The Jan 6 Commission

[yossarian22c]

But inspiring the crowd with inflammatory language is a far cry from a conspiracy, which is the characterization under discussion. Otherwise we might hold all BLM leaders responsible as conspirators for destruction and mayhem that followed one of their speeches. We could call the leaders of the antiwar Vietnam movement responsible for a conspiracy to cause a riot. Any of these groups bear some measure of responsibility for not keeping their followers peaceful, but that doesn't make them conspirators.

Trump is an expert at toeing the line, maybe slipping over with plausible deniability.

All the lies about the election, telling people their country was being stolen, holding a rally on Jan 6 close to the capital, then telling people to "fight like hell" and that he would march with them to the capital and then sitting in the white house and watching the chaos happen. He has a lot of culpability.

Did he have secret meetings with the proud boys and other groups on how to breach the capital? No. Does any violence that happened that day happen without Trump? No.

[Wayward Son]

But inspiring the crowd with inflammatory language is a far cry from a conspiracy, which is the characterization under discussion.

Depends, Drake.  Did those who did so intend to inspire a riot?  Was it part of a plan that they had? 

If a group of people say to each other, "OK. We'll rouse up the crowd.  If we do it right, they will riot and stop Congress from certifying the election.  Then we can pressure Congressmen, with this threat to their lives from the rioters and other pressures, to declare some of the votes null and void.  Then we can declare Trump president," that is a far cry from "We will tell the people the truth as we see it."

Conspiracy requires a plan.  Not necessarily a good plan, a reasonable plan, or a plausible plan.  Just a plan.  An intention for somethings to happen to reach a goal.  And if one of those somethings was inspiring an uprising that would stop the U.S. government from performing its lawful functions, then you got yourself a real-life, full-blown conspiracy to undermine the U.S. government.

Don't make it sound less that it may have been.

[TheDeamon]

The only problem with what you said, Drake, is that what they said did inspire the crowd at the Capitol to chant "Hang Mike Pence" (or somesort), and for at least one person to construct a gallows for him. 

I'm sorry, but I doubt anybody coming to a rally is going to just randomly happen to have everything they need on hand to build a gallows spontaneously.

That guy was probably going to build it regardless of what any speaker at the rally had to say. They were responding to things said and done well before the rally ever happened, and any relationship it had with most(or even all) of the speakers is likely to be tangential at best.

[Wayward Son]

So you're saying that the mood of the rally's participants was already set before the rally.  After weeks of propaganda, that is quite likely.

So the speakers probably had a good idea of that mood, and knew it wouldn't take very much to strengthen it and push it a bit further.

Which in no way precludes the planners from planning on inspiring the ralliers to disrupt Congress or even perhaps riot.

In fact, assuming Trump and his minions knew that the crowd might turn violent, it is significant that there were orders for the National Guard to step in to protect the crowd, and then did not show up when it was the crowd that became the threat.  It was as if he wanted to make sure that violence would only flow in a certain direction... 

[msquared]

To paraphrase the Bard, Will no one rid me of this troublesome Congress?

[TheDrake]

That guy was probably going to build it regardless of what any speaker at the rally had to say.

Possibly. That, however does not absolve the speakers for their message, which was well known to the builder prior to the actual rally. As well as reinforcement of that message. What if the rally speakers DIDN'T encourage the crowd to march down to the capitol? Some would undoubtedly still gone there. But perhaps not enough to overwhelm security.

Don't make it sound less that it may have been.

A may have been is not good enough foundation for an accusation of that magnitude. Perhaps we will yet dig up some text messages expressing a desire to turn the crowd violent. Or other, you know, actual evidence. As the article I linked indicated, there is very little evidence that even far right groups had much of a plan. Even though certain individuals clearly had violence planned days in advance.

I think it is far more plausible that they wanted the presence of the crowd outside the capitol building to exert political pressure on members of congress to drag out objections and debate on every state they wanted to challenge. The actual violence instead seems to have accelerated the inevitable approvals.

[TheDeamon]

https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

So, we had previous speculation on January 6th having potentially being led mainly by Federal CI's. Meet one of them, and further documentation about others.

