Winners and losers

Winners:

Mitt Romney and other conservative Never-Trumpers.

CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc. No, they didn’t exaggerate.

Intellectuals with TDS

Biden—He has enhanced moral authority to get things done. Recall LBJ after the Kennedy assassination.

Black Lives Matter (If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.)

Wall Street

Xi Jinping (we lose some of the moral high ground)

Losers:

Trump and his family

Cruz, Hawley, Pence and the rest of the Trump lapdogs

Fox News and the National Review

Right-wing intellectuals who claimed they focused on “the issues”, not Trump’s “bad manners”. Those who mocked Trump’s critics for being unhinged. The universities where they teach and the think tanks where they sell your services. I’ve gotten a wheelbarrow full of junk mail from these places over the past 4 years. Pathetic defenses of Trump.

A dead DC police officer and 4 dead protestors

Putin (seen by the Dems as having helped Trump get elected.)

PS. I just saw Trump’s hostage tape concession speech, and broke out laughing. He started lying 10 seconds into the speech (when he claimed that he immediately called out the National Guard), and lied all the way through.

PPS. Another day with more than 4000 reported deaths. But then Trump says the numbers are fake.


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70 Responses to “Winners and losers”

  1. Gravatar of Jerry Brown Jerry Brown
    7. January 2021 at 20:42

    “Black Lives Matter (If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.)”

    Yes. If someone can’t see that difference then they are willfully blind.

  2. Gravatar of ee ee
    7. January 2021 at 21:16

    Loser:

    US electoral system. The House, Senate, and Presidential elections all have rules that tilt the outcome away from consensus, toward the extremes. Eventually we had a minority coalition gain power where the crazy proportion surpassed the critical mass. In a system that was more sensitive to the will of the people, the crazies might have been a smaller group within a coalition and the elected leader might have worked to appeal to a saner constituency.

  3. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    7. January 2021 at 22:15

    Why is the Capital police officer a loser? He or she should be a hero. From what I can tell however, the poor officer must have been out of shape and suffered a heart attack, as apparently they collapsed away from the action after some sort of fight, since I can’t imagine dying from just blows suffered from the rioting protestors.

  4. Gravatar of Bob Bob
    7. January 2021 at 22:56

    I am pretty sure you have most of the winners right, but isn’t it way too early for the loser list? For all we know, enough Trump supporters keep buying into the lies, and the real winner is polarization.

  5. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    7. January 2021 at 23:04

    I think it helps to drink the banana-flavored kool-aid to buy into this list.

    Banana-time for America!

    The Americans Not Against Liberty–the true cause!

    The Washington Banana-Post.

    The New Banana York Times.

  6. Gravatar of Benjamin Cole Benjamin Cole
    7. January 2021 at 23:21

    But!

    It helps to eat plantains if you want to stomach Fox, or the National Review, or Ted Cruz.

  7. Gravatar of David Nadle David Nadle
    7. January 2021 at 23:25

    I think that to be a “loser” you must lose something or face some sort of consequences. To me, most of your list of “losers” is at best premature.

  8. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    8. January 2021 at 00:29

    Scott,

    THIS: “If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.”

    That was the first thing too that came to my mind when I watched the TV pictures coming in. What on Earth does the police when you need it? You see hapless officers standing around, talking, basically pleading with a rolling wave of demented rabble rousers. Completely gutless, and I think it’s because they just can’t believe white people would do such a thing and are genuinely clueless about what to do about it.

    Best imagery of how this looked like during the Floyd George protests: https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210106172554-03-blm-george-floyd-protests-file-super-tease.jpg

    It’s a disgrace. But here too America is not unique, police and army tend to be much harsher with left wing than with right wing extremists pretty much everywhere. I guess if you’re in a militaristic organization, you see less of a problem with fascism than with communism.

  9. Gravatar of D.O. D.O.
    8. January 2021 at 00:32

    Pelosi and Schumer should stop crazy 25th amendment talk and get together with McConnel, Romney, Pence, maybe some House Republicans, and whomever else on the other side not completely off the deep end and figure out some mechanism that prevents one of the two large American parties being overtaken by a personality cult of an authoritarian demagouge. Otherwise, this will not end well neither for “winners” nor for “loosers”. Each party has its nuts and loonies and they should remain on the fringes. In a normal system, slimeballs like “hack of a journey” Graham and carrierists like Cruz should know better than side with demagoegues. I really don’t know what will help. Pass a federal law that congressional districts should be as competitive as possible? Greatly reduce powers of the presidency in exchange of the end of filibuster? Figure out a way for congress pulling on the purse strings to discipline the president without crushing the whole government? There should be some ideas beyond complete rewrite of the constitution.

  10. Gravatar of David S David S
    8. January 2021 at 02:33

    I’m keeping an eye on the 538 poll aggregator for Trump’s approval rating to see how this impacts him. I know the lag is about a week but I’m preparing to be disappointed by how little it will drop. The number of GOP representatives who have hitched their wagon to his star is disturbingly high. How many will get their seat back in 2022?

    The People’s Temple never did regain their footing after Jim died.

  11. Gravatar of Josh Josh
    8. January 2021 at 02:36

    Ray Lopez:

    I mean, he is dead. Becoming a dead hero still seems like a clear net loss to me.

    Scott:

    I remember when you couldn’t post about politics without your comments section turning into a cesspit for the Trump lot calling you an idiot and a loser. Seems a lot quieter on that front these days!

