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Comment by kadoban | Hacker News Reader

One party attempted a coup and no organizers have yet even been charged with any crimes. If you allow the basic system of government to be attacked without repercussion, that's not going to have a peaceful end.

Social media and "the news media" may be part of our issues, but they're not the whole of them.

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If by "attempted a coup" you mean "walked calmly into an otherwise empty building after police let them in", then yes. The whole thing is a joke once you dig into it, all propaganda to try and make people scared of each other. We even had elected leadership lying about being on premises when it happened (Cortez).

"United we stand, divided we fall", and the goal of most media rhetoric is to divide. Don't trust the "it was a coup" rhetoric. Dig in, take a look at the footage of what happened at the capitol. Don't take the media's word for it.

Some people in Jan 6 assaulted capital guard and chased people into private areas of Congress. But I don’t think they had any chance of overturning the election.

All they needed to do, and what the plan was, was to disrupt the proceedings and get more time.

More time for what? They left quickly and peacefully when asked. Wasn’t much of a plan. definitely not evidence of a strong desire to do what it takes.

Their goal was to prevent the certification of the vote, and to pressure Pence to assist with that.

They wanted to throw it back to the states, have them do more "review" or give different electors.

If nobody can convincingly be said to have the required number of electoral votes, the US House decides, with each state getting one vote.

> They left quickly and peacefully when asked

Oh? Then what is anyone being charged with and convicted for exactly?

They finally left vaguely once Trump asked, because he was forced into it, it hadn't worked, and public pressure had risen.

> Oh? Then what is anyone being charged with and convicted for exactly?

Importantly, there are very few being charged with anything. Not everyone, but a very few people.

Also note the presence of undercover FBI on premises as members of alt-right groups [0].

[0] https://republicandaily.com/2021/07/confirmed-undercover-age... <-- The editorial is left to the end of the summary of news events. I really, really wish we could go back to a world of just reporting and not editorializing.

Last I checked there are ~700 people being charged (or already convicted). How is that "very few", what are we comparing against?

I don't get what the rest of your comment is about, you'll have to spell it out for me. The feds _should_ be targetting these far-right extremists. They've shown themselves to be violent threats to society and democracy.

I’ve seen about an hour footage and it doesn’t tell the narrative you’re trying to tell.

They came armed, attacked police and guards, broke in, had tools and plans necessary to kidnap and assassinate members of congress and Pence, had maps of where to go, there were organized groups hiding their presence, had plans with some members of congress, etc.

You are at _best_ completely misinformed.

A bunch of boomers stealing stuff off Pelosi's desk and posting selfies with #patriot on Instagram is not a coup. It was sad and pathetic, not an attempted coup. If it was, it was the worst one planned in history. A bunch of people show up, mostly unarmed and stand around and take pictures and shout 'mericaaaa a bunch of times.

They had a zero percent chance of taking over the government. Do you seriously think that a bunch Q-cultists that didn't even fire a single shot could take over the US government?

What they did was not OK, but it's clearly not what you are making it out to be.

Those people ARE facing repercussions. Many of them are facing prosecution. We should avoid this type of partisan rhetoric. I know it's a nice talking point to call it a coup and all and helps get clicks, but let's look at things as they actually happened.

The system IS working (these folks are going to court) and hyperbole only leads to more division.

It's a coup when it's planned and assisted by Trump and his cronies.

The "system" is doing a poor job so far of punishing anyone but the useful idiots.

What would have Trump done if the certification was delayed? He certainly wouldn't have made a public statement that Joe Biden won a fair election and would be president on Jan 20. He's still claiming the election was stolen.

For what it's worth, many of the capitol rioters have been charged. Not nearly enough though. Trump/Guiliani probably deserve to be in prison and that's unlikely to happen.

At this point one of our few chances is the investigation in the House being done well and the media reporting it well. Neither one is a given, I'm especially pessimistic about the latter.

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