All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[DrNewGod]

I was kind of wondering where fascism would go to fester since the Parler purge.

[Amadeus Arkham]

[Agent Z]

A Republican AG Once Ruled It Was 'Reasonable' for Officer to Kill a Black Man Amid Chaos. His Group Helped Organize the Coup Klutz Klan Attack

On November 22, 2018, Hoover, Ala. Police Officer David Alexander shot and killed 21-year-old Emantic Bradford in the back. According to surveillance video, Bradford, a veteran and legal gun owner, pulled out his gun during the ensuing chaos after a suspect opened fire at a Hoover mall on Thanksgiving Day 2018.

Police initially blamed the mall shooting on Bradford. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall later removed the county’s first Black district attorney from the case because of a photo taken with an activist who protested the shooting. After a brief investigation, Marshall ruled that Officer Alexander “reasonably exercised his official powers,” concluding that the actions of police were “justified and not criminal.”

“Officer 1 identified E.J. Bradford as an immediate deadly threat to innocent civilians and thus shot Bradford to eliminate the threat,” Marshall said, adding: “Officer 1 reasonably determined that E.J. Bradford’s demeanor— i.e. sprinting toward the initial shooting site and its victim, while everyone else ran away—made him an immediate threat, rather than an innocent bystander.”

That same “law and order” Republican is in charge of the organization that helped organize, plan and promote the Coup Klutz Klan insurrection.

Marshall chairs the Rule of Law Defense Fund, the policy and fundraising arm of the Republican Attorney General Association, an organization composed of GOP attorneys general whose goal is to get GOP candidates elected to their states’ highest law enforcement position. In charge of enforcing the law. RAGA members famously joined a lawsuit to void the election results from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia that was smacked down like a negro at a protest by the Supreme Court.

Shortly after the Battle of Bunker Hillbillies, Marshall and other RAGA leaders said their group had no involvement whatsoever in the Charge of the White Brigade’s attempted government overthrow. But a new report by Documented, a project investigating corporate influence in public policy, seems to contradict RAGA’s statement, revealing that the fundraising arm Marshall chairs “helped organize the protest preceding the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol that took place on January 6, 2021.”

https://www.theroot.com/a-republican...ice-1846035856

[VideoGamesandMetalGuy]

Scary to think that if Trump wasn't such an incompetent narcissist, he likely would have won. All he had to do when COVID hit was say "We are going to listen to the doctors, we have the best doctors in the world, MY DOCTORS are the best" and he would probably sailed to reelection.

[Amadeus Arkham]

“McConnell is furious at Trump for his total lack of remorse for the Capitol siege, and believes that Trump could only be an impediment to Republicans regaining the Senate majority that they lost on the president's watch.”

Meanwhile Sean Hannity is saying that he reached out to McConnell team, and according to him McConnell denies the New York Times reporting on him hating the president and being in favor of impeachment. Maybe Hannity is right and McConnell doesn’t hate the president even after he put his life in danger.

Psych!

[The Cool Thatguy]

Scary to think that if Trump wasn't such an incompetent narcissist, he likely would have won. All he had to do when COVID hit was say "We are going to listen to the doctors, we have the best doctors in the world, MY DOCTORS are the best" and he would probably sailed to reelection.

If he listened to his intelligence experts, he might have been able to contain it to China. They knew something was up in November. We coulda pressured China to take a more serious stance and avert this whole thing.

But then if Trump weren't an idiot, he wouldn't be trump

[babyblob]

If he listened to his intelligence experts, he might have been able to contain it to China. They knew something was up in November. We coulda pressured China to take a more serious stance and avert this whole thing.

But then if Trump weren't an idiot, he wouldn't be trump

Trump or anyone else in the world pressuring China would not have made a difference. China was denying there was a problem to their own people. They were not going to all the sudden change course and lose face because America wants them to clamp down.

[Kirby101]

Scary to think that if Trump wasn't such an incompetent narcissist, he likely would have won. All he had to do when COVID hit was say "We are going to listen to the doctors, we have the best doctors in the world, MY DOCTORS are the best" and he would probably sailed to reelection.

But it's the scorpion and the frog, it's just his nature.

[Kirby101]

If he listened to his intelligence experts, he might have been able to contain it to China. They knew something was up in November. We coulda pressured China to take a more serious stance and avert this whole thing.

But then if Trump weren't an idiot, he wouldn't be trump

The virus that hit the East Coast was from Europe. What he could have done to stop the virus is a hard question, since there wasn't the data available. What he did once the virus was here was criminal. It is the most incompetent, negligent, contrarian response to a national emergency in the country's history.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Scary to think that if Trump wasn't such an incompetent narcissist, he likely would have won. All he had to do when COVID hit was say "We are going to listen to the doctors, we have the best doctors in the world, MY DOCTORS are the best" and he would probably sailed to reelection.