[cherrypoptart]

Sure enough...

The trick now would be finding out who was really behind it all, the puppet master pulling the strings at the highest level, the grand wizard behind the curtain. Pelosi? Hillary? Biden?

Trump was ostensibly in charge of the FBI but you can bet he knew nothing about any of this. So who did? Just some mid level bureaucrat? Not likely. The one thing we can be fairly confident about is that we will never know. If a journalist really did find that out and report it that would be Pulitzer Prize winning journalism right there, even Nobel prize worthy like Maria Ressa and Dmitri Muratov, two journalists awarded the Nobel Peace Prize who used their acceptance speeches to express alarm about the threats to democracies. None of our mainstream journalists will touch this and if they did it would be very dangerous to them especially if Hillary was behind it. The only chance this has of seeing the light of day is the way its being put together now, by crowdsourcing. All of the little people working together will hopefully be too hard to stop. But they'll try. Maybe a real January 6th Commission would be useful for something after all, if it could shed some light on these disturbing facts and allegations. You can bet it won't be any of the Democrats doing that though, not a single blessed one.

[alai]

To paraphrase the Bard, Will no one rid me of this troublesome Congress?

I believe that's real life you're paraphrasing there, not Shakespeare!

Or at least, not Will's paraphrase of it, as he didn't write a Henry II play.  Sadly the film written on him by William Goldman's big brother didn't cover the incident in question, but I wanted to slip that in lest he complain that it's the mention he missed!  And because I've not seen read any of the other fictionalised works on the topic...

[TheDrake]

https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

So, we had previous speculation on January 6th having potentially being led mainly by Federal CI's. Meet one of them, and further documentation about others.

Wow. I guess Revolver News is up for a pulitzer. Who knew? I'm always impressed by bold print, they certainly have a damning amount of it. Seriously, if you just looked at that site and replaced all the text with lorem ipsum, Would you guess that it is serious news or an infomercial for nutritional supplements?


Epps is nothing, except to wildeyed conspiracy theorists.

"Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol," reads the Oct. 25 headline of a story on Revolver News, a right-leaning website run by a former Trump White House speechwriter. Other conservative sites cited the report with their own headlines like this one that gained traction on Facebook: "BOMBSHELL: Did Jan. 6 Riot and Ray Epps EXPOSE a Corrupt FBI?"

Short answer: No.

Epps, whose participation in the events at the Capitol became known shortly after Jan. 6, was seen in videos from Jan. 5 and 6 urging others to enter the Capitol "peacefully." Revolver’s article attempts to build a case that Epps’ comments, his association with unindicted Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, and the fact he wasn’t arrested prove that Epps is an FBI informant and that the federal government incited the riot.

The conclusion relies largely on speculation. It does not confirm Epps to be an FBI informant.

Revolver, run by Darren Beattie, a Trump speechwriter who was fired after he appeared on a panel with a white nationalist, has floated this unproven narrative before. Fox News host Tucker Carlson amplified the claim in his conspiratorial documentary series that attempted to recast the events of Jan. 6 and featured Beattie as a source.

[Grant]

https://www.revolver.news/2021/12/damning-new-details-massive-web-unindicted-operators-january-6/

So, we had previous speculation on January 6th having potentially being led mainly by Federal CI's. Meet one of them, and further documentation about others.

Jezzis.  "Revolver News" huh?  With broken nonexistenial links to nonexistant Grey Hooker stories? 

The trick now would be finding out who was really behind it all, the puppet master pulling the strings at the highest level, the grand wizard behind the curtain. Pelosi? Hillary? Biden?

Why not Soros?  Or Rothschild?  Or Gates?  Or Chase Manhattan? 

