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Wasn't that video posted hours into the events that day, after it was too late to make a difference anyway?
I don't know when it was posted, it does sound like after, but my general recollection is that Trump was not calling for an armed coup, he was constantly emphasising, before and after, that protestors needed to be peaceful.
And even if Jan 6th was successful in the sense that the protestors say... occupied the Capitol was it going to actually accomplish anything? It's not like there's a mystical control zone inside DC that enables full autocratic control if occupied by peasants of your affiliation
yeah. I never understand the counter-arguments to this. The entire building could have been taken over by American Jihadi's, every person inside massacred and it wouldn't have made any difference to the election outcome or who the president was going to be. I also find it mostly implausible that the participants had any expectation of success...there were no victory conditions. Obviously there are always lizardmen around but the freakoutery around Jan 6th just never made any sense. It was bad, they shouldn't have done it, but it was never a threat to Our Democracy.
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Yeah, the vaguely-magical aspect attributed to bureaucracy is a major reason I struggle to think of it as a meaningful threat.
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If Trump had wanted a full on armed coup, he had command of the military at that point, and as far as I know it's never been claimed that Trump tried to issue illegal orders that day. And it is worth remembering that a relatively small percentage of the people at his speech actually went to the Capitol, and only a smaller percentage of them went inside.
On the other hand, if Trump was shocked and appalled at the riot, he could have spoken up a lot sooner. Even this video is mostly taken up with reiterating claims that the election was stolen, justifying the riot while asking for it to stop.
I've seen someone else on The Motte say that Republicans view political violence as an on-off switch, while Democrats view it as a dial. On that day, in the context of the BLM riots that weren't that long beforehand, I think Trump saw violence as a dial. People who continue to see if as a switch either condemn Trump for attempting a coup (switch was on) or dismiss the entire thing as a nothingburger (switch was off).
This doesnt make sense. Trump is clearly telling people to go home, AKA OFF SWITCH.
Also, on/off isn't about coup/not coup. It is about what the proper police/citizen response is. If people are mullling around you let them mull until they do something other than mulling. If people throw shit, you hose/pepper spray them. If people steal shit or try to hit you at a disarming distance you shoot them.
Coup/not coup is about intent, prep, etc. That sort of thing isn't particularly important to the on/off switch discussion. You can (and usually should) execute a coup in "off" mode.
Hours later, too late to make a difference anyway. Was someone stopping him from speaking out earlier?
He responded significantly quicker than Pelosi and McConnell and there is significant evidence that Trump was spending most of his time attempting to convince Secret Service to take him to the Capital so he could lead his people towards a peaceful outcome.
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He was in the middle of a speech at the time?
He really wasn't. His speech ended at 1:10pm. The first barriers were breached at 1:50. At 2:38 he tweeted "Stay peaceful." At 3:13 he tweeted "No violence." By 3:19 the Rotunda is cleared and fitting is moved outside and into the tunnel. The video linked above was posted at 4:17pm, and is the first time he tells people to go home.
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Giving a speech preventing someone from speaking seems like a tough argument to make!
Depends on when you think Trump knew about what was happening.
I'm pretty much just here for the joke that "speaking" and "making a speech" are essentially synonymous.
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He was on Twitter during the riot, tweeting multiple times with messages to the rioters, including to "stay peaceful," although he didn't say anything like "go home" until after the rioters had already mostly been cleared from the building.
There's lots about Trump's inner thoughts that isn't publically known, but he clearly knew about the riot as it was happening. Even if he hadn't been tweeting to the rioters, it would be a difficult to defend the stance that the President of the United States of America in 2021 could go for literal hours without knowing there was a riot at the US Capitol.
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