MAGA mob shuts down Capitol: Open Thread

I’m still wondering how people don’t think Donald trump is a rapist. This show you how violent this man gets when he’s told no.

As if on cue, we already have some Democrats talking about “turning the page” and “moving on”.

I am so fucking scared. If these scumbags do not face consequences, the violence will only keep escalating.

@Sarity

If they don’t remove this fuckmuppet from office post haste, they can COUNT on more of this happening. It’s well known that Donnie is a vindictive retaliatory loser when he doesn’t get his way. 

This also, too.

I’ve been writing about this on my blog, but the basic message is that even if he can’t get the cooperation of aides or assistants or the military, he can do a ton of damage to the government with just a pen & something to write on. And some of the worst things he can do wouldn’t take more than a minute.

The US literally cannot risk having him in office another hour.

Would anyone here be surprised that at least one of the rioters yesterday received a $9300 Paycheck Protection Program loan to keep his independent business afloat during the pandemic last year?

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/letter-guy-pelosi-ppp-loan/?utm_medium=%20NYNzA&utm_source=liqsoc&lsid=dtwnti4oq&fbclid=IwAR3z3_aPji_X7kvdjvQO8wje70-r2NC1NO2GAIpj_p1AiQ0te86TbD2sxyQ

Socialism only when it benefits me; never when it benefits just thee?

In 1989, I watched the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I knew right then and there that it was the end of the cold war and signaled the impending demise of the USSR as a super power. Yesterday, I watched the assault on the Capitol and I knew right then that it signaled the impending demise of the USA as a super power. The USA may survive as a country, but instead of being the “shining city on the hill”, it will now be seen as the “collapsing ruins on the hill”.

@Brony

Is Brendan O’Neill really a leftist though? I mean he likes to say that but he does a phenomenal job of parroting every single Right wing talking point there is?

His calling himself of the Left reminds me of Cristina Hoff Summers insisting she is a feminist.

The writing’s been on the wall for Pax Americana since well before Trump was elected, let alone last night.

The coming interregnum worries me for the same reasons. However I have my doubts whether it will be China, let alone Russia, who becomes dominant afterward. In the 1920s if you’d asked people who realized the British Empire was in decline who would take over the role next, most would have bet you a million bucks it would be either Germany or France and very few would have said “the United States”. And those would have heard, in immediate response, someone say “that backwater?! Are ye daft?”

It’s likely to be someone who has been modernizing rapidly recently, but from outside the club of current movers-and-shakers, all of whom will be badly damaged by the fall of the US and disruption of the existing systems, from supply chains to financial webs to geopolitical alignments, upon which they’ve grown to some degree dependent. So look for a “third world” country with significant recent economic growth and infrastructural (including social infrastructure) modernization who isn’t considered an almost-first-world country yet. India is a dark horse candidate but it probably won’t be a BRICS country for the reasons outlined. I’d put forth a South American country not named “Brazil” as one batch of solid candidates, and some of the better developed sub-Saharan African countries not named “South Africa” as a second — Nigeria has gotten big enough to have its own “ollywood” variant, and has resources (oil).

The major Muslim states in the MENA region are mostly out, because of their extensive entanglements with the existing finance/trade/etc. web. Most of those are going down hard in the next decade or two. Saudi Arabia’s implosion promises to be spectacular: the declining productivity of its oil fields, the breakdown of the existing system (especially the petrodollar), and the likelihood of it being caught in the middle of future conflicts like a teddy bear in the grip of two competing terriers, combine to guarantee at minimum a severe case of state financial insolvency in its near future, and once they can no longer pay for bread and circuses for the rank-and-file, that decadent royal family of theirs will find itself swinging from lampposts faster than you can say “let them eat cake”. It could be hard-line Communists but will probably be far-right jihadists who end up running the place, if it doesn’t go the more typical poor-middle-East-country route of “civil war without end” instead, with MBS-loyalists-vs-jihadists-plus-assorted-foreign-opportunist-backed-factions leading to it becoming a mirror image of Syria.

A peripheral, oil-less MENA state is a possibility if it pivots early to the likely reality of the mid-to-late 21st century. Look for someone (Egypt? Tunisia? Morocco, even?) who isn’t currently a regional mover-and-shaker to start investing heavily in solar power and desalination plants, and going increasingly secular-liberal in politics. If one of them does that, they have a chance.

The other crop of candidates would be northeastern European backwaters with a rugged independence from recent buffeting and instability. So, former Soviet states not currently in Russia’s orbit, and minor EU member states who are well equipped to avoid economic collapse if the EU goes down or gives them the boot. This bunch includes the likes of Finland and Estonia.

