Re:Infosec implications of the US Capitol physical breach
by kritiko on Thursday January 07, 2021 @09:48AM
(#25671626)
>There is little doubt that if any of the extra-legal or simply bogus attempts to overthrow the election had succeeded, these senators, and most likely the republican party as a whole, would have been happy to go along with that act, in what would, in reality, have been a coup d'état.
You could describe the 2000 election as a successful bogus attempt to overthrow an election. Has America already had a coup d'etat?
Re:Infosec implications of the US Capitol physical breach
by wan23 on Thursday January 07, 2021 @12:01PM
(#25673641)
In 2000 it was unclear who actually won because the Florida vote count was very close. No one was alleging that one side or the other was cheating, and everyone was in agreement that whoever got the most votes should be president. Also, Al Gore, as the outgoing Vice President, presided over the same certification proceeding that Trump and his followers disrupted yesterday. In January 2001, that proceeding went without a hitch even though the loser of the election was in charge of it.
This is not the issue here. It is not even that the outgoing president very deliberately provoked the attack, as well as a much wider opposition to the democratic process. The biggest problem is that the president was actively supported, in his provocation, by more than a few US senators, along with elected officials of several states (some of whom are plausible presidential candidates themselves.)
There is little doubt that if any of the extra-legal or simply bogus attempts to overthrow the election had succeeded, these senators, and most likely the republican party as a whole, would have been happy to go along with that act, in what would, in reality, have been a coup d'état.
Even if the supreme court put a stop to it - which is not a certainty - much damage would have been done.