  12. Gravatar of John Hall John Hall
    8. January 2021 at 03:52

    On National Review, do you not recall their “Against Trump” cover [1]? There are several never Trumpers over there. Undoubtedly, there were also those who took a Richard Epstein/pick-and-choose approach where they criticize him when he deserves it and applaud him when he does something right. The WSJ editorial board likely was in a similar position.

    Regardless, both the WSJ editorial board and National Review were both vocally against whatever happened at the Capitol. However, I think you would respond that people on the right should have been more critical of Trump over the whole period because something like this wouldn’t have happened under anyone else.

    [1] https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/01/donald-trump-conservative-movement-menace/

  13. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    8. January 2021 at 04:41

    My guess on Wall Street going up is that retail investors expect to get another stimulus check soon and so they all rushed into Tesla again, pulling the S&P up.

  14. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    8. January 2021 at 06:00

    Seems to me your list pretty much hits all the bases.

    I’d add just one group to the losers: the anti anti Trump leftists-a la Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey-whose brand is yeah Trump is bad but the Democrats exaggerate HOW BAD he is-Hillary would have been worse or W. Bush was worse or Barr 2020 isn’t as bad as Barr 1990.

    Here’s a classic Tracey tweet.

    https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1346892305475792898

    The silver lining on Tuesday-as disgraceful as it was-is while Trump lost on Nov 6, Tuesday was his political obituary.

    If the Dems impeach him again-and you get enough GOP Senators to convict which now seems possible-then Trump can never run for Office again.

  15. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    8. January 2021 at 06:07

    The neighbors with the F*&# Biden flag are going to live life as if they won, and so are a lot of other people in the world I’m still stuck in. In fact that’s been true since LBJ was in office.

  16. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    8. January 2021 at 06:15

    The House Judiciary Dems have already drafted impeachment articles

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2021/01/07/second-impeachment-ahead-articles-have-been-drafted/

  17. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    8. January 2021 at 06:21

    Testing

  18. Gravatar of J Mann J Mann
    8. January 2021 at 06:32

    I think the best comparison for racism would be the first day of the BLM protest.

    My recollection is that the protestors had their way in those early days, and that buildings were burned to the ground, shops looted, etc.

    In this case, in addition to letting the protestors go by in some cases, the capitol police also tear gassed, fought, and in one case killed a protestor. There’s an active effort to identify and arrest the perpetrators.

    It’s entirely possible that day 1 of the BLM protests breaking into violence and day 1 of the Trumpista protests aren’t comparable – you can argue that the Michigan lawlessness should have put the capitol on more guard, or that the provocation or responses aren’t comparable, but I don’t remember day 1 of the BLM well enough to be sure.

  19. Gravatar of Michael Rulle Michael Rulle
    8. January 2021 at 06:53

    I finally understand Chris Cuomo. It is critical we contextualize the violence. And it is clear we will continue to do so. There is a 45 minute video taken by some low level news entity which really was pretty good. It was virtually continuous and barely edited. He was not with the crowd as much as he was walking thru the crowd. Because the numbers were huge it looked like a mob, which it was. But they seem thrilled just to have made it inside the building. No screaming anti or pro this pol or that pol. They made their point. Not my thing needless to say. No yelling at police. The video guy finally made his way to the front. It was the front because for some reason they locked a pair of glass doors. He got to the front. No way out. Their should have been a way to create a walk thru.

    Then came the shocker. 4 swat like guys came from the right walking up the stairs. They had rifles up. People did not seem afraid. No no one said anything or went after the cops. The lead cop went toward the locked doors. I assumed he was their to open it. He disappears for a second as he walks in front of a guy. Then you hear a shot. You see the cop backing up with the rifle pointed toward the door. You see Ashli Babbitt on her back. The cop inexplicably shot her in the back. They then left down the stairs.

    Scott’s winners and losers is a grotesque characterization of Wednesday. He is lost in his film noir fantasies. Like, as he said, the insane Howard Hughes.

    I have lost all energy on politics. I cannot watch or listen to these people anymore. I recommend the video however. It’s the closest thing to an objective view of what happened.

  20. Gravatar of Bob Bob
    8. January 2021 at 07:18

    If you’d told me four years ago that the Trump presidency would end with Trump inciting a violent mob to storm the Capitol Building. I would’ve said, “yeah, that sounds pretty likely. He’s a fascist.”

  21. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    8. January 2021 at 07:32

    Michael,
    Yes, some who made it into the building were clearly in awe of their surroundings and not intending any harm. But others in the mob were nonetheless saying “Hang Mike Pence!”
    https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-reality-tv-michael-pence-ddbfc1fbb94034c39aadc5260536be3c

  22. Gravatar of sean sean
    8. January 2021 at 07:39

    I don’t see the “Racism” argument. Chicago (And assume the other cities) have been catch and release the whole time. There are guys who hit a cop with a brick who was bailed out for $500 in 24 hours. And it sounds like they want to punish these guys. Portland has been in riot mode for 8 months.

    I’ve joined the Greenwald/Tracey camp for the last few months. Trump never had the competency to do much. Mcconnel has dominated him whenever he wanted to. The Biden/Big Media/Big tech and corporates afraid of violating the woke mob are going to lead to a very bad world going forward.

    The interesting thing in the vote was Trump gaining votes in the cities where we were terrorized all summer and getting crushed in the suburbs where that wasn’t a part of their life.

    I’d love some Jeb Bush now. Whose boring. Never liked him before, but maybe a guy like him is the answer.

