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this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2024
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Thought this was a real headline
At first I thought someone had posted this to the wrong community.
We used to be able to enjoy and laugh at satire because politicians had enough sanity that we could easily tell it apart.
Back in the day, if I read "Sitting president calls for a coup d'état after hearing he lost the election" we could laugh and go "oh, you silly satirical newspaper, such a thing would never happen, this was an amusing diversion from the mundane!"
Now we go "Oh my god, turn on basically any news channel, there's people trying to murder congress and hang the vice president and nobody is trying to stop them" and continue on FOR FOUR GODDAMN YEARS LIKE NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENED
I mean to say this as softly as possible: If they intended to murder politicians, this demographic most likely to own firearms, where was all the gun violence?
What happened is a massive problem that is far too ignored. That said, either these people are so mentally deficient that we don't need to fear an attempted coup by them because they can't remember to bring their fucking guns with them, or they (in general) weren't actually out for blood.
It was incredibly bloodless for a failed supposed overthrow. There have been numerous political demonstrations at colleges with more violence/injury/deaths.
Pulling away the hyperbole, I find it hard to call it more than a massive protest gone quite wrong. Those involved, including the inciters, deserve to be locked up. But assassins they weren't.
Maybe not all of them were ready for violence, but a lot of them were prepared. They didn't forget to bring guns, many had guns on them inside the Capitol building.. There were people with zip-tie handcuffs.. They were a hair's breadth away from politicians who were their targets of ire, who they believed were stealing their country, when Ashli Babbitt breached the last barrier and reached the last line of defense before being shot. Behind Babbitt was a hallway/staircase full of insurrectionists.
Few started the day with a desire to get into the Capitol. Many were swept up in the moment by following far right extremist groups who were executing a plan to get in. Though we know how far they went following those extremists, we'll never know how much farther they would have gone had those same extremists managed to reach politicians. Thank goodness they were stopped otherwise this may be a very different country.