot of them are honest-to-god cultists; their connection with concrete reality is tenuous at best. They think that Q is real, and that Trump had secret information about vague evilness being done by Congress (eating babies or similar) that was going to be revealed when they got into the Capitol. Then they were going to arrest them all and execute them as punishment for their alleged crimes. This is what Q believers call “the storm”.
It’s never possible to point to one or two stories that radicalize people like that; it’s not possible to do it that quickly. It takes a certain prior mental state (having a weak social net seems to make it worse), and continual exposure to increasingly radical stories. Like any cult, the rejection of non-members is heavily pushed, which leaves the victim more dependent on the cult and with fewer anchors to reality.
I think any good book about how cults work would be relevant for these people, given that I believe they’re in a cult. But if you’re looking for something more specific, Bellingcat has a great article[0] on the Ashli Babbitt, the Q supporter shot and killed by Capitol police as she breached the final barrier to where congress members were hiding.
I've heard that too, not that they're a cult so much as a kind of Live-Action Role-Playing that escaped into the real world. I don't know to what extent that's true, but it helps me try to answer one of the questions foremost on my mind, to wit: what the hell did these folks think they were going to do? What was the plan here?
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From the article you posted there's a line that seems particularly telling to me as an older person who does not use a smart phone:
> As Babbitt lay dying on the floor, her fellow members of the crowd pulled out their phones and began to film
Even in this media-saturated era, that seems particularly cold-blooded or rather disassociated. They didn't help, nor leave, they started taking video.
I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game.
The QAnon crowd unquestionably has a lot of members who genuinely believe this stuff. Generally LARPers don’t play act their way into hundreds of federal felonies, nor do LARPers vote along LARP lines.
> I don’t think “LARPers escaped into reality” is a good metaphor, because LARPers know they’re playing a game.
That's all I meant by "escaped into reality". These folks (and it seems like most of them were pretty young) seem more like Pokemon GO players who think Pokemon are real than a out right cult.
This post like this that remind me the people seriously believe there aren’t just the same number of crazies on the right and left. That “your side“ has all of the “reasonable people” and is “morally right”, what an amazing coincidence.
You only want one side to have to “own“ their crazies. That isn’t how it works. Neither side should be thought of or represented by their “crazies”, that isn’t anywhere near good faith.
I mean, currently one 'side' is lead by a guy who's still in complete denial that he lost the election, against all available evidence, so this may not be as 'both-sides'-y as you seem to believe.
Sure. But that’s a pretty weird digression when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol.
When the crazies on the left do something crazy, we can talk about them. But in this context bringing up such a “both sides” argument smacks of whataboutism.
> when we’re talking about one specific group of crazies that just attempted an insurrection and got 5 people killed in the Capitol.
Thats only because you are choosing to talk about that exclusively. You aren’t taking into account the violence and destruction about BLM.
I mean, a known BLM voice/advocate went and murdered 5 cops, and not one bit of that blew back at BLM the Org, because no one forced them to own their crazies. None of the destruction, murder and lawlessness over the summer blew back on BLM, Dems, Antifa.
It’s not whataboutism when it’s similar events. A whataboutism would be if someone said “the left doesn’t need to own their crazies because Obama faced criticism for Benghazi”.
Well, FWIW, I grew up in SF and I'm mostly Left-leaning (although I would have voted for Mitt Romney rather than Biden if that had been an option) and I'll go ahead and "own" our crazies.
I've met a few Left-wing nut jobs here over the years. I once attended a Communist rally by accident (I had a crush on the math teacher's daughter, no one told me the overnight field trip was to a Commie rally until we were already on the freeway.) Even as a kid I could tell that they were just a pathetic "religion"-without-God, I would say the lot of them (American Communists) are card-carrying loonies.
But (and you can see it coming can't you?)
But they never stormed the capitol.
Two questions for you:
1) What were they trying to do? (If they are not weird cultists?)
2) Can you think of a group on the Left like Qanon on the Right?
I'm sincere, I'm not trying to troll you or talk shit. What do you think?
The 9/11 truthers were left wingers. The Bernie Bros seem pretty cult-like. Obama certainly had a bit of a cult-of-personality around him at the beginning of his first term.
The difference is that on the right the inmates are currently running the asylum, and a significant portion of the right wing media / messaging apparatus has been pushing this stuff.
They are in a bubble. Watch interviews where some are convinced Trump win because nobody they knew voted for Biden.
If you’re in this bubble and the President tells you to do something, you figure how can it be wrong. The leader of our country is telling me to do this.
At least most historical revolutionaries had the self awareness to understand that trying to overthrow the state is super illegal, and maybe a bit of clandestine-ness is in their own best interest.