Tamar,

Thanks for the courtesy of the detailed reply, but it's not me you need to convince. I'm a distant observer who fancies himself as a student of history, politics and healthcare funding, but there are millions of your fellow citizens who some Democrats appear to have consigned to the dustbin of deplorables and insurrectionists.

>>There is a long history of protests in the US Capitol, of exactly the sort my son participated in. This is nothing new and none of those ever turned into insurrections. (The last time anything like an insurrection happened in the US Capitol before January 6 was 1954, where Puerto Ricans nationalists staged an attack:

Yes but insurrection has multiple definitions and while you sought to "correct the record" regarding the Kavanaugh protests, by definition that was both an invasion of the senate and an insurrection. Reserving use of such words for political opponents comes across as a double standard that millions of your fellow citizens believe is now the norm.

I agree there is a difference wrt violence. The videos shown to the Senate were a disgrace, with the culprits needing to be found and prosecuted. My understanding is that there were around 200 violent thugs out of- how many? Not easy to find out, but today Mike Johnson came out and said the purpose of the impeachment was to frame 75 million Trump supporters as Capitol Hill rioters. Is he correct?

>>So to say that the Kavanaugh protesters set a precedent that the insurrectionists followed is ahistorical.

Those who violently invaded the Idaho Senate last year, quoted the Kavanaugh invasion as precedent. None were prosecuted, which sets another precedent that violent invasions of Senate Houses is OK. That's the most recent precedent, no matter what went before.

At the risk of snipes from elsewhere: I have a photo of myself in the Governor General's residence pretending to steal a sculpture displayed on a table. The GG could have taken great offense, but he laughed. Suffice to say that I appreciate the larrikin glee that might cause somebody to be photographed making off with Pelosi's lectern. Wrong? Of course- but those sorts who kind of went on a tour of the place after the police stood aside, are being lumped in with the violent thugs. There's images of well-behaved protestors staying inside a roped-off path across the debating chamber; those people are your countryfolk and they may deserve a scolding, but not to be cast as vicious thugs who tried to kill Pence or overturn government.

As a rhetorical question: had somebody produced a weapon during the Kavanaugh invasion, would your son instantly swap from principled civil disobedience to violent insurrectionism?

>>The point, though, is that this election was scrutinized more closely than any other recent election, and that scrutiny turned up zero signs of systemic fraud.

I can scrutinize you in detail and there's no evidence of hypertension unless I measure it. (Sorry if you do have hypertension, it's just an accessible example)

>>I am not speaking only on voter ID, but let's start there. If the US government were to propose a required national identify card, the same people who are making and supporting voter ID laws would be utterly opposed, calling it government overreach.... there is a general belief in this country, on both sides of the aisle, that US citizens shouldn't ever be required to "show their papers".

Which was fair enough when most adults could vote and populations were relatively static so when Aunt Mary turned up to vote, everybody said "Hi Mary." But times have changed with millions of non-voting adults, large mobile disconnected populations and coastal states that would determine POTUS if not for the Electoral College that they want to dismantle. This is another example where precedent is bad and a new approach justified.

>>voter ID laws disadvantage poor people, and many of them have been written specifically to disadvantage those most likely to vote for Democrats.... you can tell that Republicans think voter ID works in their favor because every voter ID law that has passed has been in a Republican-controlled state...

So maybe one day there will be a Democrat House, Senate and POTUS to remedy this...

>>It's sufficient to say that the Republicans as a party have taken over what was the (southern) Democratic position for much of the century following the Civil War and believe that the votes of Black people should not be allowed to override their votes.

Do you really believe this- that all Republicans not just 75 million Trump voters, have taken over from the Democrats as the racists? I perceive this as another habitual precedent that needs to change if you ever want peace. May I recommend the Rule of Ryan: that behind all the events and rhetoric, most human success and failure boils down to one simple concept: Respect. Right now there's a distinct lack of it in the US, which is why lawmakers think they need the National Guard for protection.