I don't disagree that it would be a coup. What we are watching is clearly an attempted coup. I have a hard time seeing how you could have watched the last 4 years and believe there is anything that Trump will not do, or that the vast majority of the Republicans will not go along with.

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None of that's happening. You'll very likely start to see the Senate GOP turn on him by the end of next week if his lawsuits aren't going anywhere and they're not. Coons' comments yesterday about GOP Senators asking him to privately congratulate Biden is telling. They've acknowledged the result but don't want a bullseye on them until more are ready to speak out.

This is mostly about not splitting the base before the Georgia runoffs, but the longer it drags out the inevitable the more likely the base is to fracture anyway.

I'm not denying that that this is bad for our democracy, but 95% of GOP congress has to understand that if Trump is still President on January 21st there won't be a country left to govern. The West Coast and North East would likely start discussing the idea of seceding, our elections would become pointless, and we face international sanctions.

I mean, Germany in 1933 was in essentially the same boat. "Oh, Hitler can be contained, we'll just surround him with the Right People."

In short order, Germany was a one-Party country and had gone from a federal democracy to a dictatorship. History absolutely gives us examples, recent ones, even, of political institutions standing back and allowing a thing to happen because they absolutely can't fathom that the thing would ever happen.

And that's the bigger comparison here. Not that Trump = Hitler, but that the lust for power will blind people to the consequences of their choices. The Conservatives saw Hitler as a bulwark against Germany's leftist parties, and in order to shut them out, were willing to make the proverbial deal with the devil. They thought they could contain Hitler.

They were wrong.

I can absolutely see the modern GOP being willing to make a deal with the devil if it means denying the Democrats the White House, followed by what-have-we-done recriminations a decade later.

^ We saw this coming on 10/7



Exactly, why do we keep doubting they will do exactly what they say they will do just because it's batshit crazy.

I would hope that those we have trusted to lead would have learned from history. Quite honestly, I see it as nothing more than some of these people have recognized the attraction Trump has and are supporting his bluster to curry favor with his base and/or hope Trump plays Kingmaker for them in 2024.

To not recognize where this power play would go if they enabled it to succeed, especially when in the grand scheme of things, the occupant of the White house does not tilt the needle that much on the compass of America as a nation, is beyond absurd. (And by this I mean the average Americans quality of life)

But again, 4 years ago most of us thought that ever having a President like Trump was absurd too. So, I guess you have to take all this shit seriously.

General McCaffery on MSNBC a little while ago said he is very concerned about the staff shake ups at the DOD. He says he doesn't believe the uniform service members would ever take part in anything that violates the constitution, BUT if he were looking at a CIA assessment from another country he would say that this was the action of a strongman trying to overthrow an election. While he doesn't think the military would be a party to it, there seems to to be some in the White House taking actions that suggest they are seriouly considering it.

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It is like something you read about in Third World country elections, not the USA.

Other than in the Third World country the sitting president is usually competent enough to steal the election from the popular challenger, rather than the other way round!

TBH I think it has already irreparably damaged the reputation of the US, regardless of what happens from now on

And don't forget, over 70 million of our fellow americans are ok with it.

I kind of feel like if slightly-less-than half of our population AND politicians are perfectly fine abandoning democracy then we probably deserve a new/different reputation.

So check out what loser.com redirects to...

Lol

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I don't disagree with any of this. The point is that it will take more than that for Trump to remain in power.

To be fair, not all Trump supporters support this nonsense, just most of the elected GOP. Polls say 80% of the country believes Biden won. It's the crazies making the most noise.

If you give money to the recount effort, you're giving money to Trump's PAC instead.


Everything's a con.

The DoD (forced) resignations are worrisome, but this one doesn't scare me. A rushed withdrawal from the ME is dumb, but it's a hell of a lot better than ramping up to a war. I will admit I'm also confused by the timing because I don't really think he would've gotten meaningful opposition to this if he'd pushed for it at any time at least since Mattis resigned, so if he wanted to do that he should've just done it by now.

That's just dumb. If Trump tries to pull this bullshit past January 21 the play isn't to talk about seceding, it's to ask/force/beg the professional members of the military to adamantly refuse to do anything furthering Trump's agenda while also via rhetoric if not action making their stance clear that Biden is the POTUS.

