8 ms·

Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly

Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly prepare for it?

s__s 6y ago
When it happened, there was a reporter on CBC talking about how it was common knowledge in DC for a long time that there was a protest planned there. So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.
- dgellow 6y ago
  The protest was planned, that’s for sure. But here the context is the attack, not the protest.
  - throwaway_6142 6y ago
    Can somebody explain, since this was a long planned coup attempt against a Capitol that has its own police force, in a capital that has one of the largest and most heavily armed police forces in the world, why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? And instead behaved mostly like an out of control protest with a few dozen violent rioters? It is a very peculiar way to attempt to overthrow a government.
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      I suspect they thought there'd be more complicity or active support from the police/guards. bringing your guns out in the open directly would have been too visible a giveaway up front, giving people time to react/block.
      - throwaway_6142 6y ago
        Oh, of course; 'my political enemies are moustash-twirling evil geniuses whose masterful contrived plan months in the making is such an imminent threat to democracy that we must suspend it to save it, but they are simultaneously ridiculously stupid and comically inept imbecilles completely detached from reality'. It sounds suspiciously like the crude rhetoric of war progaganda to dehumanize an enemy. Edit: instaflagged of course, stay classy lefties.
    - afavour 6y ago
      You don’t need the guns if you have people on the inside. And a good number of the rioters seemed really quite surprised when law enforcement fought back against them. After all, they were carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, surely the cops are on their side! (and besides, there were a good number of people with guns at the protest. And some others brought pipe bombs. Thankfully neither ended up being a factor but no one would have known that at the time)
      - throwaway316943 6y ago
        Doesn’t add up. How are you going to hold the Capitol or any hostages without weapons?
        afavour 6y ago
        As I said, they did have weapons. Not an overwhelming amount of them certainly, but more than enough to pose a threat if they managed to capture Nancy Pelosi. And again: if you have the support of the police (and potentially also the armed forces) it’s all pretty moot anyway.
        nl 6y ago
        The QAnon "storm" narrative revolved around unnamed "true patriots" within some unnamed national security service rising up to overthrow the corrupt.. something. Or at least that's the common interpretation of QAnon ramblings. But the point is that there wasn't any centralised leadership plotting this. There was some groups (who did have weapons) who were absolutely planning this, but the protestors in general was much more decentralized in purpose and method.
        three_seagrass 6y ago
        The FBI divulged this morning that the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, were trying to trap congress members in the underground tunnels of the capitol to gas them.
        masonic 6y ago
        No, they didn't. FBI charging documents make zero references to any of the OK defendants possessing any form of lethal, or even irritant, gas weapons.
    - simonh 6y ago
      A lot of the protesters have said they expected the police to be largely on their side. I suspect that when things got violent both the armed rioters and police realised that guns would just end up in a blood bath on both sides, and the first person to shoot on either side would probably end up dead pretty quickly.
      - throwaway_6142 6y ago
        If I suspend my disbelief for a second, do you have a link to any interviews or similar with those protesters? Surely you are not conflating quotes from peaceful demonstrators against (alleged) election fraud, with militants trying to violently overthrow the government?
        simonh 6y ago
        Here's a WP article on it. I remember seeing video of a woman retreating from the Capitol saying something about them being on the same side as the police and complaining why they weren't joining them, but I can't find it, sorry. One of the protesters was carrying blue lives matter flag. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6nf0pQJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/capitol-police-officers-support/2021/01/08/a16e07a2-51da-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6...
        philwelch 6y ago
        Is this the same woman who was crying, “they pushed me down and maced me” while dabbing her face with an onion?
        simonh 6y ago
        That's the one. There's a theory that onions help neutralise the effects of mace, they've been used by protesters in the Middle East for this and it's possible some of the Capitol rioters came with them and gave her one.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? Because despite their public rhetoric and willingness to carry guns when they don’t expect law enforcement opposition, they realized that their only chance of success at the Capitol was to not be treated by law enforcement the way that law enforcement (including the Secret Service) would treat a visibly-armed mob surrounding the Capitol during proceedings (which include Secret Service protectees).
      - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
        How did they coordinate not bringing guns? Or did they each individually realize this strategy without coordination? I think you’re giving them too much credit here.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        I agree that “realized their chance of success” makes it more group-strategic than is probably warranted. “Realized that the likely law enforcement stance likely at the Capitol would make visibly carrying a firearm increase their personal risk rather than their effectiveness” is probably more accurate.
- cogman10 6y ago
