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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

> Trump proved in two minutes that whatever else you can say about him, he's very capable of responding well to pressure.

Trump was unable of decisive action between 12noon and 5pm on January 6th, despite being commander in chief of the Army, the National Guard, Air Force, and all the powers that be.

He was so unable of decisive action, it was Mike Pence who eventually made the call to ask for National Guard for help.

4+ hours of inaction. And you call a fist-pumping photo-op to be the thing you care about?

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Trump wasn't in the building, Pence was. The president isn't even in charge of capital security due to the separation of powers, that control lies with Congress which handled it miserablely.

Had Trump done what you have suggested here, it could have been easily construed as a coup, the real kind.

I don't think it would have worked.

The Joint Chiefs had publicly announced 6 months prior during BLM riots that if Trump would issue such an order to the Sec. Def., the generals and staff officers of the COCOM wouldn't execute it. And that was not two weeks before investiture of the new president.

If he'd tried it, that would be a very short lived coup of the real kind.

Okay so just as a refresher, the parent comment I'd replied to was criticizing Trump for not marching the military into the capital to stop a group of unarmed protesters from loitering in the capital building (implying his inaction was suspect). I was pointing out that such an action would be construed as a genuine coup with serious consequences, so with that in mind, what exactly are you getting at here? I'm having trouble keeping track of all the crazy conspiracies surrounding this event.

>what exactly are you getting at here.

I don't disagree with you. I merely wanted to add that whatever anybody is saying left or right, it probably wouldn't have worked had he tried an actual coup. From a rational POV I don't really understand all the brouhaha.

Compared to a lot of other situations elsewhere, Jan 6th was a minor spectacle, nothing serious (see Yellow Vests protests in France).

I think we all expected Trump to at least call off the protesters.

But instead, Trump gave us hours of inaction. Precious hours wasted during the time we needed leadership most.

I'm not planning on voting such an indecisive man into office.

Wasn't he literally banned on Twitter after posting a "stand down" video that afternoon?

The stand down video he posted at 6:02pm?

You know, long after Pence authorized the National Guard units and activated them?

Shaky Trump had his chance to prove he was a decisive leader back then. He failed the test in the most spectacular fashion.

You are making the assumption that there exists such a thing as a rational "homo politicus" as much as economists used to think there was a rational "homo economicus" they could count on.

Really not wanting to defend Trump here - a dictator in the making - but you should be aware of your own biases. Elections are mostly not decided on rational choices _you_ would make based on _your_ perspective and _your_ logic, any of which might have many failings.

So yes, that fist pumping photo is _that_ important and will probably get Trump a 10+ percentage points of vote, and the win, because unless the DNC pulls a rabbit out of their hat, OTOH you have an elderly tired old man with terminal Parkinson's whose own party is trying to get rid of at the last minute.

Presumably, you and I care about the Truth though and coming up with the closest arguments to the Truth.

Otherwise, there's not much point in discussion or truth discovery.

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