Did you ever stop and ask yourself why "stories" like this don't ever get very far?  Beyond people like Tucker Carlson or right talk radio?  I mean, why are these stories not picked up by the Fox News news side like Brett Baier or Dana Perino?  How come this isn't picked up by National Review or the Daily Caller or even the Federalist?!  How about the Wall Street Journal?  Why don't you even hear about this from other Trumpist Republicans like Kevin McCarthy?  How come it doesn't get picked up by How did Pelosi or Hillary give instructions to FBI agents?  How many people were involved in this conspiracy?  How did they communicate?  Where and when did they plan this out?  What was the plan?  Why would they attempt to sabotage Biden being recognized as the winner of the election, particularly after Mike Pence said he wasn't going to do anything but count?

Then ask yourself why an ex speechwriter of Donald Trump who was fired for cozying up to White Supremacists would write something like that and make it all up.  Ask what credentials these people have that make you trust what they write implicitly without critical thought while everything else gets a fine toothed comb.  Who do you trust, why do you trust them, and should you be trusting them?   

[msquared]

And just remember that just like election fraud the lack of evidence is the evidence of the fraud and the coverup.

[TheDeamon]

Epps is nothing, except to wildeyed conspiracy theorists.

"Meet Ray Epps: The Fed-Protected Provocateur Who Appears To Have Led The Very First 1/6 Attack On The U.S. Capitol," reads the Oct. 25 headline of a story on Revolver News, a right-leaning website run by a former Trump White House speechwriter. Other conservative sites cited the report with their own headlines like this one that gained traction on Facebook: "BOMBSHELL: Did Jan. 6 Riot and Ray Epps EXPOSE a Corrupt FBI?"

Short answer: No.

Epps, whose participation in the events at the Capitol became known shortly after Jan. 6, was seen in videos from Jan. 5 and 6 urging others to enter the Capitol "peacefully." Revolver’s article attempts to build a case that Epps’ comments, his association with unindicted Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, and the fact he wasn’t arrested prove that Epps is an FBI informant and that the federal government incited the riot.

Oh, well that makes everything better.

The conclusion relies largely on speculation. It does not confirm Epps to be an FBI informant.

That Epps did "trespass" and hasn't been charged would strongly suggest he is, given what the FBI has done in other cases. Precedents, you know.

Revolver, run by Darren Beattie, a Trump speechwriter who was fired after he appeared on a panel with a white nationalist, has floated this unproven narrative before. Fox News host Tucker Carlson amplified the claim in his conspiratorial documentary series that attempted to recast the events of Jan. 6 and featured Beattie as a source.

Okay, valid reason to question the narrative proposed by Revolver(I only became aware of the article, and even the site through a reasonably trusted third party site, the video evidence on its own does speak to some issues outstanding, even absent the narrative line Revolver took.

Even broken clocks can be right some of the time. The problem here is, as pointed out, lack of hard evidence to indicate one way or the other because the FBI is currently under no legal obligation to release what it knows to pretty much anyone on discovery grounds at this point in time. Because "oddly" the people who would be able to make those discovery claims, aren't being prosecuted.

[TheDrake]

Now let's figure this convoluted logic. The FBI posts a picture seeking information. About one of their informants, who not only attended but masterminded the "breach"? They would have already been very familiar with their inside man. Then they get the information, and that's when they start the coverup?

A lot of hay gets made that he wasn't charged. 727 people have been charged. They all entered the Capitol building itself, AFAIK.

Epps never appears to have entered the Capitol or engaged in violence as many of the more than 600 others facing charges did. The investigation is ongoing.

What we have is Epps whispering something in a guys ear who then subsequently engages in violence. Epps might have been telling him to calm down, for all we know. Even if he DID instigate the violence there, it doesn't mean he wasn't exactly what he looked to be - A member of the Arizona Oathkeepers suckered in by the narrative that the election was stolen.

Another plausible explanation for the FBI seeking Epps and then removing his information is that he agreed to cooperate and give material information. Certainly more plausible than him being a secret FBI plant who went there to frame the good people of MAGA nation. Whose company is named "Patriot Holdings"

Is it really so hard to believe that Epps is exactly what he seems to be?

[alai]

Other conservative sites cited the report with their own headlines like this one that gained traction on Facebook: "BOMBSHELL: Did Jan. 6 Riot and Ray Epps EXPOSE a Corrupt FBI?"