  Yup, that's what really stinks about these protests. You could go to several social media sites and see the 6th plans. It was incredible to see so few Capitol police guarding the capitol. Further, the fact that they didn't employ things like tear gas sooner was incredible. They just sort of let the rioters through the weak barriers they setup. Security HAD to have known this was coming. This wasn't some secret plot. I knew this was coming just because I like to keep tabs on what the trump supporters are saying. It was all over the reddit knockoff (win).
  - rayiner 6y ago
    There have been a bunch of Trump protests in DC since the election. The city was boarded up in preparation for them. But they’ve all been completely peaceful. People got complacent.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    The winds that day were fairly strong (looked like 15+ knots, with many of the flags being fully horizontal). It seems like tear gas would be relatively ineffective as a crowd-dispersal agent in strong winds.
  - reubenswartz 6y ago
    That's why trump replaced his secretary of defense after he lost the election. That's why they didn't bring in requested national guard troops. (if I understand the situation, Trump never authorized the NG, as he was cheering on the coup from the WH, and the guard deployed bc Pence was pleading for it, which has its own weird constitutional issues.)
    - masonic 6y ago
      He offered to dispatch NG, but that request legally had to come from the Capitol Police (which does not report to the Administration branch in any way), just like NG can't be deployed in states without the governor specifically requesting same and declaring a formal State of Emergency. "Not just a good idea... It's the law."
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Compared to other DC protests, the absence of preparation was the preparation. Clearly some of the Establishment wanted it to succeed.
  - cogman10 6y ago
    They employed tear gas to get Trump to hold a bible upside down. [1] It's hard to overstate how poorly they managed this. This is something a special investigation should be commissioned out by congress/the DOJ. [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-...
    - matwood 6y ago
      Doesn't change your point, but the Bible was right side up.
  - tomp 6y ago
    > Clearly some of the Establishment wanted it to succeed. Or massively & publicly fail... if we’re trading conspiracy theories.
    - simonh 6y ago
      Fail in what way? I mean they didn’t actually overthrow the government or string up Pence, but their penetration and looting of the Capitol buildings was incredibly successful.
      - germinalphrase 6y ago
        They were within minutes (reported in national newspapers as “within one minute”) of being in the room with Mike Pence, so perhaps the Vice President was lucky.
      - kristopolous 6y ago
        Qanon and friends have been talking about "the storm" for years now. January 6 was either luck and foolery or clever planning. A year ago I would have said luck but the weekend before super Tuesday last year with the centrists clearing the lane for Biden all within 36 hours convinced me there's capable skilled political actors who can orchestrate things. January 6 was perhaps the least harmful version of the storm possible. The people there, they are the kinds of people that follow crazy conspiracies and do mass shootings, tens thousands of them. They've been antagonized and fueled this antigovernment narrative, some of them for almost 30 years by the shock jock grifters. They got their storm, the pitchfork moment and relatively little violence happened, it lasted just an afternoon, then they left, not returning the next day and now people are being arrested in a way that doesn't martyr them as revolutionaries or put them into any kind of overarching constructive narrative. They weren't lined up against the wall and taken care of like revolutionaries but instead individually arrested like common criminals. There was no clear "deep state" repression or large arrests to stoke the conspiracies of prison camps etc. The storm happened. It was a dud. Afterwards the conspiracy social media accounts were denouncing the Republican party. Almost like the Republicans were able to shake off this toxic part of their coalition in the exchange. This is an extremely favorable outcome for the establishment. They even got to shut down a bunch of the biggest troublemakers in the process. So really I don't know what to think. Brilliant execution or dumb luck, maybe a bit of both...
- jjulius 6y ago
  Anecdotally, I tuned into some of the protester's livestreams early on because I assumed that they would be trying to get into the building to stop the confirmation of Biden's win. It almost felt so incredibly obvious to me that it was going to happen.
- Jimmc414 6y ago
  My guess is that it was a calculated decision to allow to allow a poorly organized insurrection attempt to fail as opposed to shutting things down and strengthening their cause. Life was certainly lost. So if that's what happened they should have shut it down as it was happening instead of ignoring capitol police calls for support.
- Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
  Some of the Capitol Police workers did apparently bring concerns to their supervisors, but nothing much was done about it. Part of the answer that I am surprised you haven't been given yet is that there is an ongoing infiltration of the police forces in this country by far right wing activists. I mean, Exhibit A is the two off-duty cops from (I think) one of the Carolinas that were present in the actual riot. Here is a think piece [0] that has links to sources. I would not be surprised at all to learn that there were people in the Capitol Police itself who were sympathizers. [0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...
whoknew1122 6y ago
Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.
- aaronbrethorst 6y ago
  Far-right terrorism has been taken seriously as recently as 2009, but conservatives complained they were being treated unfairly and the efforts were abandoned. 2009 reporting: https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ 2012 update: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ 2017 update: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/21/i-warned-of-right-wing-violence-in-2009-it-caused-an-uproar-i-was-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/0... 2020 update: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism-warning-signs https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- neartheplain 6y ago
  Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. That's not really true. Far-right terror was taken very seriously in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI hired 500 agents specifically to focus on domestic terrorism [0], particularly the then-new militia movement. Virtually every state and federal law enforcement agency established a domestic terror unit. Through continuous effort they'd pretty much quashed the militia movement by 2004, despite the shift of federal resources to the Global War on Terror post-9/11. However, far-right militias surged again in the Obama years [2]. (Much further back, U.S. Grant used the Army to crack down on the Klan [3]. Unfortunately, his successor Rutherford B. Hayes effectively ended Reconstruction and rolled back much of this progress.) [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1374356.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.c... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia91.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickro... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754/report-explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-and-militias-continues https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754... [3] https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm
dmkolobov 6y ago
Who would have thought that the police would softball their response to a large group of armed right-wing racists. lol.
throw-239582woh 6y ago
A few possibilities: - Overcorrection: law enforcement had come under fire for using excessive force against protests and they erred on the other side. - Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the pro-Trump faction, who (incorrectly) thought they could make Trump president for life once the Q Shaman took the Senate. - Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the anti-Trump faction, who (correctly) thought that letting the protest go too far would be politically devastating for their enemies, and would provide the hook for passing new security laws. - Incompetence: America can't protect its capitol for the same reason it can't distribute a vaccine, build railways or put a man on the moon.
- curlypaul924 6y ago
  This is similar to the conclusion I came to. Because there are so many logical possibilities, without a reputable source definitively stating that one of these is right, the door is open for anyone to pick a narrative and run with it.
sanderjd 6y ago
There are different conversations in different places. The conversation here is obsessed with "censorship" for fairly clear reasons; more of our livelihoods depend on how these rules work. But there is a very active conversation about the law enforcement breakdown on multiple levels. I expect there will be a 9/11 style commission. I expect its findings to be very depressing (along the lines of the people in charge going easier on people they viewed more as "us" rather than "them").
mixmastamyk 6y ago
When the commander in chief is the orchestrator, blaming law enforcement is not clear cut either.
- r00fus 6y ago
  "Following orders" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. If LE didn't speak out, they are co-conspirators.
  - kibwen 6y ago
    Well, "following orders" can absolutely be a get-out-of-jail-free card when the orders come from the person in charge of handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      At a minimum, it is a reason people expect to get get out jail free cards when the person perceived to be giving orders has the power to hand out get out of jail free cards.
    - r00fus 6y ago
      Considering the person in charge giving out said cards is going to be out of office tomorrow, that excuse is going to have less and less use going forward. The constitutionality of "future-effective" pardons is in question. There's also the question of if those pardons will even be issued (does he care enough).
- curlypaul924 6y ago
  It's not clear whether the President was the orchestrator, or whether he was the conductor for music written by someone else.
CreatedJust4Ths 6y ago
Law enforcement has been infiltrated, that's why.
downandout 6y ago
It’s not at all weird that the discussion has centered around censorship in reaction to this. As Winston Churchill once said...”Never let a good crisis go to waste” [1]. Democrats are seizing upon the opportunity created by this incident to permanently silence their opposition and attempt to cement long-term political power. A former Facebook official has even publicly suggested that cable companies banish conservative news networks, and that Facebook and YouTube expel conservative influencers from their platforms, in reaction to the incident [2]. Attempting to silence and ostracize vast swaths of the population seems like it might backfire in pretty dramatic fashion. Even Jack Dorsey acknowledged that we had entered into dangerous territory when Twitter blocked Trump and the rest of big tech killed Parler, and he seemed to suggest that the only long-term solution was decentralized social media [3] (something I have been saying since they did this). In any event, we are certainly in for a wild ride over the next few years. American society is cracking at the seams, and our “leaders” and financially-incentivized media companies seem to be actively encouraging it. [1] https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/never-waste-a-good-water-crisis/ https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/never-waste-a-good-water-cr... [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/former-facebook-official-suggests-cable-providers-drop-oann-and-newsmax-turn-down-the-capability-of-these-conservative-influencers/ar-BB1cPZ9P https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/former-facebook-offic... [3] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690?s=21 https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690?s=21
newacct583 6y ago