The military clearly doesn't want to be involved, they don't even want to think about what their breaking point of people asked to resign/unqualified people promoted to the top of the chain of command would have to be to just say nahhhh, we good, but it's been obvious in the words of actual leaders where their loyalties lie. Maybe there's a slim chance if he can somehow cheat his way into an EC victory, but if the EC ratifies Biden as President? 0.0% chance.

And one way to help float that is to suggest that secession may be on the table. The military may be more likely to refuse orders from Trump if they believe it's saving the union.

States could also make clear that they consider Biden the actual President and will, at all costs, stymie Trump's federal government from doing anything in their state borders. Biden could be acting President from Philadelphia or NYC, say.

Plus if say, CA, says FU, we are gonna be our own nation, that completely fucks with the US economy (yes, I know that is an extreme dumbing down of what would actually have to happen)

So, I am going to push this forward to the next transition of presidential power. This is the standard now right? I mean it seems to me we are making allowances for Trump to push this out all because "we have to let the process play out." or "we have to give him time to come to grips with the defeat." So we have to do the same playbook for every losing candidate moving forward, right? If we don't allow this moving forward, we can't really get upset when whoever it is plays whatever card they feel they need to play.

That is what I can't figure out about this whole thing. I don't feel this would be tolerated for anyone else but Trump. Maybe this goes back to the breakdown of the institutions Brian.

I'm with you 100% on the idea that it's been clear for several days and it's not healthy to let it go on and have as many people as are doing so say its just fine without substantial relevant evidence being presented legally. If they had credible evidence of multiple tens of thousands of votes in multiple key states or a widespread systemic issue then yes you absolutely should led it play out, but that's not the situation. I just think the Republicans are trying to just let Trump sink his own ship and not be seen as sabotaging him by 71 million or however many people, most of whom voted for them also.

It wouldn't be tolerated for anyone else, and this is where the I think the whole Hitler analogy (Godwin's Law alert) is actually relevant. Appeasing a bully is worse than just saying no and meaning it.

ETA: On the other side of it I actually don't view this as being a huge black mark for democracy as a whole just yet. In any country you can have an idiot doing idiotic things. What matters is whether he ultimately gets away with it. Having a tinpot wannabe dictator show up and then getting rid of them anyway with a normalish transfer of power shows strength in a democracy, not weakness. Until multiple states actually throw out the proper results and certify false electors or whatever, we don't really have that much of a problem. The various dates of certification, EC meeting, presidential inauguration, etc. give enough time for everything to happen. So long as we keep to those standards - something's going to give one way or the other before then - it's not a crisis yet.

In light of the SecDef firing, I've pretty much decided that it's a coin flip at this point that Trump just announces he's not leaving and there's nothing anyone can do about it because his words are backed by nuclear weapons.[*]





* That's a quote from Civ. I don't think he'll actually say that. But he might. That's another coin flip.

It's not actually possible for any state(s) to secede unless the federal government allows it, it's definitely not possible for them to do so if the US military is willing to use force to preserve the union (yes, even you Texas), so thus it's not a credible threat any more than liberals running to Canada was in 2016, or Trump agreeing to shut up if he lost this one.

Threatening to go outside the power structure and institutions that have worked for 200+ years and establish your own shadow government isn't the play, asking the military to uphold it's oaths and honor and defend the institutions this country was founded and built on is. The legitimacy granted by 200+ years of civil institutions is a much, much, much better selling point than trying to split the country geographically along partisan lines & asking the military to pick a side.

They haven't. They never do. Whether they make the same mistakes in the same order under the same circumstances? Well. That's another question.

But the reason history rhymes is because those who study history and point out patterns get dismissed as alarmists, and by the time those in power go "we maybe shouldna done that," it's too late.

There have been some people who muttered and shuffled their feet and didn't really take any kind of a stand against Trump's candidacy who, four years later, went on to endorse Joe Biden because ohmygod.

But the thing is? There were people who recognized historical patterns in the way Trump was running his campaign, and called those patterns out, only to be dismissed.