  23. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    8. January 2021 at 07:44

    @ Michael Rulle: There were people with restraints, weapons, and, oh, bombs. Super peaceful.

  24. Gravatar of Bob Obrien Bob Obrien
    8. January 2021 at 07:44

    The dems (all the media are dems) and socialists won this battle. Let us see if they win the longer war.

    Regarding the so called “insurrection” I like this comment from the Blaze:

    “…They took pictures seated at Nancy Pelosi’s desk. They shoved furniture out of place. They pushed their way past unprepared and overwhelmed law enforcement. They shattered a window or two.

    If not for police shooting and killing an unarmed, female 14-year Air Force veteran, the protest staged by Trump supporters would have more in common with a 1950s fraternity panty raid than political riot….”

  25. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    8. January 2021 at 07:50

    Losers: xu, henry, bob, sarah, janice. They just vanished.

    And everyone else that stood by him. Because that Trump “concession” speech just now was the end of it. He actually threw his own supporters under the bus, all of them. That man truly loves no one back, not even those who loved him so dearly. He has no loyalty to those who were loyal to him. And this will now be the end of it. I’d be surprised if anyone can still stomach him after today’s betrayal of his own crowd.

  26. Gravatar of Becky Hargrove Becky Hargrove
    8. January 2021 at 07:54

    Is it really safe to keep this guy in the building, in a Biden administration??
    https://www.wymt.com/2021/01/08/delegate-inside-us-capitol-during-riot-wont-resign/

  27. Gravatar of Liam Liam
    8. January 2021 at 07:59

    Scott, when did you last actually read National Review? Today’s lead is the editor laying into Trump: https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/01/trumps-disgusting-coda/

    3 of the first 4 articles today attack Trump’s attempted coup, the fourth is not about politics. This is not new: I read it regularly. Breitbart it ain’t, or even Fox.

  28. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 08:49

    mbka, Yes, I think back to all those cops who shoot black guys and then say, “I thought he might have a knife, and he was acting erratically”. Those guys invading the Capitol might have had a knife, and were also acting erratically.

    David, I’m already prepared. He’ll poll higher than Bush in July 1992, after Bush had won a smashing victory in the Gulf War and the Soviet Union had collapsed. The public is insane, at least 30% of them.

    Josh, A few have admitted they were wrong. Most are too proud to do so and are keeping quiet.

    John, Yes, I recall that cover, and then I recall how they changed their tune in fear of losing subscribers.

    Michael, You and Ben Cole are the last of the true believers. Even Bob Barr has jumped ship. It’s weird to see what politics can do to someone’s brain.

    People were smashing down windows and storming the Capitol building. 80-year old congresswomen were cowering in fear. How dense can a person be?

    Sean, You said:

    “Trump never had the competency to do much.”

    I’ve been saying that since 2016. I said he’d like to be a fascist (that’s why he idolizes fascists), but he’s too weak to actually become another Hitler.

    Liam, I read the NR multiple times a week. Yes, they have some anti-Trump stuff, but many of their pieces in defense of Trump are dishonest and shameful.

  29. Gravatar of JHE JHE
    8. January 2021 at 08:52

    “Those who mocked Trump’s critics for being unhinged.”

    This is–by far–the most important group. America has had many presidents who were serial liars and adulterers, plenty who were corrupt at some point in their life, and even some violent or paranoid, types. Anything but angels. Many narcissists and self-regarding guys. But basically all of them tried to grow into the job and serve the country. Trump, by contrast, has never at any point seen the job as being about anything other than himself. This pathological level of narcissism was identified by his Republican opponents as dangerous early in 2016 primaries and we saw the results on Wednesday, as Trump could not acknowledge a result that was bad for him, regardless of the consequences for the country. There is no level of whatabout that can mitigate the danger from putting

    I would also add, specifically, the huge faction of the conservative media ecosystem that lathered into a rage over “very fine people” being a media “hoax.” As the participants in the Capital mob and Trump’s debate response on the issue make clear,* Trump was, from the start, recruiting sewer trash to serve as his personal goon squad and they were eager to follow his call. Again, there is not remotely any level of whatabout that can compare to or excuse such behavior.

    *Trump was served on a silver platter by Chris Wallace the opportunity to explain that his remarks had been misconstrued, taken out of context, etc; by the fake news media. Instead, he told the truth–far more than you can say for his enablers.

  30. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    8. January 2021 at 08:56

    @Tacticus – the bombs were found OUTSIDE the Capital building. The rioters/protesters were trespassing, nothing more. That’s what the law says, it’s mere trespass. And in the WI incident, link here: https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_260247e0-4ac4-11e0-bfa9-001cc4c03286.html the same thing happened in Madison, WI in 2011 and nothing bad happened. Much ado about nothing happened this week on Capital Hill.

  31. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    8. January 2021 at 09:43

    @ Ray Lopez:

    https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supporter-arrested-at-capitol-had-11-molotov-cocktails-feds-2021-1?r=US&IR=T

    And, come on, it’s ‘Capitol’ Hill, not ‘Capital.’ I live in Europe and have never been to DC in my life and I know that.

  32. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    8. January 2021 at 09:44

    –“Black Lives Matter (If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.)”–

    I agree BLM is a winner, but more because you can no longer claim “BLM protests are often destructive riots but conservatives never do that sort of thing.” I now see BLM and MAGA/Q as mirror images of each other: both are upset to the point of rioting over an issue for which there is scant evidence.

