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Guess you got what you deserve then. Think I'll be saying this a lot in the next 4+ years.
Fuck the police. Fucking worthless idiots.
Leopards, face, etc.
I think the dangerous message was the majority of LAW ENFORCEMENT officers voting for an anti-democratic felon rapist.
Also, an anti - Union anti-democratic felon rapist. Imagine any union doing that.
Police unions aren't like normal unions. I don't even know know why it works that way, I just know they're always led and managed by the most absurd caricature of bad, abusive cops you could imagine.
This is telling me we need to storm the capital and take back the government from the current administration. Hey it’s ok, we are good let’s go
It's never symmetric like that. When they did it, everything was confusing and they had to take 4 years to half-heartedly try to deal with it before giving up and saying it was okay because the system said so. If we did it, we'd be shot, and everything would move on, I think.
They (the police union) backed the person that instigated an attack on police and the capital, and are surprised that said person (trump) pardoned the attackers, when he said he would pardon the attackers.
Holy fuck, I thought I was stupid.
They'd be so mad at your comment if they could read.
to be the devils advocate. Most of them also stupidly expected them to honor his word that he would move through the list of pardons with a fine comb, and that people who participated peacefully were pardoned but the people who were violent during the protest were not.
Spoiler alert: He didn't. I personally think his descision to just blanket pardon was done last minute, I think it was decided the moment he was told about Bidens last second pardons. He's never had very good anger management, so I think he did it out of anger. Which also doesn't look good.
They thought they would always be on the "source" side of the batons and the big sprays of bear mace. There were a lot of weird little deflections and explanations what happened on January 6th and why for one reason or another it didn't count. There were some cops and ex-cops in the crowd. Just a few. Now that it's being made clear on a national level that any cops anywhere might find themselves on the "recipient" end, with full support all the way up the chain, it's a whole different story and a big problem all of a sudden, I guess.
I say great. Sounds awesome. It should be a perfectly natural alignment of the local cops against the lawless maniacs who Trump wants to turn loose on America. That's how it worked out four years ago. If Trump wants to make it loud and public that he'd like to firmly align the cops on our side of the coming divide, against his small handful of maniacs on his side, I say that sounds absolutely fantastic and I welcome the development.
Yup. The dangerous message was also sent for the previous 4 years that they've been martyred and celebrated by the same person y'all backed. Idiots.
The pardons sent the message they were supposed to send - violence committed on Trump's behalf, even against police, will be pardoned. The police unions would still vote for Trump given another shot so their disapproval of this means less than nothing and all parties know it.
A big underappreciated part of fascism is that there's wiring in the human brain that is designed to delegate the thinking, planning, and reasoning to some other person. I think for a lot of these people, their instincts have specifically malfunctioned in a way that prevents them from really taking their own critical look at whether Trump has their best interests at heart.
If Trump says it, it's real. If you don't have that type of mentality, it's hard to wrap your head around how the person would even make such dumb decisions or trust placements, but if you're in it, it makes perfect sense and everything is ordered and comfortable. It may take something truly shocking to make you wake up and realize what was obvious to everyone else. And, once you reach the realization, it can be terribly destabilizing and upsetting. Now you're adrift, and you don't know what to do or what to think, and nothing makes sense.
They're obviously adults, I'm not trying to make it sound like they can't make any decisions for themselves, but it is important I think to realize how powerful the suppression of separate independent judgement in that kind of hierarchy can be. And that hierarchy can form itself into a terrifying powerful force, because everyone's acting in the same unified direction. No hesitation or loss of focus.
Well said. The satisfaction & reassurance of being in a "righteous" group is very powerful. No matter the reality, the group reinforces itself & calms dissent. Like a terrible & warm blanket. Then it's very terrifying when you realize what you are & where you could be led. Thank you for the lesson, religious youth groups.
It's also worth mentioning the consolation in the fact that fascism always fails, eats itself alive, and collapses. It's inherently unstable and unsustainable. It can collectivize a lot of power real fast, and do a lot of damage as a result, but it never lasts. Human beings need to cooperate, and hyper competitive individualism creates false loyalty and betrayals, minimal trust, minimal cooperation. Great pains and efforts, and the use of their power, is always spent trying to fight against human nature to maintain their order. Human nature always prevails.
Does it, though? There's a lot of failed countries where fascism shows no sign of falling.
No shit Sherlock.
The message is 'Fight for me and I'll keep you out of jail'
Proud boys are now calling for retaliation against the cops that testified against them to put them in jail.
Fucking PLEASE.
PLEASE go after the local police. Cops are a little community. PLEASE have Trump’s people start threatening a bunch of uniformed civilian police who didn’t do anything other than work to put some violent maniacs in prison, and make it clear to them what he stands for, and in particular that they are not safe from it. That development would be a rare ray of sunshine in a pretty awful stormy time that is coming.
I don't understand your excitement. Why do you say 'PLEASE' to watching Proud Boys and local police having a friendly BBQ with eachother?
I'm trying to work on being less sarcastic. Seriously. So I will make a completely serious response:
That is the exact opposite of what I was saying. I think there's an excellent chance of the Proud Boys and the local police becoming friendly with each other. In some places, of course, they already are. Anything that undermines that alliance, and aligns the normal civilian police against Trump and his MO, will inevitably be a huge boon when some of Trump's semi-organized maniacs come to town with aims of using street violence to accomplish some horrifying goal he and his people have got in mind.
I'd like to believe that there are good cops out there that will be like "hey wait a minute" and when push comes to shove they'll be some of the greatest allies of the people, who protects the people and not just the powerful. I'd like to believe.
You don't have to believe. You saw it happen already on January 6th.
Would you stay in the building and fight the rioters, when you were outnumbered a hundred to one with them having lots of weapons, all yelling and big sprays of bear mace, and a lot of them saying to you, "Just join us, we're on your side?"
I'd absolutely like to believe I would, but the truth is, I don't have a clue what I would do.
Are we just going to remain in denial that he's a fascist until he wears a T-shirt that says it or something? His actions sent a calculated, premeditated message.
It's not like he's accidentally signalling that bad behavioir from white nationalists won't be punished....
Even if he did that, they'd claim it was a joke to own the libs
I don't think anyone is in denial. 30% know and are against it. 30% know and want it. 30% don't care.