> it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship The discussion here has focused on the shutdown of Parler, both because the demographic leans right and because tech people feel more comfortable talking about data access and civil liberties than about political violence. In the rest of society, I assure you, the laser focus of discussion is absolutely about the act itself, and the response to it, and questions about the likelihood of it happening again. The stuff about Parler is a side show for the most part.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  If it’s due to a right leaning user base then you can be pretty sure that half the country has the same concerns. Everyone seems to keep forgetting that.
Lammy 6y ago
TPTB like when certain tragedies happen because it catalyzes public support for laws they want to pass.
bigiain 6y ago
Cynical view: Because way too much of law enforcement is totally in on it, from upper management right the way down to beat cops. Compare their (collective) preparations and actions on the 6th to their preparation and actions at many many black lives matter protests. Like the song says: "Some of those who join forces, are the same who burn crosses."
- konjin 6y ago
  Or they paid exactly the right amount of attention to it and it's only the media that's blown it out of proportion. Had this been a BLM protest it would have been one of the 'mostly peaceful' ones with questions about why a rent a cop killed her when the professionals in front of him didn't think it was a situation to use deadly force in. The hypocrisy from both sides is astonishing and the reason why cops can kill whoever they feel like: half the country will cheer them on because that {anarchist,nazi} deserved it. I find it sickening that I share a citizenship with blood thirsty savages with no concept of empathy.
  - freshedplug 6y ago
    I'm pretty surprised to not see more opinions like this. I'm in Minneapolis. Last summer, during the protests a police station was burned. To me, it seemed like a protest that got out of hand. Didn't seem like am organized attack on the police station. At the capital, that also seems to me like a protest that got out of hand. In each case, the opposing side seems convinced of much more malicious intent. I think that is the worst part - everyone is deeply offended when their opposition does X, but they support their own flavor of X when done by their side.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  *work forces
misiti3780 6y ago
I have heard two theories that seemed plausible to me: 1. The Capitol police are used to dealing with large protests. They happen frequently in DC, especially in and around the capitol. So they may have unfortunately assumed that there is no reason to think this protest would be different, and thus not prepared properly 2. They assumed that a pro-Trump, QANON crowd would be pro-police. This is probably not a bad assumption, some of the people were waving blue lives matter flags etc. If they assumed that, they might have assumed that they would not break the law and were under-prepared. Another plausible explanation could be large portion of the officers were sympathetic to the cause, but I'm not sure I have seen any evidence of that yet.
chalst 6y ago
Trump appointees in the intelligence services were attacking members who investigated far- right threats. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/why-dhs-failed-to-warn-the-country-about-jan-6 https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/why-dhs-failed-to-wa...
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
"law enforcement" was in on it. I'm using the term loosely here, I'm mainly thinking "police"; the FBI seems to have things in order much better at least. The warning signs were there for YEARS, but nobody's dared to stand up to the domestic terrorist organizations - probably because the president was one of them. "Stand back and stand by". If you picture a Venn diagram, there's a significant overlap in Republicans, the insurrectionists, QAnon / Pizzagate types, Blue Lives Matters, the police, and nazis / white supremacists.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  They haven’t drawn much attention from LE because they haven’t been a serious threat. I still don’t think they are. The Capitol security were overwhelmed by a massive protest providing cover for a large number of rioters to force their way in through unexpected routes. Those rioters were certainly a mix of malevolent and deluded but they were minimally violent considering the amount of opportunity and motive present. They should still be prosecuted, just not for terrorism. If this becomes our new bar for terrorism charges then don’t be surprised when you wind up on a no fly list and get a knock on your door after attending a protest.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > They should still be prosecuted, just not for terrorism “Terrorism” isn't an actual crime you can be charged for regarding acts within the US (terrorism outside the US is a specific federal crime, as is material support for terrorism—the latter of which references knowing support for a wide range of crimes under the ambit of terrorism, a number of which seem not implausible to be justifiably charged against participants in the capitol insurrection, such as conspiring to kill or kidnap the President, Vice President, any member of Congress, etc.) > If this becomes our new bar for terrorism charges then don’t be surprised when you wind up on a no fly list and get a knock on your door after attending a protest. The “no-fly” list doesn't require being charged with anything, anyhow, much less “terrorism” specifically,
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
mtgx 6y ago
That's actually what happens in cases of terrorism, too. Law enforcement/spy agencies are never blamed for not catching them sooner, even though most of the time they were already on their terror watch lists and even arrested for similar stuff. But "somehow" the discussion always shifts to the government needing more surveillance powers to catch them next time.
boublepop 6y ago
It seems so oddly funny to have people honestly question why the government didn’t make more efforts to stop something supported by their governments top leader. It’s kind of like asking why didn’t the Russian police make efforts to stop a KGB assassination. I mean do we really have to ask why? Isn’t it more relevant just to ask who knew about the attacks and kick them to the curb either for being astronomically incompetent, or either passively or actively assisting the attack?