    One of the Capitol mobsters was shot and killed by police despite being an unarmed woman. There were lots of arrests and the FBI is looking to track down as many of the culprits as they can. While they didn’t do much to prevent or quickly end the Capitol riot, it isn’t really any different from other riots which in some places were allowed to fester for days or weeks. In fact, I’m not sure if police anywhere openly shot to death an unarmed rioter during the summer riots despite those involving far more people/police, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.

    As I see it, law enforcement is, rightly or wrongly, afraid of escalation and bad PR all throughout the country. Rioters at the Capitol were treated with kid gloves much as they were last summer all over the country.

  33. Gravatar of Justin Justin
    8. January 2021 at 10:17

    –“Mitt Romney and other conservative Never-Trumpers. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, etc. No, they didn’t exaggerate.”–

    They are winners only in the sense that they had a single good day.

    I think a large portion of the right has permanently written off CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc. as hopelessly biased. Most will never take them as seriously as a news source ever again.

    I think we’re in the midst of a political realignment. Progressives in the coalition notwithstanding, Democrats now seem to be the party of big business. I would expect the Republican Party to abandon neoliberalism and continue their shift towards a populist/nationalist direction. The culture wars have been mostly decided, and you need to have some angle which differentiates you from your opponent. I don’t see anything else but doubling down on populism/nationalism.

    Trump’s base may not be able to have Trump again, but I don’t see them warming to people like Mitt Romney. I don’t expect someone like Mitt will be able to win a Republican nomination going forward, and may even begin to identify outwardly as Democrats.

    Obviously I don’t know the future, but I’d be shocked if you see a lot of Trump voters self-reflecting in 2022 that “yeah, I kinda went overboard but now I read the NYTimes again and I’m pretty moderate again and I hope Romney is nominated for the GOP ticket.”

  34. Gravatar of OVB OVB
    8. January 2021 at 10:39

    Scott,

    Isn’t there another explanation? The police certainly appear to have been sympathetic to the rioters at the capitol, but this might be because of partisanship rather than racism. Additionally there are good reasons to believe that MAGA rioters will be less likely to be hostile and violent toward cops directly than BLM rioters. It is impossible to know how police would have responded ceteris paribus if the MAGA crowd was more ethnically mixed.

    I also suspect that Mayor Bowser’s orders discouraging additional deployment played a role.

  35. Gravatar of Travis Allison Travis Allison
    8. January 2021 at 11:01

    @Michael Rule: Is the following the part of video that you are describing:

    https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/videos-show-shooting-of-ashli-babbitt-during-capitol-siege/

    It seems that Ashli Babbitt was trying to break through the door. It seems the riot police weren’t doing anything to stop the attempted breakthrough.

  36. Gravatar of sean sean
    8. January 2021 at 11:07

    Winners – No one.

    Losers – Everyone. OUr Democracy is destroyed. Violence for politics was normalized. Hillary still calling trumps 2016 win illegitimate. All American elections are now illegitimate. The left seems to want to go down a 9/11 rabbit hole of purges and domestic terrorism laws.

    Censorship everywhere. Big media is just advocacy entertainment.

  37. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 11:19

    Justin, You said:

    “I think a large portion of the right has permanently written off CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc. as hopelessly biased. Most will never take them as seriously as a news source ever again.”

    A large portion of the right think that Fox News has liberal bias, and only even more nutty far right news sites are “unbiased”. I’ve met those people. There’s no helping people like that. They are a lost cause.

    The sites you mention did not exaggerate Trump’s dishonesty, corruption, stupidity, cruelty, etc., because it’s virtually impossible to do so. Trump is just off the charts awful. I saw this from the beginning, others did not. To their credit, Lindsey, Perry, Cruz, etc., saw this from the beginning. To their eternal shame they later ignored what they knew about Trump being a demagogue.

    OVB, Systemic racism refers to societal practices that effectively discriminate against blacks, regardless of personal motives. Thus for many years those using crack cocaine (mostly blacks) got much worse sentences than those using powder cocaine (mostly whites). So even if the sentences for crack cocaine did not differ between blacks and whites, the net effect was discriminatory. I could name many similar examples, such as the fact that the attitude of GOP politicians towards drugs changed radically when the problem spread from blacks to low income whites in the rust belt. Suddenly it was viewed as a medical problem requiring compassion.

    So I’d say the effect is discriminatory, even if the intent is not.

  38. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 11:21

    Travis, They probably “thought she had a knife”, like that poor guy in Kenosha Wisconsin.

    (Yes, I’m being sarcastic. How did America’s right-wing react to that police killing?)

  39. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    8. January 2021 at 11:22

    “Right-wing intellectuals who claimed they focused on “the issues”, not Trump’s “bad manners”. Those who mocked Trump’s critics for being unhinged. The universities where they teach and the think tanks where they sell your services. I’ve gotten a wheelbarrow full of junk mail from these places over the past 4 years. Pathetic defenses of Trump.”

    Ah. I understand the “intellectuals” thing better now. Some of us have not really seen this – I’ve read a cringe Victor Davis Hansen piece or two, and a couple of the Claremnot losers (Michael Anton, Christopher Caldwell), but little else.

    Are there any “intellectuals” of any significant stature that supported Trump in this way? Does Kudlow count?

  40. Gravatar of Carl Carl
    8. January 2021 at 11:28

    I don’t see a way we don’t get a new political party or two out of this mess. The Democrats will only become more strident in their call for increasing government power. And they’re doing this while anyone can see that our increasing centralization of power is leading to decreased competency in government, increased polarization of the citizenry and increased alienation of many. The “winners”, in the sense of those who profit from these forces, are not going to be winners in the real sense of the word. They may be people who profit by accelerating America’s decline. But the long term winners will have to be among those who break the stranglehold that our two parties have on our country and work to distribute power.

