Most liked posts in thread: American Election

Whereas you appear to have missed my point completely.

Yes, of course I'm well aware that there were riots in some cities, but I was comparing two pre-arranged demonstrations in the same part of the same city - outside the Capitol in Washington.

One was the completely peaceful BLM march in Washington that was confronted with hundreds of riot police & national guard, brought in in advance for the occasion, that was teargassed to give Trump a photo opportunity.
The other was a pre-planned right wing demo by MAGA activists. Despite knowing that many of these people have been threatening violent resistance on social media for months, and that many would have guns, the powers that be somehow didn't bother bringing in the riot police or national guardsmen in advance, but instead relied on the usual compliment of Capitol security, who were totally overwhelmed by the mob.

Why were they so scared of the BLM demo but totally ignored the much bigger threat from the tooled up white rednecks?

 

Whataboutery of the highest order. Embarrassing.

 

So you support overturning results of free and fair elections through mob rule?

Trump lost fair and square, what has happened now is shameful for america and if BLM stormed the capitol building we all know you'd be one of the first to have a problem with it. what would you think if someone trashed parliament because they lost a general election

 

Twitter just permanently suspended Donald Trump's Twitter account

 

I'm not saying he was right in what he was saying, but censorship of views - within the law - is never a good thing. You don't change incorrect opinions or claims by banning people.

Just my opinion, if you're happy with this sort of censorship then that's up to you.

 

Its a tough one. I get that certain people on social media push it too far (Trump and the election fraud fiasco probably a good example). But at what point does the host of the show dictate what can and cannot be said? Surely its up to the audience to decide for themselves what denotes right or wrong? 88 million 'followers' says a lot of people tune in for the next instalment of Trump twitter regardless of the rights and wrongs. Always a dodgy road when a chosen few decide to censor what can and can't be said regardless of whether it can be said elsewhere.

 

I’m not sure banning Trump from Twitter is really a ‘free speech’ thing. If Twitter don’t want to give him a platform then they’re entitled to - nobody is prosecuting Trump as a result of saying what he’s saying he’s just having this specific platform removed from him because the providers aren’t happy with it.

The guy has a whole room of his house dedicated to press conferences, can appear on cable news networks whenever he wants, and besides which, it’s incredibly cheap and easy for anyone to set up their own website and publish anything (legal) they want on it.

Nobody has a right to free amplification, and nobody’s really stopping him from saying anything he wants to.

 

I bet you wouldn't say that if they started banning people you agreed with though? That's not really the point of having what is essentially a portal for debate, you have rules and then apply them. Otherwise we'll end up with right wing social media and left wing social media and everything will just echo around and polarise even more.

It's part of the issue. People are happy to criticise or be happy when things go against "the other side" and it just goes round in circles.

 

One thing Trump should have done in his time in office, as we should do, is to stop all but essential postal voting, it's rigged on a massive scale both here and in the USA..

 

It was the first Presidential election that has used postal voting for the general electorate in U.S history, Trump was against it from the beginning saying it was open to fraud and gerrymandering ( As happened in the UK until it was changed )
Having said that without evidence he should have accepted defeat gracefully

 

Correct.
Let's be honest - the only reason that the Republican Party isn't keen on postal votes is because they know that a majority of postal voters vote Democrat.
The GOP has been a minority party for the last two decades. It has lost the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections. Its core support base - white rural Americans - is dwindling and is outnumbered by urban liberals and non-white voters, both of whom tend to vote Democrat. That demographic trend is set to continue.
The GOP and their supporters see their beliefs and conservative way of life as the 'true American way' and somehow sacrosanct. They strongly resent the fact that liberals and non-white people have an increasing influence on US culture. So they systematically engage in a variety of practices at State level which are designed to make it as hard as possible for non-white voters to vote. Restricting postal ballots is just one of the methods they use to try to reduce the Democrat vote.
Trump knew full well that in a pandemic the most sensible way to vote is by post and that Democrat voters would do this in greater numbers, which is why he spent the last 6 months casting aspersions on postal voting, so he could cry 'Fraud' if he lost. All utterly predictable.

 

Going back to my original reply to YungNath I stand by my comment , "There were many who wanted to overturn the result of a free and fair vote from June 2016, by making the electorate vote again .

That reply was with regards the ordinary man/woman in the street who had voted leave/remain not a nutter like Thomas Mair who mental issues and was into the far right activities like the National front, National Vangard, and the English Defence League Alliance thank goodness it was an isolated case.

 

Not that you'll take any bleedin' notice but....
Stop Postal Votes except for the elderly and disabled
Postal voting is ‘wide open to fraud’ and should be scrapped in its current form. Judge Richard Mawrey, who sits in judgment on election fraud cases, previously said ballot-rigging was now a ‘probability’ in some parts of Britain due to the extension of postal voting.

 

And the government response on that link deals with the issue in a measured and proportionate way. There were a small number of constituencies in which it might have been a problem and rules have been tightened since that petition.
All of which is several light years away from postal voting in general being 'rigged on a massive scale'.

 

Would you say that people who encouraged the protests in the summer, which also turned violent in a minority of circumstances, should be held to the same account of encouragement to protests and silently implying violence?

 

No, and I certainly wouldn't suggest that - but looking at Trump's tweets that got him banned then is inciting a crowd to gather due to feeling of injustice (whether real or perceived) which then turns violent enough to constitute incitement of violence. It's not like trump tweeted anything directly such as "Hang Pelosi" or "Storm the Capitol" so it is all based on inference and to a large part dictated by what actions the people on the ground actually take.

If encouraging a mob to gather under a common aim fits that criteria then it has to be applied regardless of cause.

 

Sure. But did anyone 'encourage a mob to gather' during the BLM protests? Organising a peaceful demo isn't the same as gathering a mob.
Trump and Giulliani addressed a clearly angry crowd and told them to 'prepare for trial by combat' and to go to the Capitol and 'fight like hell', knowing full well (from earlier incidents, like Charlottesville) that some of the crowd would take those entreaties literally. That's a far cry from organising a peaceful demo. Their purpose was clearly to stir up trouble. Even if it went further than they intended, they bear a huge responsibility for stoking the fire.
A significant section of the mob were chanting 'Hang Mike Pence' as they tried to break into the Senate legislative chamber. This followed comments made earlier by Trump during his speech urging Pence to overthrow the democratic process. OK, Trump didn't actually tell them to go and hang him but he was clearly aggrieved that Pence wouldn't follow his orders and singled him out for special attention. Trump knew full well that he was firing up an already angry crowd and he was completely reckless and unconcerned about what they might do when they got to the Capitol.
When the Capitol was being stormed, Trump, from the safety of the White House, reportedly watched on with glee as the mob broke in, either oblivious to or unconcerned about the danger his own Senators were in. Only when it was pointed out to him that he could be in legal trouble for sedition did he start to worry about what he had unleashed.
This is banana republic stuff. It's a completely different order of things from spontaneous damage to property as a protest at police brutality.

 

But this is the issue and why it makes it impossible to consistently and fairly apply. People view the context through the prism of whether they agree with the ideals. So if someone you agree with says "fight to the end" you see it as being stoic but if someone from the alternative view says the same thing different context is applied.

Now, that's not to say that Trump was right or whiter than white but how can it be policed? If someone encourages BLM protests and 19 people die and $1bn of damage is done is that okay because the cause is deemed to be noble?

People on all sides know how to be careful with their words - I certainly wouldn't give Trump credit for being anymore credit than others on that front - so reading between the lines impartially is an utter minefield.