Yeah, it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship, rather than like... why didn't law enforcement shut this down sooner? Or at least properly prepare for it?

s__s 6y ago

When it happened, there was a reporter on CBC talking about how it was common knowledge in DC for a long time that there was a protest planned there. So indeed. The real question is why was there seemingly no preparation to handle it.

dgellow 6y ago
The protest was planned, that’s for sure. But here the context is the attack, not the protest.
- throwaway_6142 6y ago
  Can somebody explain, since this was a long planned coup attempt against a Capitol that has its own police force, in a capital that has one of the largest and most heavily armed police forces in the world, why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? And instead behaved mostly like an out of control protest with a few dozen violent rioters? It is a very peculiar way to attempt to overthrow a government.
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    I suspect they thought there'd be more complicity or active support from the police/guards. bringing your guns out in the open directly would have been too visible a giveaway up front, giving people time to react/block.
    - throwaway_6142 6y ago
      Oh, of course; 'my political enemies are moustash-twirling evil geniuses whose masterful contrived plan months in the making is such an imminent threat to democracy that we must suspend it to save it, but they are simultaneously ridiculously stupid and comically inept imbecilles completely detached from reality'. It sounds suspiciously like the crude rhetoric of war progaganda to dehumanize an enemy. Edit: instaflagged of course, stay classy lefties.
  - afavour 6y ago
    You don’t need the guns if you have people on the inside. And a good number of the rioters seemed really quite surprised when law enforcement fought back against them. After all, they were carrying Blue Lives Matter flags, surely the cops are on their side! (and besides, there were a good number of people with guns at the protest. And some others brought pipe bombs. Thankfully neither ended up being a factor but no one would have known that at the time)
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      Doesn’t add up. How are you going to hold the Capitol or any hostages without weapons?
      - afavour 6y ago
        As I said, they did have weapons. Not an overwhelming amount of them certainly, but more than enough to pose a threat if they managed to capture Nancy Pelosi. And again: if you have the support of the police (and potentially also the armed forces) it’s all pretty moot anyway.
      - nl 6y ago
        The QAnon "storm" narrative revolved around unnamed "true patriots" within some unnamed national security service rising up to overthrow the corrupt.. something. Or at least that's the common interpretation of QAnon ramblings. But the point is that there wasn't any centralised leadership plotting this. There was some groups (who did have weapons) who were absolutely planning this, but the protestors in general was much more decentralized in purpose and method.
      - three_seagrass 6y ago
        The FBI divulged this morning that the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militia, were trying to trap congress members in the underground tunnels of the capitol to gas them.
        masonic 6y ago
        No, they didn't. FBI charging documents make zero references to any of the OK defendants possessing any form of lethal, or even irritant, gas weapons.
  - simonh 6y ago
    A lot of the protesters have said they expected the police to be largely on their side. I suspect that when things got violent both the armed rioters and police realised that guns would just end up in a blood bath on both sides, and the first person to shoot on either side would probably end up dead pretty quickly.
    - throwaway_6142 6y ago
      If I suspend my disbelief for a second, do you have a link to any interviews or similar with those protesters? Surely you are not conflating quotes from peaceful demonstrators against (alleged) election fraud, with militants trying to violently overthrow the government?
      - simonh 6y ago
        Here's a WP article on it. I remember seeing video of a woman retreating from the Capitol saying something about them being on the same side as the police and complaining why they weren't joining them, but I can't find it, sorry. One of the protesters was carrying blue lives matter flag. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6nf0pQJ:https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/capitol-police-officers-support/2021/01/08/a16e07a2-51da-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:IKWa_6...
        philwelch 6y ago
        Is this the same woman who was crying, “they pushed me down and maced me” while dabbing her face with an onion?
        simonh 6y ago
        That's the one. There's a theory that onions help neutralise the effects of mace, they've been used by protesters in the Middle East for this and it's possible some of the Capitol rioters came with them and gave her one.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > why did the guncrazy far right militants leave their guns at home? Because despite their public rhetoric and willingness to carry guns when they don’t expect law enforcement opposition, they realized that their only chance of success at the Capitol was to not be treated by law enforcement the way that law enforcement (including the Secret Service) would treat a visibly-armed mob surrounding the Capitol during proceedings (which include Secret Service protectees).
    - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
      How did they coordinate not bringing guns? Or did they each individually realize this strategy without coordination? I think you’re giving them too much credit here.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        I agree that “realized their chance of success” makes it more group-strategic than is probably warranted. “Realized that the likely law enforcement stance likely at the Capitol would make visibly carrying a firearm increase their personal risk rather than their effectiveness” is probably more accurate.
