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This kind of thing is happening across the government. I think it's become prudent to regard government information outlets as untrustworthy and to ignore them. They're stuffed with outright misinformation and/or have been memory-holing actual information.
OK, federal government. Either way, I don't see how paying attention to the credibility of the various data and information sources is letting anybody "win". I'm just trying to ensure that I have the most accurate information possible.
Because we have elections that affect the government. Very broadly speaking, we do that by electing republicans or democrats. Republicans consistently do things like censor government agencies and attempt to alter history. Democrats do not.
Blaming "the government" becomes a way to shield criticism of the actual people doing it which means people are ever so slightly less likely to take appropriate corrective actions.
(Saying republicans instead of specific republicans is a bit the same, but there's a certain freedom of association there, if you're currently a republican it means that all of these republican actions are, at minimum, acceptable to you)
There was just last month a huge court case involving the YouTube being pressured during the Biden administration to remove COVID "misinformation" which turned out to be true. I don't think this is as cut and try and you want it to be.
"Republicans consistently do things like censor government agencies and attempt to alter history. Democrats do not.". You literally made that exact claim.
History (including recent history) says the leanings of political party of the administration in charge are unrelated to how truthful the government communication is. All politicians, and the groups they control/communicate with, can't be easily trusted, since all have very strong personal and group motivations to deceive.
Deception of the public is a bipartisan issue because it's an issue of holding/maintaining power.
> Deception of the public is a bipartisan issue because it's an issue of holding/maintaining power.
And maybe it's because by and large Democrats are completely incompetent when it comes to holding/maintaining power but I cannot remember a time when Democrats were purging information from government websites like we are currently seeing. Saying it's a "bipartisan issue" does not hold water. I'm sure there are instances where Democrats have done something like this (I should make it clear I am not a fan of them, I just find them the lesser of two evils) but nothing on the scale we are currently seeing.
Everyone else has already jumped on this post but I cannot stress enough how toxic the mentality "everyone does it" is.
Not everyone does it, and people certainly don't do it to the same degree, and when we vote we can actually choose better people. Not perfect. Just better.
> History (including recent history) says the leanings of political party of the administration in charge are unrelated to how truthful the government communication is.
If anything, recent history says the exact opposite: truthfulness has absolutely varied historically based on the person in charge. The current person in charge has a record of untruthfulness unrivaled in magnitude by any of his historical predecessors. It isn't even close.
> All politicians, and the groups they control/communicate with, can't be easily trusted
This is bullshit. The American bureaucracy has been ridiculously reliable as an information source until tight around now. (Same as the British imperial services’ were.)
This baseless cynicism is a driver around why we’re losing that. (More specifically, the blog posts being disappeared aren’t impartial data. They’re the historic opinions of the previous FTC chair.)
The United States government is authoritarian (and always has been behind the scenes) but I would say the current administration is far from a fascist coup.
This is not a government issue. It is a Republican government issue.
Democrat governments don't seem to purge information. Republicans are so infantile that they literally display a picture of an Autopen instead of Biden as President in the historical presidents wall.
Republicans are so infantile as to want to erase the reality of slavery.
Republicans are so infantile that they want to erase evolution from textbooks.
Republicans are so infantile that they want to erase the Jan 6 coup from memory.
Republicans are so infantile that they want to erase real jobs data from BLS site.
I could go on. But this is a Republican problem. No both-sides here.
> Democrat governments don't seem to purge information.
This flies in the face of what we all lived through during the Biden administration.
All the major tech outlets[1, 2, 3] have come forward to say that Biden administration pressured them to remove content, including things like the negative impact on children of school closing during COVID.
This is a lost cause. The person you're replying to does nothing but make comments about how evil Republicans are. Hence why your comment will be lost on them and mentioning things like Clinton making the first attempt at internet censorship, or Obama supressing whistleblowers, tracking journalists, or him legalizing propaganda by intelligence agencies will be completely ignored.
No idea why they'd be on hackernews when they just sound like a run of the mill reddit bot.
>No both-sides here.
At risk of sounding rude, this entire comment sounds exactly like something you'd see on the top of r/all.
January 6 wasn't a coup, as (if I remember correctly) Joe Biden was president for 4 years. I actually welcome the new administration, as they do everything government has always done but are far too incompetent to divert attention away from it.
>as they do everything government has always done but are far too incompetent to divert attention away from it.
