Most liked posts in thread: American Election

Very true however just to look at the phrases themselves is ignorant of the wider context of why he was saying it, who he was saying it to, what he stood to gain and his motivation for it etc etc. the phrases on their own are relatively innocuous but this is another reason I hate trump. He isn't stupid and he knows exactly what he's doing with stuff like this. The capitol violence was exactly what he wanted as it was a display of his 'power' to people he thinks have betrayed him, however he's just clever enough not to come right out and say go physically attack people. He just says enough to get a bite and lets the crowd work themselves up into a lather so he can't be blamed for it after. Don't forget his base gets fed a steady diet of pure shite about democrats being satanic paedophiles, so it wont take much at all for them to get riled up. So for me, just looking at the words is exactly what trump wants people to do, because on their own they aren't really the worst. But in the context of where, why , how, and who his audience were, he absolutely incited insurrection in my view.

 

Exactly.
"Come to Washington. It will be wild". Next thing there's an account on far right social media called The Wild March extorting people to violent insurrection to defend the republic.
He knows full well he's not talking to a bunch of pacifists. These were carefully chosen words designed to fire up an already angry mob, many of them armed and known extremists, without actually saying 'go and smash the place up'.

 

It's now emerging that some Republican lawmakers escorted people round the Capitol building in the days immediately before the riot, ostensibly on sightseeing tours. Some of those who were taken round were believed to be later part of the mob - suggesting that these tours were more recconaissance missions than idle sightseeing.
Incredible if true.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/12/mikie-sherrill-capitol-hill-attack-458655

 

yeah it would be hard to provoke such a calm and peace loving set of people wouldn't it

 

I dont think theres any differing ideals in thinking telling angry white supremacists to fight like hell is at the least highly irresponsible, especially so when you've already spent the past month or so indirectly winding them up on the internet and arguably the past four years prior to that. Its hard to police if you politicise it but i dont actually see this through a left v right prism at all. I genuinely think this part of his base are white supremacists which to me is a fairly universal foe. If we cant all agree someone winding up a bunch of angry white supremacists is wrong, i think our problems run deeper as a society than how to police twitter properly.


No because violence is never ok, however context is key. Did anyone storm the capitol building at a blm march looking to take hostages? and/or hurt elected representatives who disagreed with them? If I recall correctly, the BLM march at washington was largely peaceful and then trump had them all tear gassed so he could go stand outside a church with an upside down bible. the overwhelming majority of blm marches were peaceful and yet the overwhelming majority of this protest was violent, so I completely reject any comparison as these were never good faith actors to begin with.

 

But the BLM marches DID result in 19 deaths, 700 police officers injured and 1 billion dollars of damage so should twitter take action against those who promoted them and encouraged the "fight"?

The majority of them were peaceful but the results were the results. They can't be ignored or glossed over.

I can agree that winding up a load of white supremacists is bad. Obviously. What I can't seem to grasp is whether winding up any group of people who are capable of killings and damage is treated the same regardless of cause.

 

The BLM protest was a very long series of largely peaceful demonstrations in numerous cities over several weeks, in which a small number of the participants took it upon themselves to break ranks and cause damage. This was met with predictably heavy handed policing, leading to more anger, more rioting and a regrettable number of deaths. No one is defending the damage or the deaths. But nobody, as far as I am aware, premeditatedly organised those riots. No one was going on social media and calling for people to pour into those areas from all over the country and cause more trouble. They were spontaneous outbursts of anger by people, in their local areas, protesting at the way they've been treated for decades. Some of the police responses were so far over the top that the police are being sued:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/york-ag-sue-nypd-handling-black-lives-matter/story?id=75251212

That is completely different from what happened at the Capitol last week. It was a premeditated gathering of right wing extremists intent on causing trouble to subvert democratic processes. There were weeks of activity on far right social media anticipating the event; lots of talk of 'saving the Republic or die trying' etc by people with the weaponry to cause serious mayhem. Trump was not unaware of any of this. Making statements like 'be there, it will be wild'; don't be weak; you've got to stand strong'; fight like hell' etc to that crowd - knowing full well that they would take him literally - was, at the very least, highly irresponsible and, more likely, actively seditionary. The fact that he stayed in the White House watching it with approval for several hours, before eventually making a half hearted plea for calm (motivated by the fear of legal backlash rather than concern for democracy or the lives of senators and congress reps) makes it obvious that he was happy with them taking him literally.
I find it strange that you can't appreciate the difference between the two sets of events.

 

I think you're overplaying the spontaneity of the protests in the summer and if you genuinely think there weren't people on social media encouraging the protests then I don't know what to say.

Going to go round in circles again.

Trump's behaviour was abhorrent, as was the behaviour of the scum who attached the Capitol. But that isn't really what we're talking about. It's about how relatively common words such as "fight", "wild" and liberate can be contextualised as am insightment of violence when it suits but are impossible to apply in that way consistently.