Short answer: No.

Betteridge's law of headlines.

[Wayward Son]

Good question, TheDrake.  Why do you think this Epps guy had much more influence over the crowd than a certain man named Donald Trump? 

[msquared]

Nope, no plan at all to change the outcome of the election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-031432176.html

[msquared]

An opinion piece on why Trump and his cronies are not conservatives.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/krull-call-trump-crowd-anything-110305096.html

[TheDrake]

Nope, no plan at all to change the outcome of the election.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-advisor-peter-navarro-lays-031432176.html

Oh, I think they've always freely admitted that they wanted to change the outcome via Mike Pence and the Republican legislators just tossing out all the votes illegally. And that they wanted to challenge as many states as possible in the Congress. Navarro also makes a good point that the violent actions dried up Senate support for dragging this out the way they had planned. I don't believe him when he says they didn't need protestors to be there, I think they wanted the news coverage of flapping Trump banners and Proud Boys mugging for the cameras with the capitol dome in the background. They might not have wanted Mike to be hung by the neck until dead.

[alai]

I don't believe him when he says they didn't need protestors to be there, I think they wanted the news coverage of flapping Trump banners and Proud Boys mugging for the cameras with the capitol dome in the background. They might not have wanted Mike to be hung by the neck until dead.

I doubt that was wanted as such (much less planned at any level other than the people currently on trial).  But reckless disregard certainly seems to be fairly general.

The overall pattern is...  dismaying.  These clowns stoked the violence in advance.  They sought to instrumentalise it while it was happening.  ("Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.")  They've downplayed it ever since.  If there are no legal -- or even more astonishingly, no political -- consequences to such violently authoritarian antics, there will inevitably be more such.  "Emboldened", as the Bush administration was fond of saying.

[msquared]

Trump just cancelled his Jan 6 new conference.  Maybe someone told him how tone deaf he was.

[alai]

He's normally pretty deaf to being told he's tone deaf, too.  Maybe he had a prior appointment with a hamberder and a game of golf at someone else's expense.

[Crunch]

Trump just cancelled his Jan 6 new conference.  Maybe someone told him how tone deaf he was.

You mention Trump in almost every post. It's mental. Did you know he's not in the white house anymore? You know that, right?

[Crunch]

Now let's figure this convoluted logic. The FBI posts a picture seeking information. About one of their informants, who not only attended but masterminded the "breach"? They would have already been very familiar with their inside man. Then they get the information, and that's when they start the coverup?

A lot of hay gets made that he wasn't charged. 727 people have been charged. They all entered the Capitol building itself, AFAIK.

Epps never appears to have entered the Capitol or engaged in violence as many of the more than 600 others facing charges did. The investigation is ongoing.

What we have is Epps whispering something in a guys ear who then subsequently engages in violence. Epps might have been telling him to calm down, for all we know. Even if he DID instigate the violence there, it doesn't mean he wasn't exactly what he looked to be - A member of the Arizona Oathkeepers suckered in by the narrative that the election was stolen.

Another plausible explanation for the FBI seeking Epps and then removing his information is that he agreed to cooperate and give material information. Certainly more plausible than him being a secret FBI plant who went there to frame the good people of MAGA nation. Whose company is named "Patriot Holdings"

Is it really so hard to believe that Epps is exactly what he seems to be?

They're creating a statue to commemorate the abject terror and unprecedented destruction of Jan 6th. I understand it will be a statue of Ray Epps, pointing directly at the capitol building, with George Floyd at his side.

[msquared]

Crunch,

But by one story, he thinks he should still be there. And it looks like he wants to get back. If he would just shut up and go quietly into the night, I would ignore him. But he, and what he stands for, is too dangerous to let fester in the dark.

[alai]

You mention Trump in almost every post. It's mental.

Mentioning Trump in a Jan 6 Commission thread.  Oh, the temerity!  The audacity! The hurt feels!

What's the ratio of your own posts in which you seek to casually psychopathologise others?  I won't go quite so far as to say it's "almost every post".  There's a few different dustbin taxons that'd catch a tremendously large number, though.  Starting off the top of my head with "TDS", "random personal abuse", and "AM talk radio comedy sidekick wannabe".