cogman10 6y ago
Yup, that's what really stinks about these protests. You could go to several social media sites and see the 6th plans. It was incredible to see so few Capitol police guarding the capitol. Further, the fact that they didn't employ things like tear gas sooner was incredible. They just sort of let the rioters through the weak barriers they setup. Security HAD to have known this was coming. This wasn't some secret plot. I knew this was coming just because I like to keep tabs on what the trump supporters are saying. It was all over the reddit knockoff (win).
- rayiner 6y ago
  There have been a bunch of Trump protests in DC since the election. The city was boarded up in preparation for them. But they’ve all been completely peaceful. People got complacent.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  The winds that day were fairly strong (looked like 15+ knots, with many of the flags being fully horizontal). It seems like tear gas would be relatively ineffective as a crowd-dispersal agent in strong winds.
- reubenswartz 6y ago
  That's why trump replaced his secretary of defense after he lost the election. That's why they didn't bring in requested national guard troops. (if I understand the situation, Trump never authorized the NG, as he was cheering on the coup from the WH, and the guard deployed bc Pence was pleading for it, which has its own weird constitutional issues.)
  - masonic 6y ago
    He offered to dispatch NG, but that request legally had to come from the Capitol Police (which does not report to the Administration branch in any way), just like NG can't be deployed in states without the governor specifically requesting same and declaring a formal State of Emergency. "Not just a good idea... It's the law."
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Compared to other DC protests, the absence of preparation was the preparation. Clearly some of the Establishment wanted it to succeed.
- cogman10 6y ago
  They employed tear gas to get Trump to hold a bible upside down. [1] It's hard to overstate how poorly they managed this. This is something a special investigation should be commissioned out by congress/the DOJ. [1] https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-...
  - matwood 6y ago
    Doesn't change your point, but the Bible was right side up.
- tomp 6y ago
  > Clearly some of the Establishment wanted it to succeed. Or massively & publicly fail... if we’re trading conspiracy theories.
  - simonh 6y ago
    Fail in what way? I mean they didn’t actually overthrow the government or string up Pence, but their penetration and looting of the Capitol buildings was incredibly successful.
    - germinalphrase 6y ago
      They were within minutes (reported in national newspapers as “within one minute”) of being in the room with Mike Pence, so perhaps the Vice President was lucky.
    - kristopolous 6y ago
      Qanon and friends have been talking about "the storm" for years now. January 6 was either luck and foolery or clever planning. A year ago I would have said luck but the weekend before super Tuesday last year with the centrists clearing the lane for Biden all within 36 hours convinced me there's capable skilled political actors who can orchestrate things. January 6 was perhaps the least harmful version of the storm possible. The people there, they are the kinds of people that follow crazy conspiracies and do mass shootings, tens thousands of them. They've been antagonized and fueled this antigovernment narrative, some of them for almost 30 years by the shock jock grifters. They got their storm, the pitchfork moment and relatively little violence happened, it lasted just an afternoon, then they left, not returning the next day and now people are being arrested in a way that doesn't martyr them as revolutionaries or put them into any kind of overarching constructive narrative. They weren't lined up against the wall and taken care of like revolutionaries but instead individually arrested like common criminals. There was no clear "deep state" repression or large arrests to stoke the conspiracies of prison camps etc. The storm happened. It was a dud. Afterwards the conspiracy social media accounts were denouncing the Republican party. Almost like the Republicans were able to shake off this toxic part of their coalition in the exchange. This is an extremely favorable outcome for the establishment. They even got to shut down a bunch of the biggest troublemakers in the process. So really I don't know what to think. Brilliant execution or dumb luck, maybe a bit of both...
jjulius 6y ago
Anecdotally, I tuned into some of the protester's livestreams early on because I assumed that they would be trying to get into the building to stop the confirmation of Biden's win. It almost felt so incredibly obvious to me that it was going to happen.
Jimmc414 6y ago
My guess is that it was a calculated decision to allow to allow a poorly organized insurrection attempt to fail as opposed to shutting things down and strengthening their cause. Life was certainly lost. So if that's what happened they should have shut it down as it was happening instead of ignoring capitol police calls for support.
Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
Some of the Capitol Police workers did apparently bring concerns to their supervisors, but nothing much was done about it. Part of the answer that I am surprised you haven't been given yet is that there is an ongoing infiltration of the police forces in this country by far right wing activists. I mean, Exhibit A is the two off-duty cops from (I think) one of the Carolinas that were present in the actual riot. Here is a think piece [0] that has links to sources. I would not be surprised at all to learn that there were people in the Capitol Police itself who were sympathizers. [0] https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidden-plain-sight-racism-white-supremacy-and-far-right-militancy-law https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/hidd...

