Trump supporters are storming Capitol Hill, breaking windows and gaining entrance to the building. The National Guard and State Police are using tear gas and flash bombs to disperse the crowd. The Insurrection Act has been referenced. A woman has been shot, and someone is inciting violence. This is absolutely horrendous. How could things get this bad?

Been trying to avoid the news lately to be honest. What is happening in Washington is mostly peaceful.

The majority of people were peaceful. The majority of people during the summer riots were as well. But occupying federal buildings, destroying property, flashing weapons, shouting violent things is not peaceful. Everybody who entered the building did so with some violent pretense. I have no issue with people who stayed on the doorsteps.

Also, you cannot compare the reaction of Capitol police to city street police. The latter are always going to be more aggressive. Had DC police been stationed at the scene, I think more of the mob would have suffered injuries.

Trump basically gift wrapped an exit for any sane Republican who was still backing him. Storming the Capitol Building to purposefully (with terror) interrupt and disrupt an active session of Congress isn't going to go well with most politicians. Too close to home.

And the best person to blame is Trump himself because, well, he legitimately is principally responsible and he's on the way out. It's pathetic that this is the moment that people like Lindsey Graham wait for to have a moment of self-righteousness, but it is what it is. Without such a clearly defining moment people like him would have struggled to separate themselves from the legacy of conspiracies and distrust of all election officials.

Anecdotally I've spoken with several staunch Republicans and followers of Trump who also have taken this moment to discredit Trump. When they saw that Pence himself (and Fox News) finally said in no uncertain terms that he cannot overthrow the election, their view of Trump was shattered. He lied about Pence being able to do that; what else is he lying about? I cannot say that those isolated experiences are indicative of a widespread anti-Trump movement within the party, but it shows that at least some people would have listened had other respected leaders clearly called Trump out on his BS over his entire presidency.

His proof was conspiracy Twitter comments that surfaced up to him that he then broadcasted back down to his fans.

If I had a big audience, I could get 1,000 signed affidavits overnight of people who swear they saw alien UFOs. Doesn't mean anything. And that's basically all they have: a bunch of mostly untrained civilians who think they saw something untoward upon being told in unequivocal terms that the election was stolen and that Trump won every contested state by hundreds of thousands of votes.

The fact of the matter is that Biden won lawfully. Now you can reasonably argue that Wisconsin (among almost every other state, including super-Republican ones) shouldn't have been able to change their election laws without legislation. Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that they could. So that is by definition, lawful. Don't like the laws and the interpretations of them? Then legislation needs to pass new laws.

You can argue that dead people, under age people, out-of-state people, etc, illegally voted. I'm sure that's true. However, the burden of proof is on you to prove that those people turned out en masse for Biden. In Trump's Great Commission of 2016, (to the best of my recollection) they tried fewer than 10 people nationwide on criminal charges of voting twice and only reached a guilty verdict on a few of them, and the split between Democrats and Republicans was 50/50.

As Senator Graham was saying last night (I paraphrase), "You said you had 100,000 fraudulent voters. I asked for names of just ten; I got one. This isn't evidence of widespread fraud."

It's crazy to think that just yesterday morning Trump was claiming he would prevail. Pence (according to Trump's lies) had told him he would overturn the results. States were just waiting to reverse their votes. But a signed, irrefutable statement by Pence finally dashed that dream. The Trumptards were shocked.

Also Trump gifted Georgia two Democratic Senators and control of the Senate. That's incredible. He spent so much energy tearing down the Republican governor and other Republican officials over the last few weeks, and got the candidates to go along with him for one final trip down the toilet.

I expected fireworks from Trump, but not so many gifts to start 2021. Thank you, kind sir for finally doing something right.

Honestly, I was hoping the Republicans supporting Mr. Trump were doing it to save face. But to let it get this far is just too crazy. My housemate is a rabid Trump supporter. I mentioned there was talk of invoking the 26th Amendment and he mentions Joe Biden as if it would be applied to him. How could people be so blind to what is going on that they still believe he is the greatest president ever?

the funny thing is nobody cared when the left did it multiple times.

hell, ANTIFA/left-nutjobs literally burned down the historic courthouse in my city. But that doesn't get massively reported on CNN/Salon/etc so it's not important

https://wsiltv.com/2020/06/01/arrest-in-historic-nashville-courthouse-fire/

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Screw anyone who burns down or smashes buildings. It takes DECADES to build cities, it only takes 1 a-hole to burn them down.

coughs laughing

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I literally said both matter. It's just you come into the conversation with so much priming from your consumption of mainstream media that you assumed I was arguing for one side.

also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

There are reports that moon men from Mars were behind it all too. Nobody can prove they weren't. It's more likely that Trump supporters pretend to be antifa than the other way around.

The reality is that US congressmen, diehard Trump supporting veterans, leaders of well known right wing militias, etc are all known to have taken a major part in this by virtue of their own live streaming. That's all fact, and trying to minimize that by speculating over outlandish scenarios is yet another redirection tactic that Trump supporters resort to when some indefensible thing has occurred.

Plenty of people are caught on camera, so the beauty of that is we don't need to guess who may or may not have been involved. They will be identified, arrested, and tried in court. After that, then we can revisit the topic with 20-20 vision with full harmonious agreement.

It's not fair to say that this mob represents the majority of Trump supporters. But to pretend that they came from somewhere else is to deny reality.

And, btw, good luck with your game.

Out of curiosity I checked OANN. They cite Mo Brooks as saying Antifa terrorists infiltrated the demonstration to cause the riot. Mr. Brooks claims he was told this by another Congressman. Where did the other Congressman get his information? And on the flip side, if "Antifa terrorists" caused this riot, how do we know "MAGA terrorists" did not do the same in Seattle or other protests?

Andy Ngo says one guy is a far-left extremist:
https://parler.com/post/f6bad7d0295b40289bfeb16376439d79

Huh?

Obviously. Mostly peaceful or not