[alai]

Trump just cancelled his Jan 6 new conference.  Maybe someone told him how tone deaf he was.

UK's C4 News is suggesting it was Laura Ingraham (she of the "B&W xerox copy of Ann Coulter" lack of fame) on her TV show, and Lindsey Graham.  Far be it from me to question their journalism, but does he really listen to either of them?  Extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence!  (And no, "Lindsey says so" hardly cuts it.)

[Crunch]

Crunch,

But by one story, he thinks he should still be there. And it looks like he wants to get back. If he would just shut up and go quietly into the night, I would ignore him. But he, and what he stands for, is too dangerous to let fester in the dark.

Dude, seriously, stop watching MSNBC and CNN. They're doing a number on you.

[msquared]

That was a non sequitur.  I do not watch either of those.

Which part of my statement is wrong?  Many Trump supporters still think he is the legitimate President. Are you saying Trump does not want to be President again?

Like I said if he shut up and went away, like most former Presidents do,  with only the occasional public comment, then I would forget him. But he is not doing that and I see Trump and his followers as an existential threat to democracy in the US.

[Crunch]

You mention Trump in almost every post. It's mental.

Mentioning Trump in a Jan 6 Commission thread.  Oh, the temerity!  The audacity! The hurt feels!

What's the ratio of your own posts in which you seek to casually psychopathologise others?  I won't go quite so far as to say it's "almost every post".  There's a few different dustbin taxons that'd catch a tremendously large number, though.  Starting off the top of my head with "TDS", "random personal abuse", and "AM talk radio comedy sidekick wannabe".

Not just this thread. Not by a long shot, nice deception, I bet you actually believe it ... almost.

It's very clear that a combination of the steady diet of lies from MSM and Democrats like Schiff/Pelosi/Nadler/AOC to create TDS and then the mass formation psychosis created by the pandemic response that some of you, perhaps most of you, have been deeply traumatized. I suspect a few of you may never truly recover from the abject terror that they created in you.

Let's look at that mass formation psychosis:

There are four basic conditions which need to be met in order for a society to be vulnerable to mass hypnosis. The first of which is a lack of societal bonding.

The lockdowns accomplished that as well as the anti-Trump rhetoric of the previous 4 years.

The second condition is met when the majority of people view their lives as being without purpose or meaning.

Depending on the study you look at, anywhere from 50%-90% of people believe there is no meaning to life. Check.

Free floating anxiety is the third condition for the rise of mass formation.

We got that here in spades, some of you probably need medication to handle the anxiety.

And the fourth condition is high levels of frustration and aggression, with no discernible cause.

From the riots that went all summer and back to the mass assassination attempt on Republican legislators, we see this over and over again. For that matter, you see it here daily.

This psychological phenomenon explains why so many have bought into a clearly illogical narrative, and why they are willing to participate in the prescribed strategy — “even if it’s utterly absurd,” Desmet says. “The reason they buy into the narrative is because it leads to this new social bond,” he explains. “Science, logic and correctness have nothing to do with it.” 

Humans crave community and long for social bonds. Now that these connections have been forged, they are nearly impossible to break. Hypnotized people are unable to question the narrative being fed to them.  Take vaccinations in children 5-11 for example. There is absolutely no emergency for children. None. Yet, the FDA approved an Emergency Use Authorization vaccine for this age group. There are zero long term safety studies. But the masses eagerly line up to vaccinate their children. This doesn’t make any sense. This is reckless. There is no science to back this need up. But our leaders say it is vital. So, it must be. 

And you see that play out here, in this forum, every day.

[Crunch]

That was a non sequitur.  I do not watch either of those.

Which part of my statement is wrong?  Many Trump supporters still think he is the legitimate President. Are you saying Trump does not want to be President again?

Like I said if he shut up and went away, like most former Presidents do,  with only the occasional public comment, then I would forget him. But he is not doing that and I see Trump and his followers as an existential threat to democracy in the US.