This kind of attitude only increases and normalizes corruption. It's not a binary situation. And having an openly corrupt President at the top is the worst scenario of all, because now all of his lackeys are being pardoned for past crimes and given passes for current ones.
>here is a link about their pressuring of Google
The Democratic administration pressured social media companies to take down what they believed to be COVID misinformation. Note that this doesn't personally benefit them in any major way (maybe a little, because the Republican party has de facto adopted RFK Jr.s wacky medical beliefs).
The Republican administration:
- Publicly said that if ABC did not remove Jimmy Kimmel from the air, they would open investigations into the network.
- Withheld funding from multiple universities under flimsy pretenses.
- Indicted multiple enemies of Trump for the crime of being enemies of Trump, as evidenced by Trump's own social media post directed to the Justice Department.
- Sued private law firms that were involved in cases against the sitting president.
- Is withholding funding of state projects, but only for states that went Democratic in the last election
- Sent the military into cities with Democratic leadership under flimsy pretenses.
Don't point out the splinter in a person's eye when there's a whole log sticking out from yours.
Jan 6 was a brazen attempt at a coup. It was Mike Pence who refused to break the country for the narcissist's demands - which was the only reason Biden could be sweared in.
We were very close to a third world level coup thanks to Trump back in 2021.
This time around, the call could be in JD Vance's hands - the same person supporting Republicans blocking the swearing in of a house representative.
For all the dirty partisan things you point out about democrats, they have never attempted a coup. If you think our country and constitution is worth fighting for, you too will not support coup candidates, pedophiles, unitary executives, and separation of church and state.
As it stands, if you support republicans, you are against the above principles, regardless of your whataboutism.
What they mean by "allowed" is that the President can and should be convicted of treason for preventing constitutional processes such as elections.
Brazil had the balls to do it. The fact that America didn't just shows that American constitution, democracy, and people are fragile. If people don't even want to protect their own constitution - the country is already a banana republic.
> I think it’s fascinating that you actually believe a coup is even remotely possible, much less the actual intent.
Once again, are you not aware of Jan 6? What do you think happens in a third-world coups?
Do you think its tanks protecting the coup-master like some blockbuster movie? No. Most coups are subtle - simply by a narcissist not letting go of their seat. Once that happens and people inevitably come to revolt, they call on to their own supporters to protect "freedom" - causing riots or even a civil war - a war caused not for any good but only for that one tyrant's own narcissism.
This was America on Jan 6, 2021. We'll see how the next one transition fares.
> You can’t stop the certification of a presidential election that way.
You absolutely can stop it that way, though they only succeeded in delaying it because they missed, by seconds, gaining access to the people involved. Their intent was to change the outcome by intimidating and/or murdering those unwilling to act in the manner they preferred, including especially the VP since there was belief (because a number of prominent figures, notably the President, had endorsed the idea that this could and should be done by the VP or an alternate presiding officer) that the presiding officer could (and a different one would) simply unilaterally decide not to present certain votes in the first place.
> Violence would’ve involved more than people wandering around the building being idiots after both being let in and forcing some doors.
They weren't just walking around being idiots; a number were armed and body armored, carried restraints for dealing with the people they sought to capture, coerce, and punish for non-cooperation. The thing that stopped their from being more violence is that they were successfully prevented from reaching their targets, including by a large crowd breaking into the Speakers lobby seconds behind a group of legislators and staff departing being stopped by thefirst person through the breach being shot dead.
“First person through the breach” being an unarmed veteran.
To reiterate, what I find most interesting about this isn’t the event. It’s the framing of the event afterwards, and how remarkably bifurcated American’s views are on ostensibly objective facts.
When you compare it to the framing around violent protests more aligned with the mainstream left’s political agenda, the issue becomes even more stark in my mind.
The CNN “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests” chyron being a top-of-mind example of how substantially different that framing can be.
From my own perspective, I would expect the party that owns the majority of guns to actually bring some to bear if their goal was an actual coup. Especially given that they have “weapons of war” readily at their disposal.
Add to that the fact that the only person that died that day was an unarmed protester.
In that light, the accusations ring quite hollow — and self-serving.
The only reason this coup attempt looks comical is because it was unplanned and led by Trump who is incompetent. It could have easily turned even worse - more deaths, more congress people running around, a traitor VP etc. Mike Pence truly saved the country by breaking ranks with Republicans.
