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It is absolutely critical that we understand the insurrection at the Capitol on Wednesday as the continuation of police and far-right auxiliary violence from over the summer.

One, there were a reportedly a number of off-duty cops among the people who stormed the Capitol Building. That’s allegedly how they were able to gain access in the first place.
https://t.co/XFFeW7dxoq


Two, many of the other protestors were “Back the Blue”/“Blue Lives Matter” types who have very specific ideas about what the police are for… like this woman. https://t.co/4a1VfIoepf


Three, prominent police officials across the country — like the head of the Chicago police union here — endorsed the insurrectionists.

Four, right-wing pundits and commentators are suggesting that this now somehow evens the score with BLM and left-wing violence. I'm not going to link but there are many, many examples on this platform.
January 6th will be a freak show. Biden will become president because the only way to stop it would be for the House to agree, and that won't happen.

Going forward, the GOP becomes even more dangerous and radicalized.


A few hopeful points:

The GOP could very well lose control of the Senate.

Because these GOP Senators will force a vote, the GOP may fracture, with moderates forced out. While this radicalizes the party, they lose


A few reasons. As @ProfBrianKalt points out, refusing to seat them because they say the election wasn't valid gives credence to the lie that the election wasn't valid.

Moreover, there's no authority to refuse to seat an elected rep for telling lies. .


. . . which is what refusing to seat them would amount to.

The Democrats say, "You are doing really bad things so we won't seat you."

See the problem with that?

(1) It's illegal. The House doesn't get to decide who is seated. The states send their own reps.

moreover . . .

(2) If you say, "The House gets to refuse to seat a person who tells a lie about the election," where does that lead?

If things continue this direction, the political divide will not longer be liberal v. conservative.

The divide will be pro- democracy v. anti-democracy. . .
We all have a merry chuckle as they're voted down and we watch preparations for Biden's inauguration continue

Trumpists don't have enough votes in either chamber


Sort of

You'd only get Acting President Nancy Pelosi if the vote counting wasn't done by January 20th when Trump's term ends

1/


Basically, if e.g. Arizona's Biden votes were thrown out, Dems would object to Arkansas or some other state soon after Arizona

When the chambers separate to consider the objection, the House would refer the question to committee first

2/
@philski68

And the committee would intentionally never meet, unless / until there was some deal worked out to let the vote-counting continue without issue

So definitely possible, a point of leverage for Dems, but still exceptionally unlikely

3/3
@philski68

Congress can do whatever it wants – if both chambers agree to it