Whatever it is you're getting this from, it's not healthy. "Many Trump supporters"? Yeah, how many? More than those who thought Abrams was the governor?  Nobody in my family or social group ever talks about Trump, even when the conversation is politics. This is a part of your problem.

I don't know what Trump wants to do. The only time I actually think about Trump is when you get all het up. For most of us, he's simply not relevant anymore.

[Crunch]

Thinking about this, and I'm very much reminded of the Two Minutes Hate:

...the Two Minutes Hate is the daily, public period during which members of the Outer Party of Oceania must watch a film depicting the enemies of the state, specifically Emmanuel Goldstein and his followers, to openly and loudly express hatred for them.

The political purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is to allow the citizens of Oceania to vent their existential anguish and personal hatreds towards politically expedient enemies: Goldstein and the enemy superstate of the moment. In re-directing the members' subconscious feelings away from the Party's government of Oceania, and towards non-existent external enemies, the Party minimises thoughtcrime and the consequent, subversive behaviours of thoughtcriminals

This is a fictional story that is 100% true today. Some of you go on this forum or social media to engage in this "ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness" and do your two minutes daily. I see you, we all see you. Trump is your Emmanuel Goldstein. Literally.

A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.

Right, where do you guys think you're going to end up with this? For example ... you mad at the unvaccinated? Of course you are. You've been told to direct your rage there during the 2 minutes hate. They're killing grandma or some nonsense. They're selfish, they're idiots that don't understand science, etc etc. Barely human, right? But Trump will always be the focus, your rage against this fictional threat is BlueAnon conspiracy theory.

You know what Jan 6 is now? The kick off to Hate Week:

Hate Week is a fictional event in George Orwell's 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Hate Week is a psychological operation designed to increase the hatred of the population for the current enemy of the totalitarian Party, as much as possible, ....

So Merry Hate Week everyone!

I tend to think Aldous Huxley had the more accurate take on totalitarianism but it's clear you guys are veering hard into Orwell territory and embracing all the facets of 1984 in real life.

[msquared]

The gaslighting is strong with this one.

[alai]

That was a non sequitur.  I do not watch either of those.

More specifically it was:  https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Bulverism

Another useful trope to bear in mind when playing Crunch Bingo.

[rightleft22]

The gaslighting is strong with this one.

And Projection

I can't remember who  was it that tweets and holds all those rally's that get thier follower riled up ins such a way that those he talks about might not experience as being loving.....

[Wayward Son]

Actually, this could be good news.

Crunch pushing so hard that we should just forget about Trump (and the Jan 6 Commision) may mean that those he listens to are pushing that, too.  And why would they be so concerned about lib'rals thinking about Trump all the time?    Perhaps it is because they are afraid that we are getting close to proving something really juicy about him? 

Meanwhile, there are strong indications that Trump plans (at this time) to run for President again in 2024.  That alone means he is still newsworthy. 

Also, there are several civil and criminal investigations involving him.  Even the possibility of having an ex-President convicted of a crime, either before entering office or, worse, during his time in office, is very newsworthy. 

And let us not forget that the Donald still insists that he won the election that he clearly lost, and many people (including some on this board) believe so, too.  Repeating that lie lead to the insurrection on January 6, 2021, and could lead to even worse ones in the future.   That is newsworthy, too.

Threats to our democracy, and to those of us who support our democracy, are always newsworthy.  And ex-President Donald Trump is a prominent proponent of these threats and lies.  While he stills spouts his B.S., and while a significant number of people still believe them, and while the Republicans are still too afraid to dispute them, then he is going to continue to be newsworthy, whether Crunch thinks he is worth worrying about or not.

[TheDrake]

Is Orwell the new Godwin's Law in which online discussions eventually deteriorate to Hitler and Nazis? It's a little different because Orwell is being thrown out by conservatives without already being engaged in a discussion but it seems similar enough to discuss in our current political climate.

This was in The New York Times today - How ‘Orwellian’ Became an All-Purpose Insult. The article discusses Orwell as being highly misunderstood and misapplied. It seems pretty pseudointellectual as well, but we all know how erudite these folks are.

