How Democrats Planned for Doomsday

[RandySF]

The video call was announced on short notice, but more than 900 people quickly joined: a coalition of union officials and racial justice organizers, civil rights lawyers and campaign strategists, pulled together in a matter of hours after the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill.

They convened to craft a plan for answering the onslaught on American democracy, and they soon reached a few key decisions. They would stay off the streets for the moment and hold back from mass demonstrations that could be exposed to an armed mob goaded on by President Donald J. Trump.

They would use careful language. In a presentation, Anat Shenker-Osorio, a liberal messaging guru, urged against calling the attack a “coup,” warning that the word could make Mr. Trump sound far stronger than he was — or even imply that a pro-Trump militia had seized power.

And they would demand stern punishment for Mr. Trump and his party: Republicans at every level of government who incited the mob “must be removed or resign,” read one version of the group’s intended message, contained in Ms. Shenker-Osorio’s presentation and reviewed by The New York Times.

The meeting was no lucky feat of emergency organizing, nor was the highly disciplined and united front that emerged from it.

Instead, it was a climactic event in a long season of planning and coordination by progressives, aimed largely at a challenge with no American precedent: defending the outcome of a free election from a president bent on overturning it.

By the time rioters ransacked the Capitol, the machinery of the left was ready: prepared by months spent sketching out doomsday scenarios and mapping out responses, by countless hours of training exercises and reams of opinion research.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/us/politics/democrats-trump-election-plan.html

[NCjack]

1. Perhaps the DEM had a spy planted in Trump's inner circle.

[Hortensis]

4. Amazingly, this was organized and executed in public over months as the world watched.

Of course private discussions were undoubtedly very focused, and we really need to know who participated.

But experts in coups watched all the expected steps being taken in public to get the legislature, military, judiciary, etc on board, including getting people ready to revolt when Trump signaled.

Last April a The Atlantic article pointed out that of the 6 populist tactics to bring down governments, the Trump admin's response to Covid had already used 5.

Etc.

Of course it failed because our institutions held. Trump did get Republicans in congress (they all would have supported it if he could have won) and his hard-core supporters.

Authoritarian Populists Have Six Classic Moves. Trump’s Response to COVID-19 Uses Five of Them: While the president may not be using the coronavirus to consolidate power, Americans should still be worried about the threat he poses to democracy.

https://sais.jhu.edu/news-press/authoritarian-populists-have-six-classic-moves-trump%E2%80%99s-response-covid-19-uses-five-them

[Hortensis]

2. Very well done! Even one counterdemonstration would have been used

by the right to confuse America about what was happening. As it is, coverage of the Trump- and Republican-incited insurrection was devastating.

[tblue37]

6. They tried to pin it on Antifa anyway, but since progressives stayed home, it didn't work.

[Hortensis]

8. Bet they, including Fox, were horribly dismayed at how impossible

it was to do that this time. They had so much success with it normally and undoubtedly expected to be able to turn this against Democrats. Confuse, confuse, confuse. Be very afraid!

[NCDem47]

10. I was proud of our self discipline.

We didn’t take the bait on 1/6. It was plain as day who the trouble makers were.

[Mme. Defarge]

3. It's good to have the smart people

on our side.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. My hat is off in respect and gratitude to everyone who made that happen the way it did.

The cats, it seems, herded themselves.

[Irish_Dem]

7. I am so proud of this group.

Thank God. We have brains and a moral core.

[MadLinguist]

9. tons of work, uncelebrated, necessary and yet how sustainable?

Really worth the read. All that spilled onto the political stage in those long weeks since the November election from all those mundane looking locations was disciplined and carefully choreographed. Is this going to be required every election cycle?

From the article

For the organizers of the effort, it represents both a good-news story — Mr. Trump was thwarted — and an ominous sign that such exhaustive efforts were required to protect election results that were not all that close

and

“We may have walked back from the brink of a dangerous moment in this country, but this cannot be the norm,” said Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn. “It’s not sustainable for democracy.”

[Wicked Blue]

11. Why do they call it "the left"?

These were Democrats, for heaven's sake.
The Times seems to have gone off the deep end.