Photo Credit: Juliana Dacoregio || Please relax, it is not that bad
What happened at the US Capitol today was unusual, but it was nothing severe. Don’t get me wrong; those that illegally entered the Capitol should be prosecuted. When I say it was not severe, I mean that it was unlikely to do any permanent damage.
Those who threaten violence, even if non-lethal, have to understand that once they fail, society will do the opposite of what they wanted. There is a saying that if you want to kill the King, YOU MUST KILL THE KING! Don’t do something halfway. It will result in your own demise.
What happened at the Capitol today was the actions of a bunch of disorganized malefactors who lucked into a situation where the guardians of the Capitol were inadequate to deal with their shenanigans.
Was it a coup, as some Democrats allege? No, it was just slop from a bunch of disorganized Trumpers. There was no chance that they could have taken over the US Government. If they had been organized, there could have been a lot of people killed, but that was not the case.
Was Trump culpable for their actions? Yes. He incited them by alleging election fraud with no detailed evidence. Even when telling them to go home, he still incited them by saying the election was stolen.
I think the greatest risk lies ahead, as the odds of assassination are relatively high, because of the stolen election rhetoric. I hope I am wrong, but in unstructured situations, the advantage is always with the offense. (Think of defending a fixed base against pirates.)
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Republican government and democracy are still experiments. Much of the world has not experienced these for any great length of time. In the United States, the great temptation is not Socialism, but the One Great Leader who will solve all of our problems. It is embarrassing to think that an idiotic liar like Trump could fill that desire, but the American people are genuinely that stupid. (No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American people.)
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So why should we relax? Because there never was any significant risk to the US Government as a whole. There was a lot of incompetence on the part of the Capitol police.
And though I sympathize with those that want to sideline Trump with the 25th Amendment, I would simply say bear with the indignities of Trump for two more weeks. After that, he will be gone, never to return, as his name is now tarred with violence. The tendency of the American people is not to return to someone who lost, but to seek someone new.
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PS — to my fellow evangelical Christians: why are you supporting a liar? Don’t you know what damage that does to the Gospel? Support someone noble, like Mike Pence. The Lord is our protector; we do not need Donald Trump. Let us not do evil, that good may come from it. Winning an election is far less important than keeping a clean testimony before God and the watching world.
David continues to muddle the message and the messenger.
Trump was elected because the political class is corrupt, not anyone thought trump is a great guy.
Did the establishment really need to fabricate evidence? To withhold exculpatory evidence? To perjure itself multiple times? The FBI did that, the department of selective justice did that. The FBI lied like a banana republic police state, and that will still be true long after trump is gone.
It was possible to replace Trump without cheating, without censorship. It is a sign of intellectual weakness that the political class felt they had to cheat to win.
Biden, long identified as the senator from MBNA, was taking bribes long before he took them from Ukraine and China. Corruption is in Biden’s blood. Worse, corruption is how all of Washington DC operates, it’s not just Biden. That is what got Trump elected.
Censorship and historical negation are the stuff of 1984 (the book), the Soviets and the nazis. Is that really the company Silicon Valley wants to keep? It doesn’t matter, because Twitter censorship essentially makes Trump required reading — if it wasn’t dangerous, the establishment wouldn’t be so scared.
David has interesting things to say about finance, and he often (not always) challenges the financial powers that be… but he mindlessly parrots the political establishment like his job depends on it.
Anybody who claims that one elected official “lies”, so they are worse than the others, loses all credibility.
Example- “you can keep your doctor….”, etc. I wonder if that qualified for a certain level of criticism to the person who told that whopper at the time.
Never mind. I already know the answer.
As somebody who has lived in other parts of the world, I can tell you that what Trump has done with foreign policy is extremely helpful to the US. It will remain so until and unless somebody undoes it. I am hoping the “new boss” doesn’t have the skills or energy to understand it, which is likely the case. There are other policy actions that have been made in the past 4 years that are also truly outstanding.
I’ll won’t hold my breath waiting for somebody to come up with a name of a similar official that didn’t/doesn’t “lie”.
If one lives in the DC area and wants to do anything in “society” they have to bash Trump. If they don’t their livelihood and family are in for seriously bad consequences. That explains a lot of what one sees in public statements.
The President should resign. Immediately. Ivanka needs to tell him. Now.
Hi David,
I honestly hope you are correct, but I can’t seem to relax just yet. If the storming of the Capitol was an isolated incident involving some misguided supporters, I would agree with you, but it was part of something bigger. It was not just Trump and his supporters. We had former Trump administration officials calling for Biden to be jailed and to send the army into the swing states to force a revote.
Almost certainly, the 17 AGs who joined the ridiculous Texas lawsuit knew they had no chance of winning, and the Republican congressmen grandstanding and fundraising off the “debate” about whether to accept the electoral votes knew they had no legal leg to stand on. They are cynically weakening democracy for some kind of short term political gain.
One termite does no real damage on its own, but we now have a small, but not insignificant, minority of Republican politicians nibbling away at the frame of our democracy.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll see if there are any consequences for this behavior. If those who stormed the Capitol are arrested and charged, if the politicians who most vocally promoted this become pariahs in the party, then I will begin to relax.
If there are no meaningful consequences, however, I fear we are going to see more of this.