After the events of last week, one has to wonder whether Josh Hawley — for all of his prep school polish and Ivy League degrees — was fully cognizant of what he was doing. The Republican Senator from Missouri apparently assumed he could have it all: Hitch his star to Donald Trump’s, attempt to overturn November’s presidential election, and prove his down-home bona fides by giving the mob that later invaded the Capitol a raised-fist salute — while also presenting himself as a Very Serious Thinker who had written a book about the wisdom of Teddy Roosevelt and was about to publish another titled “The Tyranny of Big Tech.” What he got instead was mostly revulsion from his congressional peers and a canceled book contract.

An irate and incredulous Hawley took to Twitter, calling the publisher’s actions “a direct assault on the First Amendment.” In peddling specious claims of voter fraud, he said he had merely been doing his duty, “leading a debate on the Senate floor on voter integrity.” He insisted that his publisher was taking its cues from “the Left” and trying to silence him: “This could not be more Orwellian.”

DOn Jr. came out to say:

The next day, after Twitter permanently suspended the president’s account, his son Donald Trump Jr. announced (on Twitter) that “free speech no longer exists in America” and “we are living in Orwell’s 1984.”

Original Reddit Thread proposing this

“As we all remember, Orwell's ‘1984’ is about an old man who gets banned from a bird-themed social media site after regularly encouraging violence,” tweeted the progressive think tank Gravel Institute.

“Starting a Go Fund Me to buy conservatives some Orwell books,” wrote @ClueHeywood.

“Orwellian” is not just applicable to the fascists and communists of Orwell’s era, though. Ulin believes “1984” is relevant to a recent political moment. “There are aspects of the novel that are quite reminiscent, interestingly enough, of Trumpism, even though (Trump’s) right-wing,” Ulin says. “Things like the dissemination of false information, the use of information to obfuscate rather than illuminate.”

Alternative Facts are Orwellian. Being angry at people who won't acknowledge objective facts and calling them out on it is not Orwellian. Case in point, narratives about secret antifa being behind Jan 6.

#bookreportfail

[Lloyd Perna]

Alternative Facts are Orwellian. Being angry at people who won't acknowledge objective facts and calling them out on it is not Orwellian.

You mean like the fact that Males can't have babies?

[TheDrake]

By all means, have a go at trans people because that's the important takeaway. You're confusing fact with linguistics, opinion, and constructs. Language evolves.

[alai]

C4 News reporting from the Capitol again.  Reporter is recounting asking a Qanon type if they thought Trump is going to run again.  "No, he won't need to, he'll be reinstated before then."

Kinda implies wanting not just to overturn one election, but to suspend another one(?).

[Lloyd Perna]

By all means, have a go at trans people because that's the important takeaway. You're confusing fact with linguistics, opinion, and constructs. Language evolves.

I'm not having a go at trans people, I'm having a go at you.

"Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is BLACKWHITE. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to BELIEVE that black is white, and more, to KNOW that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary."

[TheDrake]

I'm familiar with the book. I've read it, seen both films, and a play adaptation. Quoting it doesn't mean you're applying it properly. There's nothing simultaneous in coming to a new understanding of how we ought to use the word "male". Your limited definition is just that, limited. The world male itself didn't even show up until the 14th century. In 1895, it already had multiple meanings.

Male, matching female, applies to the whole sex among human beings and gender among animals, to the apparel of that sex, and, by figure, to certain things, as plants, rimes, cesuras, screws, joints. Masculine, matching feminine, applies to men and their attributes and to the first grammatical gender; a woman may wear male apparel and have a masculine walk, voice, manner, temperament. [Century Dictionary, 1895]

This is not unusual, nor is it Orwellian in nature. We have lots of words that have multiple meanings, that's why the dictionary lists them all. The fact that we add meanings over time is indisputable and not new.

By the way, she-male has really changed!

she-male (n.)
early 19c. U.S. colloquial, "a female, a woman," from she + male.

