Yeah, ignorance was definitely a part of that, and I think my comment still works if you edit “dumb” into the list of traits. (I’m leaving it as-is.)
And you will note that all your examples are things where someone else did all the leg work. He was there to stand next to the thing and pretend it was his project. (For his presidential campaign, he might have done more of the work, but honestly, I expect his staff did most of the work and his main contribution was being a jackass on stage once he was wheeled into place).
With Manchin, Sinema, and Feinstein all necessary for both the rule change (fillibuster) and legislation (court expansion) what makes you think that Biden is the limiting factor?
Contrary to popular opinion,the President doesn’t have a magical green ring that gives him power limited only by his will.
We managed to remove the old president by having him fly off to play golf, not killing him, and the new president was sworn in without incident. The attempt was made to prevent that from happening, but it went nowhere. Our government wasn’t taken over by hostile forces, there wasn’t a military junta, the person who won the election is now holding office. The only people likely to end up in jail are those whom it can be proved committed crimes. There will be no executions of those who disagree.
There wasn’t even a delay in the schedule.
It wasn’t as calm and orderly as we have had in the past, but in the end it was a peaceful transition.
Two through direct action-one capitol police officer and one insurrectionist, and three others by circumstantial events.
Yes, there was an attempted coup. The thing is, it failed.
It was a transition. I’m not sure how you can ignore the “non-peaceful” part. There was a failed insurrection to go with it.
Had trump succeeded in overturning the votes in a few places, and there was no violent insurrection, would you be talking about a peaceful non-transfer of power?
It was violent resistance to transition of power that failed. We see it, but I don’t understand why other people can’t. Maybe the horror of it is too much for them to accept, so they bury their heads in “nothing happened” and “business as usual”.
An attempted bank robbery, with guns, and henchmen and people killed, and an assault which breached the vault, isn’t non-violent because they didn’t get away with the loot.
Well if the Georgia SoS could defy Trump after an hour-long personal phone call, I don’t see what a letter from Jeffrey Mr Nobody Clark is going to bring to the knife-fight.
Cause if nothing else Barr is actually smart enough to know the writing was on the wall. He was fully on board giving press conferences validating this shit and starting investigations. If he had any scruples or line he wouldn’t cross, it was charging people with no backing and making shit up wholesale. But he was certainly willing to make the threat. Until it was clear it wasn’t working, at which point he resigned in a big ole “salvage my reputation” maneuver.
A guy like Barr intimately understands the likelihood that this shit was gonna lead to charges, and his prime motivation is to not be among those charged.
And if that letter comes with Federal charges? However bullshit? Investigations into personnel and public smears? Public requests by the Commander in Chief for “real Americans” to “resist” the Georgia Governor into an early grave?
When you get right down to it you’re right. The DOJ doesn’t have that authority, no amount of scary lawyer letters with no actual force of law are going to cow a resistant official just because it’s a slightly different lawyer letter. And that was far too late in the game to exert any real pressure via the DOJ. You aren’t going on fishing expeditions to find blackmail material with a week to go. And the threat doesn’t carry any weight if there’s a week to go.
But the attempt is still frightening. It’s still criminal. And like a lot of things over the last 4 years if the people involved hadn’t been a bunch of erratic idiots it could have gone a different way.
This is what I think every time someone suggests that good DOJ attorneys resign in protest. Who will replace them?! There have been some great, honorable resignations (most recently the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia earlier this year). Bureaucracy is easily criticized but showed its value when Trump couldn’t steamroll all of the career employees, or even all of the appointees.
Assuming that The Squad survive the next attempted coup. We know that violence is now a tool in the right’s toolbox. GOP congressmen keep trying to carry guns into the chamber through the metal detectors. Hopefully not, but your country’s scary times might still be in the future.
Not if it delays the process further. Anyone who refuses to hold Trump accountable for a violent attempted coup at the Capitol isn’t going to hold him accountable for an attempted coup at the DoJ either.