I didn’t say the other side doesn’t have guns, and that isn’t the point.
I see some violent protesters, but I don’t see a violent coup. You’re welcome to call that distinction without a difference, but it’s really not. We’ve had years of violent protest, that’s not what a coup is.
From what you said, it was unplanned, but also run by the president of the United States of America. Who is incompetent, but who also secured the presidency not just once, but twice.
Either way, it doesn’t matter. He won again, with the majority of the vote. It doesn’t seem like the American people believe there was a coup attempt — or they don’t care. He’ll serve out his term, and the same arguments with different actors will play out all over again in 2028.
JD Vance will probably be the Republican nominee, and he’ll be called the next Hitler. We’ll be told that fascism is on the ballot. People will either care or they won’t. Emotion-driven messaging will drive the election. No matter who wins, the country will probably not fall apart.
> I see some violent protesters, but I don’t see a violent coup. You’re welcome to call that distinction without a difference, but it’s really not. We’ve had years of violent protest, that’s not what a coup is.
The motive and the location of the protest matters. They motive was to stop certification, but storming inside and blocking the certifiers - that is what separates a protest from a coup.
> From what you said, it was unplanned, but also run by the president of the United States of America. Who is incompetent, but who also secured the presidency not just once, but twice.
None of this takes away from the attempted coup.
> Either way, it doesn’t matter. He won again, with the majority of the vote. It doesn’t seem like the American people believe there was a coup attempt — or they don’t care. He’ll serve out his term, and the same arguments with different actors will play out all over again in 2028.
It matters. Why? Because the narcissist man has demonstrated that he is willing to egg people on to storm elected representatives to get his way. This is how Erdogan, Putin, Maduro operate. It might not matter to you - but maybe you care more about having Trump in office than the constitution. But this is not how a large number of people feel. You can keep pointing at election results as a definitive verdict of the people but elections are about the opposition too - not just about the person. The coup was about the person.
Anyway, I can't convince someone who can delude themselves when evidence is staring right at the face. But like someone else pointed out, this country is truly broken when 2 people look at the same video and cannot agree on the truth.
> Have you watched any of the videos from January 6th? All I saw were a bunch of clueless morons behaving badly, but not violently, in the capital building while Trump literally told them to go home.
Ok, I will give you evidence that it was violent. But will you change your mind or still try to convince yourself by dancing around the edges?
I see a some violent protesters, but I don’t see a violent coup. You’re welcome to call that distinction without a difference, but it’s really not. We’ve had years of violent protest, that’s not what a coup is.
The videos of inside the capital show the majority of people wandering around being idiots.
If you wanna keep re-litigating this for the next three years of Trump’s presidency, you’re welcome to do so, but it’s not going change anything, and clearly the American people weren’t too concerned about it when they voted him in.
> I see a some violent protesters, but I don’t see a violent coup. You’re welcome to call that distinction without a difference, but it’s really not. We’ve had years of violent protest, that’s not what a coup is.
A violent protest could have happened at the National Mall, National Monument, White House, outside the Capitol. Why did they storm and go in at that exact time upon the egging of Trump? Of course to prevent the certification. The motive matters - in this case, the motive was to prevent certification - an attempted coup. You can't keep trying to brush around the edges when the motive itself was to prevent certification.
> The videos of inside the capital show the majority of people wandering around being idiots.
And why are you talking about a handful of clips inside the capitol when the link I posted show exactly how they destroyed barriers from the outside and stormed in? Could it be that your mind is unwilling to accept the reality?
>If you wanna keep re-litigating this for the next three years of Trump’s presidency, you’re welcome to do so, but it’s not going change anything, and clearly the American people weren’t too concerned about it when they voted him in.
I am not interested in re-litigating. However, I love the country enough to call out attempted coups. Coups are unacceptable. And I don't care what brainwashed people think either - because history is littered with stories of brainwashed populace willing themselves into wars and crises - see: Nazis.
The fact that you chose to not disagree with the attempted coup is welcome.
I am not going to go off topic on Weimar republic - but it has been known since the time of Socrates - BC era - that a brainwashed populace is the one that enables authoritarianism.
Dunno if the concern is that "you can't find a copy of the blog post" so much as "why is this admin removing this stuff and/or making it harder to find". This seems bad to me and I don't think their headline is wrong.
