Just as the the last four years afforded conformist journalists the fantasy that they were part of some sort of “resistance” fighting a tyrannical dictator, the events of January 6th afforded self-aggrandising members of Congress the fantasy that they were heroic leaders facing down an attempted coup, an “insurrection.”
What was the potential sequence of events that could have resulted in the rioters seizing control of the government? Even if this handful of unarmed citizens had somehow subdued the numerous armed guards protecting the Senate, the most they could achieve would be a hostage situation.
It was a protest that became a riot which temporarily disrupted a legislative assembly. At worst you could argue it was a protest that crossed the line into terrorism. And possibly some of the protestors thought someone else was going to stage a coup, but that did not happen.
> which temporarily disrupted a legislative assembly
No what it did is to disrupt the certification of Biden's win, attempting to change the election results with violence, ie a coup.
> What was the potential sequence of events that could have resulted in the rioters seizing control of the government?
I didn't say it was a smart attempted coup, but even a dumb one killing the Vice President or having a massive hostage situation could do a ton of damage to the stability of our democracy.
It's theatre politics at its finest. A great show on how this looked almost scripted even when everyone knew that the 'nothing' was coming all along.
The only ones who didn't follow the mainstream media script was Mitch McConnell who did a last minute twist for acquitting the ex-president after being in favour of the trial weeks ago and the Democrats who u-turned for calling up witnesses.
Unless you had a crystal ball or a soothsayer besides you, anyone would be lying to you if they expected that those specific u-turns would happen in the trial.
But I have to say that this whole trial was a great shakespearian play. Well done to the actors, clowns and the assistants helping those with symptoms of stage fright put together a dramatic sequel to the first impeachment trial, ending with another 'disappointing' acquittal.
The U-turn by McConnell is no surprise. He needs the Trump supporters to remain in the GOP. It's also no surprise that after he votes to acquit, he gives a scathing speech on Trump to pretend to have any ounce of care for the constitution...to keep GOP defectors from leaving when they realize McConnell has no spine.
The U-Turn by Democrats on witnesses was not expected. However I believe they knew they wouldn't have the vote and just wanted to move on and focus on legislation...rather than drag this out a few other weeks.
It wasn't the obvious outcome as republicans could have voted for conviction.
If McConnell had pushed for conviction there's a decent chance it would have happened.
You think coming close to possibly being killed or hostages might have made them do the right thing
Something occurred to me, I was trying to figure out why Republican leadership was in favor of the trial. It didn’t seem to have an upswing, unless you consider the time it took. It’s almost the middle of February, and yet the Senate has been wrapped up with this trial, that I think for most Americans, is a waste of time. Maybe that’s the strategy, to waste time.
More importantly it was an important action to try to prevent future support for coups by Presidents.
There's no great movement complaining about a waste of time.
Democrats are pushing along the relief bill at a decent pace. The only complaint I could see was whether they should have called witnesses or not, even though it looked like most Republicans would have acquitted either way. Some would argue that would waste time, but others would argue it was necessary to try to increase odds of convicting him
The only one that would matter is Lisa Murkowski as she's up for reelection next year. After 2022 people will have forgotten all this and move on to the next shiny object.