  41. Gravatar of OVB OVB
    8. January 2021 at 11:31

    Scott,

    Thank you for your response. I understand your perspective better when you express it like that.

    I feel like you responded to the intent portion of the question but left the rational risk aversion piece unanswered. Is it unreasonable for a cop to feel more threatened by a BLM rioter given their ideology than a MAGA rioter, regardless of race? How would you suggest changing the system to remove the disparity that results from this rational risk calculation in an environment where police are demonized on the left and lionized on the right?

  42. Gravatar of Gene Frenkle Gene Frenkle
    8. January 2021 at 11:31

    Justin, Perdue and Loeffler were Bush era Republicans running in a Trump world, and their ads were an absurd combination of attacks that apparently worked in Miami and never worked against Obama. Rubio seems to understand where the GOP is headed but unfortunately he was one of the first to go campaign for the Wall Street globalists running in Georgia so he has no credibility anymore. I think Biden understands the Electoral College and he has family in the Rust Belt, and so many of the issues Trump gave voice to will at least be superficially addressed by Biden. And the African Americans that got Biden elected were the first to push back against the “Defund the Police” crowd with the clueless Congresswoman Tlaib having the gall to contradict Clyburn about the views of the larger African American community. Lastly, Warnock is a Christian minister so maybe that means the progressives will have to ease up on the culture war stuff to win in places like Texas and Georgia and Florida.

  43. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    8. January 2021 at 11:36

    On the issues of the police response, I don’t think the comparisons between how the Capitol police handled things on Wednesday and how cops generally treat black (or other) people in other types of situations are very insightful.

    I mean, first shouldn’t we answer the question, “what should they have done?” For example, should they have shot some more people? There’s an obvious argument for “yes:”

    “People were smashing down windows and storming the Capitol building. 80-year old congresswomen were cowering in fear.”

    Also there seems to some evidence suggesting that at least some of the rioters came in with intent not just to disrupt or protest but to actually harm or capture some of the people inside.

    But on the other hand, AFAIK, once inside, the rioters fired no shots or set fire to anything. They seemed more concerned with taking pictures or small trophies than anything else. On the other thread, I used the phrase “extended childhood” but Alex Tabarrok on twitter used two better terms: “idiocracy” and “bunch of goofs.”

    Given that they were confronting a bunch of goofs, maybe the Capitol police perhaps handled things about as well as they could have handled. The bunch of goofs got to go home and incriminate themselves further.

    Anyway, sorry for the no doubt stupid comment, but I’m just baffled by all this.

  44. Gravatar of JHE JHE
    8. January 2021 at 11:40

    anon/portly–

    Scott may not have been necessarily referring to this, but, aside from the cringe stuff, there have been some brilliant, insightful, and well-regarded conservative intellectuals (think, say, a certain New York Times columnist and a certain infovore blogger), who have been spending much of the last four years putting out some combination of:

    a) Some of Trump’s policies actually make a lot of sense/have shone light on important issues. Focus on the real issues, not the noise.
    b) Look at this bad thing a leftist said!
    c) Leftism is responsible for Trump

    I understand where said New York Times columnist and blogger are coming from–fighting against s rather large and powerful liberal ‘blob’ in the media and academic. Their intentions were good, but in their desire to talk about ‘real issues’ they explained away or sidelined the danger of Trump’s malevolent character that Scott and others had right from the very beginning.

  45. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    8. January 2021 at 11:43

    @Ray Lopez

    “From what I can tell however, the poor officer must have been out of shape and suffered a heart attack, as apparently they collapsed away from the action after some sort of fight, since I can’t imagine dying from just blows suffered from the rioting protestors.”

    For clarity the officer was hit repeatedly with a fire extinguisher

  46. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 12:13

    anon, You said:

    “Given that they were confronting a bunch of goofs, maybe the Capitol police perhaps handled things about as well as they could have handled.”

    Here’s a better way—arrest them and put them in prison.

    As for them being idiots, I agree. But the same is true of mobs in Latin America that occupy government buildings. And those coups often succeed. Yes, this one had no chance, but that’s what they were trying to do, and lots of Trumpistas were still betting on Trump in prediction markets as recently as a few days ago. They actually seem to have thought they had a chance. Today they are screaming betrayal at Trump’s concession yesterday.

    As far as intellectuals, you wouldn’t believe the garbage I get in the mail from places like the Heritage Institute or Hillsdale College. There are also a bunch of nuts over at National Review. And lots of “intellectual” right wing websites with names I can’t recall send me emails with articles defending Trumpism, or excusing his behavior.

    Mike, Ray likes to get attention by saying stupid stuff. It makes him feel important.

  47. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    8. January 2021 at 12:53

    Ok one more classic example of the anti anti Trump Left from Glenn Greenwald-who’s sort of their Grand Wizard.

    There are so many great examples but one more.

    https://twitter.com/TreasonHappens/status/1347646129857552386

  48. Gravatar of Philo Philo
    8. January 2021 at 13:38

    The irony is that if the Capitol police had done their job and (peacefully) kept the protesters at bay, this incident would have been extremely minor–not Trump egging on rioters, but Trump egging on peaceful protesters (in, admittedly, a foolish demonstration of ignorance).