Davy Crockett's hand would be sure to shake if his iron was pointed within a hundred miles of a shemale. ["Treasury of American Folklore"]
This became obsolete, and by 1972 it had been recoined (disparagingly) for "masculine lesbian." The sense of "transsexual male" seems to date from c. 1984.

etymology is fun, and also a fact

[alai]

Quoting it doesn't mean you're applying it properly.

Given that Orwell was a died-in-the-wool socialist, quoting it in the case of many of the posters here may also be dangerous to the stability of the Earth's orbit, due to the drastically increased angular momentum of his ever-greater spinning in his grave.

[cherrypoptart]

Listening to NPR gush on breathlessly about the January 6th "Insurrection", I had a very hard time believing that any of them really took the lunacy they were spouting seriously. They did seem like they were on their two minutes hate, but specifically as a bunch of Julias who endeavored to make up for with theatrics what they lacked in honest conviction.

[rightleft22]

Listening to NPR gush on breathlessly about the January 6th "Insurrection", I had a very hard time believing that any of them really took the lunacy they were spouting seriously. They did seem like they were on their two minutes hate, but specifically as a bunch of Julias who endeavored to make up for with theatrics what they lacked in honest conviction.

Are you implying Hate = anyone talking about things you don't like?

I agree we need to stop talking about Jan 06. Better to look away from such things. Maybe we should take another look at Benghazi

[cherrypoptart]

I'm saying outright that a lot of people hate Trump. January 6 just gives them one more excuse to talk about how much they hate him. They hate Trump all day long, literally. I don't think anyone can claim these people don't hate Trump. The best spin on the depth of their hate and how much time they'll spend talking about it is they sincerely believe they have their reasons. After all, Trump is a according to them racist, sexist, and a homophobe, all much more reason to hate him than anything that happened on January 6, but apparently people brushed that off an voted for him anyway so since the people who voted for Trump consider themselves patriots so there's no better way to insult them and him than concoct this false narrative about sedition since calling them racist was becoming super ineffective. This is all a continuation of throwing everything at him and the deplorables and hoping something sticks.

[msquared]

I mean they hate Trump no more than some conservatives hate Obama, right?

[TheDrake]

Is it inappropriate to hate the people who smeared feces in the halls of congress? Too over the top? Is it inappropriate to hate their apologists and people who deny who they were and why they were there? Do we get to talk about the right wing hate fests about immigrants, BLM, socialists, transgender, and Brandon?

You want to talk about NPR? Why not take a gander at ONN and see what real hate looks like.

Trump gets lumped in with them because he goaded them, let them run amok without even trying to get them to go home, and then failed to disavow them in the way the McConnel did (well, at least at the time).

[cherrypoptart]

If you want a scientific measurement then conservatives do hate the policies of Obama with a sentiment equal to the mass of Jupiter whereas liberals' hate for Trump is as dense as a neutron star. With Obama it was mostly professional. With Trump it is deeply personal, and the difference shows.

[alai]

I mean they hate Trump no more than some conservatives hate Obama, right?

And with considerably more cause.

If you want a scientific measurement then conservatives do hate the policies of Obama with a sentiment equal to the mass of Jupiter whereas liberals' hate for Trump is as dense as a neutron star.

I didn't, but if I did want a scientific measurement, then I'd now want two, and that was the exact opposite of a measurement, and the most anti-scientific statement it's possible to make, and if not successfully contained, would have annihilated part of my existing supply.

With Obama it was mostly professional. With Trump it is deeply personal, and the difference shows.

Oh please.  It "shows" only to those viewing through their own heavy cognitive biases and preconceptions.  Birtherism?  The open racism, the constant snarling about "tyranny", protests with nooses, etc?  On what planet (or moon of Jupiter, as you prefer) is that "mostly professional"?

On the "Two-Minute Hate" wannabe memery:  cherry, honestly, please don't just start echoing Crunch's shock-jock catch phrases  They're bad enough the first time around, much less turned into mindless choruses.  And I kinda thought you were going for the "able to display some independence of thought" end of the right-wing market, as opposed to yet another of the Trump Devotion Syndrome drones.