Mary Trump's book explains that it was never in the cards for Trump to be that rational. (Seriously, that book is up there with the World War 2 OSS profile on Hitler)

Trump's entire worldview rests on dominance and show, for him to come out on top against COVID-19, he'd need a little restraint, patience and admit that there's stuff that's not entirely about him. COVID-19 is the most powerful force in the world right now, not the POTUS, Donald Trump. And Trump can't accept that, "not even in the face of Armageddon".

That said even without COVID-19, America was due for a recession. That recession would likely not have been as severe as the one that happened but it was coming, so it's not a guarantee that Trump would have won without Covid.Anyway, the point is that it's very easy to draw a morality play about the Election, even an Election we won and draw a series of conclusions that are basically fodder for what you think. Some will say that it proves progressive candidates have no future on national level. Others say that people voted against Trump and not for Biden. Others say it's the virus stupid. But the ground reality doesn't entirely favor one argument or narrative over another. You can say it's a combination of stuff or not.

Regardless of the virus, the Republican voter base remained loyal to their toxic priorities and didn't defect to any appreciable amount in favor of Biden. Obama's Presidency in 2008-2012, that relied on Republican defectees who didn't like W. and neoconservatism. Traditional swing states like Ohio and Florida remained Republican.

What defined the election was historical turnout from both parties, which was a result of the pandemic. Pandemic working hours meant more people in person could go out and vote on election day without fear of losing work. That helped the conservative red wave. Pandemic voting by mail increased Democratic turnout.

What won the election in 2020 was the Democrat voter turnout and not Republicans leaving the party.

[Amadeus Arkham]

lol.

[Agent Z]

Ali Alexander says 3 GOP lawmakers helped ‘Stop the Steal’ protest that turned into Capitol riot

“Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander says three Republican lawmakers helped him put together the protest in Washington, D.C., that turned into a Capitol riot.

The Washington Post reports Alexander, a right-wing activist that has repeated President Donald Trump’s baseless claims of widespread election fraud, said in a since-deleted video on Periscope that Reps. Andy Biggs of Arizona, Mo Brooks of Alabama, and Paul A. Gosar of Arizona helped organize the Jan. 6 event during Congress’ vote to certify the Electoral College votes in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.

“We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting,” Alexander said, adding that they planned to “change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”

The roar turned into a riot as pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, leaving five people dead and forcing members of Congress to take refuge during the chaos.

Brooks denied knowing Alexander in a statement to the Washington Post, and refused to accept responsibility. Biggs and Gosar did not comment, but social media evidence and videos online suggest all three have links to Alexander: Gosar called Alexander a “true patriot” on Twitter and Trump retweeted a video by Alexander on Dec. 26 that included a message from Biggs referencing Brooks.

https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/202...itol-riot.html

[JackDaw]

What won the election in 2020 was the Democrat voter turnout and not Republicans leaving the party.

I agree with all the points you made about the ground reality not favouring one narrative or another...

So how can you say with total confidence that some Republican defection wasn’t a significant factor in the final result?

Certainly on UK radio interviews before and after the vote, some habitual Republican voters said they were going to/ did vote for Joe.

In general, since no one is allowed to follow us into the ballot booth and check how we vote, always surprised at subsequent confident claims about what sort of people voted which way.

[The Cool Thatguy]

The virus that hit the East Coast was from Europe. What he could have done to stop the virus is a hard question, since there wasn't the data available. What he did once the virus was here was criminal. It is the most incompetent, negligent, contrarian response to a national emergency in the country's history.

I understand that, but the problem developed in China first, and the signs were obvious. A smarter president would have offered pressure and help, which would have better contained the situation, IMO.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I agree with all the points you made about the ground reality not favouring one narrative or another...

So how can you say with total confidence that some Republican defection wasn’t a significant factor in the final result?

Certainly on UK radio interviews before and after the vote, some habitual Republican voters said they were going to/ did vote for Joe.

In general, since no one is allowed to follow us into the ballot booth and check how we vote, always surprised at subsequent confident claims about what sort of people voted which way.

There's always some defections between parties each election and so on. That's nothing new. The question is if it was significant. The answer, based on empirical data, is that it's not very decisive a factor.

https://www.thewrap.com/lincoln-proj...sa-experiment/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...oting-in-2020/

Now of course you can argue "every vote counts" and every voting decision matters, and that's true. If we were take that as true however, we need to give up punditry and politicking or speculating about elections and forming grand narratives...which I'm okay with to be honest.

But even then, I just don't see why we need to credit or center Republicans as the protagonists of reality.

Just because Arizona was a red state which turned blue in 2020 doesn't mean that it happened because the McCains pledged fealty to Biden as if this was some Game of Thrones feudal house treaty and not y'know...a democratic election where the people of Arizona make a choice for their future.