  49. Gravatar of JHE JHE
    8. January 2021 at 13:52

    @Philo

    Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that either Trump or a DOJ flunky was responsible for the lack of backup for the Capitol police. I witnessed the first significant George Floyd/BLM protest in DC and, before significant damage had been done, there was a HUGE presence of law enforcement ready to jump on the handful of protestors who breached a barrier closing off space normally open to the public and were never close to actually getting into the WH.

  50. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    8. January 2021 at 14:24

    OVB, There are several ways to think about that. My sense is that the rate of ordinary violent crime is higher for African-Americans than for whites. But I don’t see much evidence that this is true of political crimes. There are lots of recent cases in the US of right wing individuals engaging in some pretty serious political crimes, including even mass murder. How often do blacks attack police in BLM protests? I haven’t studied the issue, so I’ll reserve judgement on that question.

    Some of these guys had guns and pipe bombs, so while most rioters were relatively nonviolent, some were not.

    Philo, I think you need to see this in terms of “playing with fire”. Trump’s the one who convinced tens of millions of Americans that the election was stolen, and he did it with lies. If that spurs a few of them to do extreme stuff, Trump bears some moral culpability (perhaps not legal, I don’t know.)

    His rhetoric was always white hot, even at campaign rallies back in 2016 when he’d say things like (not his exact words) wouldn’t you like to see those guys get beat up.

    And look at JHE’s answer. I read that when Trump purged the military elite a few months back he replaced them with loyalists who then refused to allow the National Guard to be deployed when they were actually needed and requested by the DC police. Don’t know if that’s true, but it’s something to follow.

  51. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    8. January 2021 at 14:55

    What really is ironic is the extreme partisanship seen even in this simple example, where both sides are completely unable to step out of their partisanship.

    The left including Biden (and even Scott!) are suddenly talking about extreme police misconduct. One doesn’t really know what the police did wrong, is it the notorious US police brutality again? Wait no, that can’t be it, they finally did the descalation the left always demanded. So what is it?

    One suddenly reads about “kid glove treatment” and comparison with the BLM riots, which probably means that the police should have acted much more brutal. And anyway: Where were federal police forces?

    The fact that the quite brutal behavior of the police was condemned by all the American media at the time is not mentioned. In Portland, for example, it was federal police forces who acted in this way. Incited and sent by Trump. All the media and Democratic politicians were strictly against it at the time; they never wanted anything like it again, and now they do. What has changed so suddenly? I have a really wild guess.

    Here’s a better way—arrest them and put them in prison.

    Scott,

    This is just silly. In a situation like this, you have to have the right priorities. Priority #1 must be that no politician is injured or even killed. Priority #2 is that you and other employees are not injured or killed. Priority #3 should be that you de-escalate, don’t shoot wildly and only shoot rioters if you really have to.

    The notorious US police has managed these main objectives very well for once, but that’s not right now either, can it be that you Americans are all borderline insane???

    They can still make arrests if they find the time, but in situations where there are only as many cops as rioters – or even less – arrests are probably the dumbest idea ever. You can arrest people afterwards, there were cameras everywhere, the whole complex is stuffed, they even filmed themselves and put it on the internet, there seems to be terabytes of data, this is a goldmine.

    A reasonable leader would say, “No arrests, we don’t take prisoners, if you have to shoot shoot, but no arrests.” Because arresting is actually tying up so many policemen that are way too few anyway to objectives that aren’t even in the top 3. That’s totally insane. They still made about 50-90 arrests btw.

    @JHE

    Unfortunately, it’s almost certain that either Trump or a DOJ flunky was responsible for the lack of backup for the Capitol police.

    Nice theory. From what I read the mayor of DC has to request these people, Trump has sent these people several times before, the mayor and the media freaked out, partly for good reasons, so this time she only requested around 300 National Guard members, most of them for traffic control and explicitly banned from wearing body armor, banned from carrying weapons, and banned from working on the Capitol. So yeah, nice theory.

  52. Gravatar of Ray Lopez Ray Lopez
    8. January 2021 at 16:59

    @Tacitus- nothing in your link indicates that the pipe bomber was inside the Capitol/Capital building (which I have visited in grade school). I believe he was in fact outside.

    @Mike Sax – thanks, that’s hard to believe a man would die from blows by a fire extinguisher if he could make it back to the office, which leads me to think it was a heart attack, but we’ll wait for the autopsy. With some gallows humor it reminds me of this Simpson episode mimicking Benny Hill, on Capital/Capitol Hill: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWHJTvzC-Qo

  53. Gravatar of agrippa postumus agrippa postumus
    8. January 2021 at 17:16

    at least sumner doesn’t blog much about economics anymore, given how trite, lame, and bland all his babblings about economic topics were. unfortunately, he’s redirected his efforts and his mob towards surface level evaluations of the political scene that are even worse.

  54. Gravatar of Travis Allison Travis Allison
    8. January 2021 at 17:26

    Scott, I agree there is a lot of hypocrisy. I honestly don’t know if either shooting was justified or not justified. When a man refuses repeated orders to stop and goes back to his car and reaches inside, what should the response of the policeman be?

    When a mob is trying to break through a barricaded entrance and lots of vulnerable people are on the other side, what should the response be?

    Check out this video where an activist is broad minded enough to take ‘use of force’ training. We should honestly ask ourselves what we would do with limited information that occurs in reality.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfi3Ndh3n-g&feature=emb_logo

  55. Gravatar of anon/portly anon/portly
    8. January 2021 at 17:51

    JHE:

    “some brilliant, insightful, and well-regarded conservative intellectuals (think, say, a certain New York Times columnist and a certain infovore blogger), who have been spending much of the last four years putting out” opinions that include things like “[s]ome of Trump’s policies actually make a lot of sense.”