 

I'm absolutely certain that there were people on social media encouraging people to join the BLM protests. But were they inviting/inciting them to come and cause trouble? There were hundreds of BLM demos across the USA throughout the summer - the vast majority peaceful - which suggests that those organising them were not intent on causing mayhem. By contrast with those recruiting online for the Capitol protest, who were making no secret that they were itching for a fight.
As far Trump's words are concerned, the key is surely 'context'. Yes, words like fight and struggle are commonplace across a wide range of political and social movements. Usually they are metaphorical rather than literal. But when you know full well that you are addressing an audience of angry, armed extremists who are spoiling for a fight and you use such terms then you are behaving (at the very least) recklessly and potentially treasonously.

 

Thats a matter for twitter really isn't it. Did any singular person wind up the BLM marchers the way donald trump has continually wound his own base up for four years? Did the BLM marchers go out looking for trouble? I would argue nobody went to those marches with the intention of causing violence, as they were anti police violence marches so it kind of defeats the point doesn't it. However I follow a lot of the qanon stuff and parler and all that crap, those people went to the capitol to do what they did regardless and that was always their goal. Bad faith actors. I would also say you're walking a fine line between questioning twitter's policy and seeming like an apologist for white supremacist terror as one or two others have on here.


I do also think you aren't being consistent yourself here - donald trump has broken twitters rules more than almost anyone else in the past four years and has gotten away with no punishment whatsoever because he's the president. if you want to see about inconsistently applying rules I'd start there.

 

I'm suprised you don't think that people were inciting trouble and violence with some of the BLM protests, majority peaceful but the minority peaceful which is surely the same as what we saw at that Capital. Standards clearly need to monitored and applied for both sides...

 

Has anyone else seen the leaked clip of the twitter CEO talking to his staff? Social media censorship on it's way!

 

Ive never said anything bad didnt happen at the marches, just that the overwhelming majority were peaceful which statistically they were. Its not that I dont accept any negativity aimed at it, I think whilst damage was done people make out its some kind of existential threat to everything when it just isn't and as soon as anything bad goes down a lot of people just engage in mass scale whataboutery with it

https://acleddata.com/2020/09/03/demonstrations-political-violence-in-america-new-data-for-summer-2020/ edit -this is my evidence for what I said

 

But the majority of the march on the day of the incident at the Capitol were peaceful.

 

I think violence and damage etc occurred in highly emotionally charged situations which were further riled by heavy handed policing in many cases, which particularly will have made people angry given what the demonstrations were about. I dont condone the response and have never condoned the response and the past threads of myself debating this subject at length with yourself and others when it happened will show that, but I can understand there will have been a lot of anger which is where there's a similarity to the capitol violence. However the cause and reason of people's anger is what makes comparisons to me apples and oranges. I said that because I don't think this riot was representative of wider right wing politics and theyre extremists who have no place in the debate, and whatabouting with blm marches to me just reads as not really willing to engage with what went on as opposed to actively condoning or supporting it, which I should have clarified better and I apologise for that.

For me it depends on how much you want to look at context around things. I think most of our society is actually quite well aligned in terms of right and wrong, so as long as the context of the whys and wherefore etc is clearly communicated most will understand the decisions, even if they don't agree. I don't think a decision agreeable to all is always possible in these sorts of subjects so the next best thing is if we all at least have a clear understanding of the thinking behind them.

 

Have you got a source I can read? If that was truly the case I'm happy to accept that, from my own reading they certainly weren't.

 

This right here is exactly my point.

It's viewed through the prism of whether you agree with the motives. This isn't what I believe. I believe that the repercussions and outlook should be exactly the same regardless of whether the people involved are of the same ideology as you.

I'm not whataboutering. I'm saying that both things happened and both things are wrong. The reaction to them by Twitter (and other internet companies) is different and long term that increases division and limits free speech.

 

Well they weren't identical events so why would they be, I don't think the BLM marches were terrorism whereas I do think these were which separates them. A lot of those crazies have been on doing something like that for a long time now and if the lawmakers hadn't been evacuated tis would be a very different discussion. You have to draw the line somewhere or those sorts of people continually get airtime and attention. Thats a big part of why what happened happened, because a lot of people like donald trump who have been very cynically encouraging the far right haven't been made accountable for that and now it's the biggest terror threat in the US.

 

https://eu.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/elections/presidential/2021/01/07/protest-leader-says-they-couldve-burned-capitol-ground-wednesday-washington-riot/6578925002/

A read of that suggests it was the minority that weren't peaceful

 

I've actually said above I don't see this as a left v right thing because I think these are a fringe group of extremists, which is also why I don't see comparisons to BLM as relevant because that's pretty clearly political as well, they're separate situations entirely.