whoknew1122 6y ago

Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. Until the Capitol was attacked. The Feds are starting to roll up high ranking militia members, so hopefully they learned their lesson this time.

aaronbrethorst 6y ago
Far-right terrorism has been taken seriously as recently as 2009, but conservatives complained they were being treated unfairly and the efforts were abandoned. 2009 reporting: https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ https://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/extremism.report/ 2012 update: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/dhs/ 2017 update: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/21/i-warned-of-right-wing-violence-in-2009-it-caused-an-uproar-i-was-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/0... 2020 update: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism-warning-signs https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/07/21/right-wing-terrorism...
deleted 6y ago
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neartheplain 6y ago
Far-right terrorism in the US has never really been taken seriously. No one took them seriously. That's not really true. Far-right terror was taken very seriously in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI hired 500 agents specifically to focus on domestic terrorism [0], particularly the then-new militia movement. Virtually every state and federal law enforcement agency established a domestic terror unit. Through continuous effort they'd pretty much quashed the militia movement by 2004, despite the shift of federal resources to the Global War on Terror post-9/11. However, far-right militias surged again in the Obama years [2]. (Much further back, U.S. Grant used the Army to crack down on the Klan [3]. Unfortunately, his successor Rutherford B. Hayes effectively ended Reconstruction and rolled back much of this progress.) [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1374356.stm https://web.archive.org/web/20120210125747/http://news.bbc.c... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia91.html https://web.archive.org/web/20110623153230/http://www.rickro... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754/report-explosive-growth-of-patriot-movement-and-militias-continues https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/08/148217754... [3] https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm https://www.historynet.com/grant-takes-klan.htm

dmkolobov 6y ago

Who would have thought that the police would softball their response to a large group of armed right-wing racists. lol.

throw-239582woh 6y ago

A few possibilities: - Overcorrection: law enforcement had come under fire for using excessive force against protests and they erred on the other side. - Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the pro-Trump faction, who (incorrectly) thought they could make Trump president for life once the Q Shaman took the Senate. - Conspiracy: the security state is firmly under the control of the anti-Trump faction, who (correctly) thought that letting the protest go too far would be politically devastating for their enemies, and would provide the hook for passing new security laws. - Incompetence: America can't protect its capitol for the same reason it can't distribute a vaccine, build railways or put a man on the moon.

curlypaul924 6y ago
This is similar to the conclusion I came to. Because there are so many logical possibilities, without a reputable source definitively stating that one of these is right, the door is open for anyone to pick a narrative and run with it.

sanderjd 6y ago

There are different conversations in different places. The conversation here is obsessed with "censorship" for fairly clear reasons; more of our livelihoods depend on how these rules work. But there is a very active conversation about the law enforcement breakdown on multiple levels. I expect there will be a 9/11 style commission. I expect its findings to be very depressing (along the lines of the people in charge going easier on people they viewed more as "us" rather than "them").

mixmastamyk 6y ago

When the commander in chief is the orchestrator, blaming law enforcement is not clear cut either.

r00fus 6y ago
"Following orders" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card. If LE didn't speak out, they are co-conspirators.
- kibwen 6y ago
  Well, "following orders" can absolutely be a get-out-of-jail-free card when the orders come from the person in charge of handing out get-out-of-jail-free cards.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    At a minimum, it is a reason people expect to get get out jail free cards when the person perceived to be giving orders has the power to hand out get out of jail free cards.
  - r00fus 6y ago
    Considering the person in charge giving out said cards is going to be out of office tomorrow, that excuse is going to have less and less use going forward. The constitutionality of "future-effective" pardons is in question. There's also the question of if those pardons will even be issued (does he care enough).
curlypaul924 6y ago
It's not clear whether the President was the orchestrator, or whether he was the conductor for music written by someone else.

CreatedJust4Ths 6y ago

Law enforcement has been infiltrated, that's why.

downandout 6y ago

It’s not at all weird that the discussion has centered around censorship in reaction to this. As Winston Churchill once said...”Never let a good crisis go to waste” [1]. Democrats are seizing upon the opportunity created by this incident to permanently silence their opposition and attempt to cement long-term political power. A former Facebook official has even publicly suggested that cable companies banish conservative news networks, and that Facebook and YouTube expel conservative influencers from their platforms, in reaction to the incident [2]. Attempting to silence and ostracize vast swaths of the population seems like it might backfire in pretty dramatic fashion. Even Jack Dorsey acknowledged that we had entered into dangerous territory when Twitter blocked Trump and the rest of big tech killed Parler, and he seemed to suggest that the only long-term solution was decentralized social media [3] (something I have been saying since they did this). In any event, we are certainly in for a wild ride over the next few years. American society is cracking at the seams, and our “leaders” and financially-incentivized media companies seem to be actively encouraging it. [1] https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/never-waste-a-good-water-crisis/ https://www.oecd.org/agriculture/never-waste-a-good-water-cr... [2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/former-facebook-official-suggests-cable-providers-drop-oann-and-newsmax-turn-down-the-capability-of-these-conservative-influencers/ar-BB1cPZ9P https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/former-facebook-offic... [3] https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690?s=21 https://twitter.com/jack/status/1349510769268850690?s=21

newacct583 6y ago

> it's weird that the discussion has centered around censorship The discussion here has focused on the shutdown of Parler, both because the demographic leans right and because tech people feel more comfortable talking about data access and civil liberties than about political violence. In the rest of society, I assure you, the laser focus of discussion is absolutely about the act itself, and the response to it, and questions about the likelihood of it happening again. The stuff about Parler is a side show for the most part.

throwaway316943 6y ago
If it’s due to a right leaning user base then you can be pretty sure that half the country has the same concerns. Everyone seems to keep forgetting that.