    I guess the NYT one must be Stephens (who I never read at all) or Douthat or Brooks, but I have no idea who the blogger would be.

    And in any case “some of Trump’s policies actually make a lot of sense” is not brilliant or insightful, not if we’re talking about his signature policies on trade, immigration, Covid, etc.

  56. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    8. January 2021 at 17:58

    All,

    quite frankly, this reminded me completely of what my hostory teacher said the strorming of the Bastill was like, the most significant event of the French Revolution. Protesters had gathered at the Bastille (a prison) to protest, presumable for some political reasons. The guards haplessly opened the gates. The crowd went in, mostly surprised that it worked. They liberated a few prisoners, which were actually common criminals and not political prisoners.

    A lot of things can be simultaneously true, such as, yes it was a seditious riot but they didn’t really know what they were doing either. One only has to look at the pictures of them.

  57. Gravatar of Anonymous Anonymous
    8. January 2021 at 19:28

    mbka,

    Didn’t the Bastille protestors then murder all the guards? (Teaching Napoleon a very valuable lesson for later protest actions)

    “Travis, They probably “thought she had a knife”, like that poor guy in Kenosha Wisconsin.

    (Yes, I’m being sarcastic. How did America’s right-wing react to that police killing?)”

    Didn’t James Blake actually have a knife in his hand on video?

    Do you really think the whole world wouldn’t be going apeshit right now if Trump had won, the protestors were BLM, and the unarmed woman who was shot was black?

  58. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    8. January 2021 at 20:54

    Christian,

    I don’t think anyone requested police brutality per se but it is obvious that police is on average far more brutal in the US than it was this time around when it’s about the political heart of the country being under attack. It’s about the double standard. And, frankly, a competent response would have been a barricades, then tear gas, water cannons, and batons. In case of breach of perimeter, eventually rubber bullets etc. This would be standard police playbook anywhere. I really think this was ineptitude stemming from the confusion about facing a white and right wing crowd.

    Anonymous,

    you’re reinforcing my point: the Bastille is what happens when you take the seemingly innocuous step to let the protesters inside. All bets are off then. So it is a sheer miracle that only 4 people died here. And, as above, police should have absolutely and with all means prevented anyone from entering the building. “They looked peaceful” is firstly, untrue (smashing windows etc) and secondly, no guarantee it can’t turn violent in a second.

  59. Gravatar of Tacticus Tacticus
    9. January 2021 at 07:04

    @ Ray Lopez: I’m not referring to the pipe bomber, I’m referring to the Molotov cocktails.

  60. Gravatar of Mike Sax Mike Sax
    9. January 2021 at 09:31

    Regarding those of us with TDS there was a time when HDS was a thing. Like in 1924-but the more savvy knew better, he wasn’t THAT bad.

    https://twitter.com/Scaramucci/status/1347934571766149121

  61. Gravatar of Lizard Man Lizard Man
    9. January 2021 at 09:40

    I disagree strongly that Biden is a winner and Putin is a loser. Biden might have more “moral authority” in the eyes of people on the left, but he has not one more once of power or influence in Congress. So now the left, which already distrusts Biden at best, is going to be very angry that he doesn’t act more forcefully and get more accomplished. And it seems to me much less likely that he can get Republican Senators to work with Democrats in the Senate. This event and the reactions to it will polarize the country more, meaning that a higher price will be paid for any politician reaching across the isle. The odds of Romney and Collins getting challenged by strong primary opponents just went up significantly (if they do decide to run again).

    Anything that further drives polarization in the US is good for Putin. Anything that paints the US in a bad light is good for his propaganda. And anything that puts distance and mistrust between the US and its allies is good for his geopolitical ambitions. Who among the US’ allies now believes that they can predict with tolerable certainty what the US will do, or how it will respond to any event? Responsible leaders, like Angela Merkel, have to assume that the US is a not reliable, and hedge their bets and accommodate and not unnecessarily anger other great powers like China (and implicitly Russia, though I don’t know that that part was said aloud).

  62. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. January 2021 at 11:42

    Christian, When you spend your days fantasizing about what I might or might not believe on a certain issue, you are pretty much 100% wrong.

    Travis, You said:

    “Scott, I agree there is a lot of hypocrisy.”

    The most firmly established fact in all of social science. Right up there with 2+2 = 4.

    Anonymous, You said:

    “Do you really think the whole world wouldn’t be going apeshit right now if Trump had won,”

    I know how the whole world reacts to Trump wins, we saw it in 2016. And I know how Trump reacted to his loss, we saw it this year.

    Imagine a huge mob of blacks storm the Capitol, some with clubs in their hands that could be used to beat the security officers to death. Some with guns and pipe bombs. How would the right react if one of those blacks was shot by outnumbered police?

    Sometimes I wonder if you are just being a troll.

    Lizard, You said:

    “but he has not one more ounce of power or influence in Congress.”

    You are wrong. One GOP senator is even thinking of leaving the party.

    You said:

    “Anything that further drives polarization in the US is good for Putin.”

    I agree, but Trump is far more polarizing than Biden. And America is less polarized than a week ago, as many of Trump’s prominent supporters have abandoned him.

  63. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. January 2021 at 11:44

    Mike, I once read a NYT article from the early 1930s that said experts expected Hitler to moderate his views as he got closer to power.