Tim
Tim, there were no consequences for antifa violence. No consequence for Hilary Clinton taking bribes. No consequence for FBI agents (and director) destroying evidence and perjury, no consequence for Biden collecting bribes, no consequence for fauci lying and destroying family businesses, no consequence for Obama murdering people by drone, no consequence for Obama and pelosi committing health insurance fraud, no consequence for Obama spying, no consequence for bush committing torture, and so on and so on. No consequence to endless censorship and disenfranchising of millions of Americans over decades.
As JFK pointed out, those who make peaceful protests impossible make violent protests inevitable.
Shame on you for ignoring all the violence and corruption that led up to yesterday. Tone deaf people like you are what makes people snap.
Mr. Merkel, I agree with most of your thoughts here, and it’s pleasant to see some levelheaded analysis of the situation. The most troubling parts of yesterday to me was not the actual events that transpired, but the lengths it showed that the Presidents followers are willing to go to in support of the lies that he and many in the Republican Party continue to spread, and how these rioters were treated in contrast to others over the past few months. However, Mike Pence? Noble? What is noble about silently showing loyalty to the president and his indignities for the past 4 years?
Mike Pence worked behind the scenes to mitigate damage, and bring about better results. At least, that is what I have heard. By the way, good to hear from you Jordan. I remember you with a smile.
Brian, we all voted for a 3rd world banana republic for decades. We looked the other way at government corruption for decades. We made excuses for these crooks for decades. Trump was the latest in a long line of bad presidents… in a few weeks the “senator from MBNA” will occupy the Oval Office — Biden has been on the take for decades.
Police violence. Out of control and corrupt spending. Politicians who come to power with a few bucks in their bank account, leave office as multi millionaires. Corruption is how Washington DC goes, and that was so long before trump promised to drain the swamp. Read my lips, get a BJ from your intern, slam dunk your wmd into your healthcare plan… trump will drain the swamp. Biden will stop soliciting bribes.
The FBI part of the swamp abandoned any pretense of legitimacy. They can’t even police their own.
You sound foolish to expect our banana republic would somehow be different from all the others.
The population will continue to follow the example set by leaders in both parties. Try not to act surprised.
Ok Brian, if that’s even your real name. How about an intelligent rebuttal if you disagree so strongly?
I disagree that this was the “incompetence” of the Capitol police. People within the command structure told the police to let the terrorists in. The FBI should have been all over this. Why were they not? The command structure of the FBI told them not to be.
Several people who were AT the capital building (may or may not have entered — photos showed them outside) returned to their home states. Trump haters identified them to employers, who summarily fired them out of fear from the cancel mob. These people can no longer support their families merely because they expressed an opinion.
Persons charged with murder are entitled to fair trials, evidence has to be presented. The crooked FBI often fabricates evidence, withholds exculpatory evidence, and they are not above perjury— but they will pretend to go along with a trial.
Not so the intolerant Trump Derangement Syndrome crowd. Anyone who even gave Trump a fair listen-to gets labeled a nazi. A terrorist. Screamed at until the trump sympathizer can’t be heard. The media actively participates in censoring and/or misrepresenting what the Trump supporter said. The Washington Post was a good newspaper decades ago, but they are millions poorer after libeling a kid wearing a maga hat.
There were many voting irregularities this election, far more than a normal year. Courts should have at minimum heard a case. The media could have allowed some dissenting opinions to be aired. People who get a fair hearing are a lot less likely to raid the capital building in a desperate effort to be heard.
David claims to be a Christian but he can’t help himself judging people he disagrees with… and then he tries to cloak himself in Jesus rhetoric like that excuses his behavior toward Trump supporters. Jesus re-attached the ear of a Roman soldier after a supporter cut it off — forget about medical aid, can you imagine these intolerant Trump deranged extremists even allowing someone with a different view to speak?
If he wasn’t so corrupt and suffering from dementia, Biden should be demanding investigation into electoral fraud. Not to overturn his win of course. Getting elected is the relatively easy part, governing after one wins is far more difficult. Biden needs to get buy in from the more moderate Trump supporters if he hopes to govern. But Biden was soliciting bribes from MBNA decades before he took bribes from Ukraine and China… he doesn’t need to reach across the political aisle to solicit more bribes. Biden’s silence during BLM riots last fall contrasts with his fiery rhetoric this week — the man isn’t trying to govern.
Lots of bloggers, youtubers, comedians and even a few Hollywood types are speaking out against the cancel culture that denied Trump supporters their day in court. The media types fear (a little late?) they may be silenced next.
Hello David;
Being from Canada – and a fellow Christian, I would like some context regarding your reference to Vice President Pence as a “noble” individual. Are you referring to his actions on January 6th or through out his Vice-Presidency?
Thank, David T.
PS: I have other questions about this situation that I would like to discuss with an individual with similar a worldview. If you amiable, I would appreciate it you would email me directly. Thank you.
I have thought well of Pence for some time, not just the recent actions he took. If you want to email me, my address is here.
Biden’s very first act in office was to welcome a bunch of illegal immigrants to start their time in the USA breaking the law. Millions of tax paying small businesses that have been closed for months because Anthony Fauci dropped the ball, were told by Biden to go screw themselves. Illegal immigrants matter, US taxpayers exist to be exploited.
Difficult to feel sorry for NYC restaurant families who voted Democrat — first deblasio and cuomo, and now Biden. Is there any insult the democrats could pull that would wake NYC restaurant families out of their stupor?
The second thing Biden did was to evict national guard troops out of the capital and into parking structures. Biden is the commander in chief of all the armed forces, do not try to claim the eviction was someone else’s doing. It was Biden, commander in chief.
Makes me long for the days of moronic, but ultimately harmless, tweets