Look especially for innovation, and an overall orientation to the future rather than the past. That criterion increasingly disqualifies most of the current “western nations” and arguably China, where reactionary elements seem to be ascending, based on recent events in Hong Kong (and which has a giant target painted on its back during the interregnum, besides). It absolutely disqualifies the other BRICS nations, all of which have definitely got reactionary, pastward-looking political forces in ascendance right now. The successor empire’s nucleus will have some reactionary elements, but will have a sizable and viable progressive movement and a business scene with entrepreneurs challenging, sometimes successfully, whatever large incumbent businesses exist locally. It will be characterized by a creative sort of internal tumult, rather than the destructive sort that dominates the US of late, or a trend to increasing ossification, like late-20th-century America and the present-day EU, Japan, Australia, and so forth.

Like the US of the 1920s, it will be on the periphery of the world trade infrastructure rather than in the thick of it, and it will be in a dynamic, innovative phase of scientific, technical, and industrial development, and it will not likely be a tiny little thing with little in the way of domestic resources and population (which eliminates the likes of Iceland and New Zealand, and probably Finland). Innovation will be in fields about to become hugely important: in 1920s America, that was mechanization of transport and agriculture; now, that will be green energy, biotechnology, and everything cyber.

One last thing to look for is for a country that is currently, or soon becomes, the sink for a brain drain. The US shortly before its ascendancy was attracting the likes of Turing, von Braun, and Einstein. Where are smart people moving to these days, outside of the existing major economies? If Nigeria, or Estonia, or Morocco, or Peru, or someplace else at about that tier of perceived-nation-state-importance is, or starts, becoming a surprisingly big destination for entrepreneurs and scientists, then that’s likely to be the one.

@Naglfar
I too worry about.
@Surplus to Requirements
A nice analysis. I might suggest it might be an alliance that doesn’t exist yet, such as something like a CANZUK although probably not CANZUK. Certainly not the EU.
It also certainly won’t be China. Those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it and modern day China is a remake of a remake multiple times over. We know how this movie ends and it isn’t well. India is innovating and is a wild card as you’ve said. I think my money would be on an African alliance perhaps centered around Nigeria but not necessarily. It’s very hard to know until it happens.

There also might not be any global superpowers anymore. The USA have lost a lot of power thoses lasts 50 years, but toward a ton of regional powers, mostly the EU, China, and Japan. Of those three, China is the only one who feebly tried to expand its influence outside of its regional sphere. The current trajectory is much more toward a sort of global consensus on how to run stuffs, and regional powers setting the specific in any region.

Similarly, local wars seem as likely as ever, but honestly there’s no easy path to rope half the globe in a conflict anymore outside of somebody wanting to conquer the world.

The deplorables are all on the same page with blaming MAGA-impersonating BLM/Antifa for the attempted coup. As usual.

Because of course they are. For one: discourse on Quora seems to be split between that, and desperate attempts to argue that insurrection is “patriotic.”

Trump supporters complain about being thrown under a bus; although some still think this is all part of his 4D chess masterplan.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/08/trump-incites-anger-among-acolytes-let-down-by-lack-of-support

Oh yes, I didn’t see that Naglfar talked about Russia as a potential superpower. Not gonna happening in the near future. They have a charismatic and somewhat competent dictator, but they definitely don’t have the population, army, or anything really to be a superpower. (it’s why Putin is so careful in doing everything to brush up Russia reputation, but without ever taking any risk).

China have just as competent dictators, but do have the number and inclination to be a superpower, so they are a much more likely candidate. It’s probably too risky tho, since like Russia they have to be super attentive at not creating a revolution at home. (and believe me : the chinese dictators are extremely careful at keeping their population content and avoiding trouble).

The USA could claw back at superpower status, and the EU could also do that, if either actually try. But that look too much efforts for too few gains. It’s not like being a superpower brought much good to the old USA after all.

I am not aware of a south american or african country with a decent chance at being a superpower, but I could be surprised.

Japan, India, Russia, and to an extent China however all have some “potential” to instigate bloody wars for territorial gains, probably followed by defeat and a regime change (similar to Napoleon or Hitler, so very bad news). Not sure which other country have the right mix of nationalism and confidence to try something like that, plus I think just about everyone remember how badly Irak and Afghanistan wars got.

“Ok; let’s break down Nancy Pelosi’s door!!! Did you bring the axe like we asked you?”

“Er….”