  64. Gravatar of J.V. Dubois J.V. Dubois
    9. January 2021 at 16:11

    I agree with sean that everybody lost today. The whole incident was an unmitigated disgrace.

    But back to the point. Democrats now have The Presidency, House and Senate. They now also have their mini 9/11 event giving them moral high ground to implement stuff that was not possible previously – this is definitely the case for social media banning Trump and purgin appstores from the “alternative” communication platform Parler. And as far as I can tell Biden does not seem to feel magnanimous in his victory given his recent statement so now when the shoe is on the other foot it seems to me that it will drop hard on white supremacist terrorist which is a group that can be easily expanded from QAnon nutjobs to possibly 50% of population.

    I’d genuinely love to hear Scott’s opinion on all this. In a month or two Trump is history. What is next? Will there be some other racist republican demon to fight, some supremacist dragon to slay?

  65. Gravatar of Christian List Christian List
    9. January 2021 at 17:34

    It’s about the double standard.

    mbka,

    Okay, let it be about this double standard, I just found it funny which side of the standard is suddenly being demanded. Normal police behavior is now “kid glove treatment”.

    And, frankly, a competent response would have been a barricades, then tear gas, water cannons, and batons. In case of breach of perimeter, eventually rubber bullets etc. This would be standard police playbook anywhere.

    You have to plan and provide most of this in advance. That was not done. Now in retrospect, this was a big mistake. However, the misplanning could not be corrected by the ordinary officials in the actual situation at the time. It was too late. You have to make the best out of such a bad situation and they made the best out of it.

    I really think this was ineptitude stemming from the confusion about facing a white and right wing crowd.

    That may have played a role, yes. Trump has quite often called for such rallies and they have remained peaceful so far, at least peaceful compared to what happened at the Capitol.

    Maybe some officials in the police departments also have sympathies for Trump and did not want to see the danger. I didn’t expect it either, but from the Capitol police I expect more. They have to consider this as a scenario and be prepared for it. They weren’t.

    Maybe this is not that rare. A few weeks ago, covidiots got up to the steps of the Reichstag. They could have easily gotten into the Reichstag, there were only a few policemen on the steps, I think 4-6 facing like 50 covidiots. Eventually they didn’t go in but surely the police couldn’t have stopped them.

    When you have hundreds or even thousands of people, you can get in close to anywhere in a Western state if you’re unarmed and the police aren’t made up of trigger-happy maniacs. The “absolute security” discussion really gets on my nerves. Western politicians around the world will exploit these events to wall themselves in further and further.

    When I was in Berlin a few years ago, every tourist was allowed to enter the steps of the Reichstag. That was not so long ago. I sat down there and ate my wurstbrot. Today, the politicians claim that touching the steps of the Reichstag is an act of terrorism. Times really have changed.

  66. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    9. January 2021 at 20:55

    JV, You said:

    “And as far as I can tell Biden does not seem to feel magnanimous in his victory given his recent statement”

    Do you have any idea what Biden is like? There’s no politician in America in the past 100 years who’s made more effort to reach across the aisle. Every attempt he made to reach out to Trump was snubbed.

    Biden has lots of problems—he’s something of a buffoon. But lack of magnanimity is not one of them.

    You asked:

    “Will there be some other racist republican demon to fight, some supremacist dragon to slay?”

    Lots of them. The GOP is now the party of white nationalists.

  67. Gravatar of anon anon
    9. January 2021 at 21:30

    Perhaps some of the blame for the past 4 years and 3/Jan/2021 is on 2016 voters: those Dems that sat out voting that were anti-HRC and the moderates that switched to DJT because of, Comey (anyone remember the nothing-burger FBI Announcement about some email server in the interest of public interest?) – knowing what DJT was. DJT has been and is DJT consistently. Would the swing states that went to DJT have propelled HRC and avoided this 4 years altogether!
    Comey should be sitting somewhere alone and pondering and berating himself non-stop on how he brought this onto his motherland.

    One is only left to wonder if that had turned different in 2016 how it would be.

  68. Gravatar of ssumner ssumner
    10. January 2021 at 08:45

    anon, Good points. But once a country becomes a banana republic, it’s only a matter of time before things go off the rails. If it hadn’t been Trump, it would have been someone else.

  69. Gravatar of Peter Peter
    10. January 2021 at 14:53

    “Black Lives Matter (If you can’t see systemic racism in the kid glove treatment of that white mob, there’s nothing I can do to help you.)”

    Good old white apologetics. You are correct though in the unequal response. If the mob had been BLM it would have been classified as a protest, none of the protestors shot, the Dems would have threw the doors wide open, AOC and gang would have joined in, and the end result would have been the capitol being burnt to the ground and then celebrated nationally by the left while still blaming Trump.

    Oh and afterwards they wouldn’t be pulling camera footage to arrest everybody nor private citizens groups trying to fire them all. We have millions of hours of BLM riots committing crimes, get back to me when the FBI, etc start arresting them all, going on witch hunts, and private groups start tracking them all down to get the fired coupled with companies willing to fire them for it.

    So yeah you are correct, the hatred is real .. just not in the direction you think.

    PS: And there were a lot of non-white folk in that protest. Proud Boys for example is a minority majority organization. Plenty of women too in that protest. But yet, evil whitey.

  70. Gravatar of mbka mbka
    11. January 2021 at 05:31

    Peter,

    I watched a lot of photos and videos of that event, can’t recall seeing a single non white person. And why you mention “women” as a contrast to “white” is beyond me.

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