We have the closest thing to a democracy that any country has. I'm not going to split hairs about what a "real" democracy is. The fact is, our democracy is good enough that we, the people, (barely) stopped a fascist leader from maintaining power for the indefinite future, despite his very sincere desire to hold on to that power.
Your overall point is reasonable, but this is a reach there are many countries now that are at least as democratic as the US by any reasonable definition, and some pretty supportable arguments that some of them are meaningfully more democratic.
It's not that interesting to argue about I think though, because the differences are pretty small, and there is a huge gulf between all of the democratic countries and the non-democratic ones.
Is there any historical precedent for such a weakly armed group of people[1] overthrowing a heavily armed government?
Seems like hyperbole suggest they almost succeeded in overthrowing the most heavily armed government in the world.
But its naive to think the most heavily armed and powerful government in the world was nearly overthrown by a mob of people armed with fire extinguishers, zip ties, pepper spray, and little to no guns.[1]
No they didn't. Ransacking a building isn't overthrowing a government.
> We have the closest thing to a democracy that any country has.
Ha ha ha -- good joke, I could do with a laugh
> I'm not going to split hairs about what a "real" democracy is.
It's one where the government does what the people want.
> we, the people, (barely) stopped a fascist leader
Trump isn't a fascist. To be a fascist he would have to be more intelligent and have more coherent beliefs.
> despite his very sincere desire to hold on to that power
Nor does Trump want power. He wants attention -- narcissistic supply.
Trump's actually to lazy to exercise power (as well as being too stupid); that's why he refuses to read memos more than a page long.
Then it becomes martial law time, with Trump retaining power.
How close is that?
What in the hell do you think would have happened if they had caught up to any member of Congress? Seriously. Even if you foolishly assume the most charitable and peaceful of intentions, the size of the mob and physical violence on display going through the halls of the Capitol should make it painfully obvious that any Democratic member of Congress they happened upon would have ended up seriously injured. The mob beat a cop to death.
There's simply no way a rational person could come to the conclusion that the mob wouldn't have injured or killed Congresspeople. If you can't see the mob's intent you're either being willfully obtuse or disastrously ignorant. There's not a charitable middle ground as these people documented themselves during the riot and months leading up to it.
Do you believe that BLM rioters who chanted at politicians and cops and had various weapons intended to murder them? BLM rioters broke through barricades and smashed windows as well. Some BLM rioters killed multiple cops as well.
If I saw a BLM riot break into a building with politicians I would hold the same view I hold with these people. They may do violence, but we don't know for sure.
When people broke into the Wisconsin capital years ago over act 10 I didn't assume they were going to murder people.
I don't like to assume entire groups are going to do violence. When some individuals do violence in a group I don't assume the entire group wants to do violence.
I mean after you beat numerous police officers and murder one.
One person killing a cop doesn't mean the whole group was going to use violence.
And they weren’t stopping their co-“protestors” from beating cops, there were more assaulted.
And we know who planted the bombs, they already arrested multiple individuals who were armed, had pipe bombs or Molotov cocktails and who were photographed at the building.
I agree that people who attacked cops and watched it happen were willing to do violence. They should be in jail. They appear to be a minority of the rioters. That is all I was trying to say.
There was a van that had some molotov cocktails and bombs. These appear to belong to the rioters. I am talking about the bombs placed at the capital and at the RNC headquarters. Just because someone has a bomb doesn't mean they planted bombs nearby. I don't like assuming things like that.
The USA isn't really a democracy. For it to be democratic it would have to use more democratic voting systems than FPTP and the electoral college.
It's an oligarchy, but by the ruling class, which includes the big tech companies.
> Neither Twitter, nor Apple, nor Amazon want to be responsible for the rise of a fascist regime in the US.
Unless it's one where they are in charge.
It's self-evidently impossible for Trump and the red tribe to overthrow the US system of government, they simply don't have control of enough of the levers of power.
It would be a lot easier for Biden/Harris and the blue tribe to do so, as they control a lot more of the levers of power (e.g. academia, journalism, big tech).