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Comment by mbostleman | Hacker News Reader

>>lately it seems that "the right" remains undecided about whether or not it is acceptable to threaten the lives of politicians who refused to overturn the results of an election>>

This isn't even remotely a representative sentiment of the 70+ million people that are not on the "left".

>>"The left" is for democracy>>

Again, I don't think we would find this accurate if data were collected. Both sides are "for democracy". I think what you would find is something slightly more refined: that one side appreciates that democracy alone is flawed and requires a strong constitution to guard against its propensity to oppress individuals. The other side finds a constitution that limits democracy too constraining.

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> This isn't even remotely a representative sentiment of the 70+ million people that are not on the "left".

Probably not, but it’s a pretty accurate summary of their leadership.

The facts are the 45 and the Republicans attempted to throw out the results of an election.

You can argue that most people on the right do not agree with this, but they should really stop voting for these people then.

"...45 and the Republicans attempted to throw out the results of an election."

Do you mean that 45 Republicans voted against ratifying the electoral college votes? My understanding is that that vote is largely procedural and that the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election. If you take away that context it makes for a great narrative in this election (the whole histrionic overthrow theme), but context often matters.

My understanding could be wrong, though. I couldn't quickly put my hands on the historical voting record. Or maybe that's not what you're referring to.

No, "45" was a reference to the last president.

>the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election.

Really? That would be news to me. Do you have a source for that?

I think I addressed that in my last paragraph.

Your understanding is wrong.

Voting against result certification is occasionally used as a protest against certain specific irregularities. It is absolutely not common to vote against them, and not in these numbers (i.e. not as a lone congressperson or two drawing attention to something they see as a problem).

[ EDIT: added known historical examples ]

Specific examples: 2016, 11 Democrats rose to object to certifying Trump's results; none of them had obtained a Senator's cosignature and so all were dismissed immediately. Objections were based on reports of Russian interference, subsequently confirmed in the broadest sense by the Mueller and Senate reports, though their findings would not have likely invalidated any actual results.

2004: 1 Senator and 1 Representative raised objections to results favoring Bush from a single state. They both stressed that their objections were not intended to change the outcome of that election.

2001: on the order of 15 Representatives raised objections to the Gore/Bush result, which had been decided by the SCOTUS. No Senator joined them, and Gore himself dropped the Gavel on their protest.

Ok, only 40% wrong. So protesting that the election was flawed occurred in 60% of the elections in the last two decades, which more than supports my point that without such context the overthrow narrative loses a good deal of its exaggerated effect when one learns that this election was not unique on that point.

I think that scale matters. The number of house members and their coordination with 6 senators in my mind makes what happened this year different in so many important ways. Obviously, YMMV.

> My understanding is that that vote is largely procedural and that the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election

No. The only times prior to 2021 that an objection in proper form to trigger a debate and vote on any state’s submitted electoral votes since the modern process was adopted in 1887 were in 2005 and 1969 (the latter over a faithless elector), both addressing only a single state, and the 2005 example was explicitly stated to be an effort to draw attention to electoral system issues rather than alter the outcome; there weren't members who voted for it stating on national TV the expectation that who would be President was in doubt based on the action the way, e.g., Sen. Hawley did in regard to the challenges this month.

The world is not divided into two camps, not should it be. Some people are neither with nor against you; they've got their own things going on.

Labels can be divisive and tribal when used against individuals, to smear them by saying they're guilty of the bad actions of a few in a group. However language itself is built on "labels", so they're required.

It's impossible to criticize bad ideas without some shorthand label for those kinds of thinking and ideologies. The fact that whole entire groups hold those same ideas necessarily is a critique of the entire group, and is necessarily tribal. But labels are nonetheless also necessary for the discussion to take place.

Democracies can only thrive when there's an educated population free to discuss all ideas, and allowed to strongly criticize or even ridicule those they disagree with. Yet people like Jack Dorsey think it's their duty to step in as a referee to make sure everyone's polite and behaves according to his personal political views. He needs to be put back in his place, because no one elected him, and he just fell backwards by accident into a power position over millions by pure luck.

You implied that “the right” means everyone not on “the left” – but I thought “the right” and “the left” were labels for political ideologies.

To me "The Left" means the set of beliefs more than it means the set of believers, but you can't have a belief without a believer.

From this description, I can't tell which side you're characterizing as which. That would generally imply it's more of a platitude than a real realization.

Also while that may be true of individuals (I don't think it is), it clearly isn't true of party leadership.

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