Lammy 6y ago

TPTB like when certain tragedies happen because it catalyzes public support for laws they want to pass.

bigiain 6y ago

Cynical view: Because way too much of law enforcement is totally in on it, from upper management right the way down to beat cops. Compare their (collective) preparations and actions on the 6th to their preparation and actions at many many black lives matter protests. Like the song says: "Some of those who join forces, are the same who burn crosses."

konjin 6y ago
Or they paid exactly the right amount of attention to it and it's only the media that's blown it out of proportion. Had this been a BLM protest it would have been one of the 'mostly peaceful' ones with questions about why a rent a cop killed her when the professionals in front of him didn't think it was a situation to use deadly force in. The hypocrisy from both sides is astonishing and the reason why cops can kill whoever they feel like: half the country will cheer them on because that {anarchist,nazi} deserved it. I find it sickening that I share a citizenship with blood thirsty savages with no concept of empathy.
- freshedplug 6y ago
  I'm pretty surprised to not see more opinions like this. I'm in Minneapolis. Last summer, during the protests a police station was burned. To me, it seemed like a protest that got out of hand. Didn't seem like am organized attack on the police station. At the capital, that also seems to me like a protest that got out of hand. In each case, the opposing side seems convinced of much more malicious intent. I think that is the worst part - everyone is deeply offended when their opposition does X, but they support their own flavor of X when done by their side.
selimthegrim 6y ago
*work forces

misiti3780 6y ago

I have heard two theories that seemed plausible to me: 1. The Capitol police are used to dealing with large protests. They happen frequently in DC, especially in and around the capitol. So they may have unfortunately assumed that there is no reason to think this protest would be different, and thus not prepared properly 2. They assumed that a pro-Trump, QANON crowd would be pro-police. This is probably not a bad assumption, some of the people were waving blue lives matter flags etc. If they assumed that, they might have assumed that they would not break the law and were under-prepared. Another plausible explanation could be large portion of the officers were sympathetic to the cause, but I'm not sure I have seen any evidence of that yet.

chalst 6y ago

Trump appointees in the intelligence services were attacking members who investigated far- right threats. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/why-dhs-failed-to-warn-the-country-about-jan-6 https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/why-dhs-failed-to-wa...

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

"law enforcement" was in on it. I'm using the term loosely here, I'm mainly thinking "police"; the FBI seems to have things in order much better at least. The warning signs were there for YEARS, but nobody's dared to stand up to the domestic terrorist organizations - probably because the president was one of them. "Stand back and stand by". If you picture a Venn diagram, there's a significant overlap in Republicans, the insurrectionists, QAnon / Pizzagate types, Blue Lives Matters, the police, and nazis / white supremacists.

throwaway316943 6y ago
They haven’t drawn much attention from LE because they haven’t been a serious threat. I still don’t think they are. The Capitol security were overwhelmed by a massive protest providing cover for a large number of rioters to force their way in through unexpected routes. Those rioters were certainly a mix of malevolent and deluded but they were minimally violent considering the amount of opportunity and motive present. They should still be prosecuted, just not for terrorism. If this becomes our new bar for terrorism charges then don’t be surprised when you wind up on a no fly list and get a knock on your door after attending a protest.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > They should still be prosecuted, just not for terrorism “Terrorism” isn't an actual crime you can be charged for regarding acts within the US (terrorism outside the US is a specific federal crime, as is material support for terrorism—the latter of which references knowing support for a wide range of crimes under the ambit of terrorism, a number of which seem not implausible to be justifiably charged against participants in the capitol insurrection, such as conspiring to kill or kidnap the President, Vice President, any member of Congress, etc.) > If this becomes our new bar for terrorism charges then don’t be surprised when you wind up on a no fly list and get a knock on your door after attending a protest. The “no-fly” list doesn't require being charged with anything, anyhow, much less “terrorism” specifically,
  - throwaway316943 6y ago

mtgx 6y ago

That's actually what happens in cases of terrorism, too. Law enforcement/spy agencies are never blamed for not catching them sooner, even though most of the time they were already on their terror watch lists and even arrested for similar stuff. But "somehow" the discussion always shifts to the government needing more surveillance powers to catch them next time.

boublepop 6y ago

It seems so oddly funny to have people honestly question why the government didn’t make more efforts to stop something supported by their governments top leader. It’s kind of like asking why didn’t the Russian police make efforts to stop a KGB assassination. I mean do we really have to ask why? Isn’t it more relevant just to ask who knew about the attacks and kick them to the curb either for being astronomically incompetent, or either passively or actively assisting the attack?