And by the time the foot-shufflers went "oh god we have to speak out against this," the dude was in power, and the question had become whether the institutions he sought to smash were stronger than he.

Still an open question, that. We'll find out in the next six weeks.

But had they listened in the first place and said, "you know, it doesn't generally end well when people who behave in this manner grasp the levers of government, maybe we should take our stand now," maybe things are different. Instead, they thought they could contain his worst excesses, and came to find out over the next four years that they could not. They reached breaking points, some earlier, some later, but they got to that point four years after it might have done the most good, and in the hopes that their epiphany hadn't come too late.

Imagine if enough GOPers had said enough in 1994 with Gingrich. Or in the late nineties when they were shooting watermelons to prove Clinton was a murderer. Or in the 2000s when the off-year redistricting and voter suppression started. Or during the birther madness. Or when Trump first started to run.

They never stand up and it just keeps getting worse. Trump probably won't convince enough people to override the election, but something worse is bound to come.

I have to admit I'm flabbergasted. I knew he was a egoist, but I never thought he'd humiliate himself or our nation to this degree. It's so embarrassing. I'd love to see him physically dragged out of the WH and chucked onto Penn Ave., kicking and screaming ...

We are not there yet and (famous last words) I don't think we will get there.

We are a few steps closer today than we were on November 2nd.

The US military would be firing on it's own civilians which is it very loath to do. So if Trump tries to game the EC by having state legislators ignore the will of the people, it is a good idea to remind them the potential consequences of such an act.

Appealing to the military oaths just gets you seeming honorable as Trump steals an election. Maybe you can hope for an Arab Spring like movement, who knows. But having the states ignore the authority of a Trump federal government is how you convince the military to side with the protestors over the dear leader who games the EC.

Now, it seems the battleground states are not interested in going as far ok invalidate voters. But if they did, appealing to oaths ain't going to do shit.

If the US military is actually willing to go along with allowing Trump to usurp the election, it's not going to let California, New York, and the billions of dollars & millions of Republican voters just up & leave either.

Luckily it's not and it doesn't want to police citizens let alone fire on them, as multiple major leaders have broken ranks in order to assert, though it's also made clear that it's not looking to undermine the Presidency/chain of command long term.

Biden/Harris are playing this exactly as they should - ignore the bluster publicly, fight tooth & nail on the ground for the letter of the law to be upheld and every vote to be counted, and either let Trump try to push the military to the point they refuse or play out the clock until Jan 21 when Biden is the POTUS.

Even threatening to secede would just be dumb even if it was viable, but considering how many people moved to Canada etc after 2016 you're not getting millions to protest day after day in the streets let alone be a violent threat to overthrow the government if the military is backing them.

You realize this entire line of conversation started with you responding to Atocep's post if Trump was still President on Jan 21. Meaning the military did go along with it (or at least didn't step in to decide competing claims)?

And if that's the case the only thing to do would be to Arab Spring and start talking secession. Let the military decide whether it wants to fire on it's own people on national TV. That's how a number of governments fell a decade ago.

Otherwise you are saying everyone would just go along with the coup. And I seriously doubt that happens. And yes I do you think you'd have thousands on the streets day after day in every major city if a Trump coup happened. I think you'd be ridiculous to think otherwise.

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I think we would go along with it. There would be no secession and certainly no civil war. This is not the 1800s - life is relatively good, no one is willing to give that up, and people are too spread out to try to cut the country up into pieces. It used to take an entire generation to move from one end of the country to the other, and everyone and everything you cared about was in a self-contained bubble about 50 miles wide. Now, we are everywhere - families and friends in every corner of the country and blues mixed with reds. I just don't see anyone being motivated to secede or take up arms given the complexity of the choices we'd all have to make to give up on relationships, jobs, lifestyle, etc.

No doubt there would be protests/riots in the big cities. The rest of us would just watch.

Yeah, I think you are nuts on that one.

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I'm definitely with KSyrup there. All indications I've seen in modern America are that we do not care enough to go through that level of upheaval. If we did, we wouldn't be where we already are as a country; a big part of us even getting here in the first place is the fact that nothing collectively motivates us more than maintaining our standard of living.

I guarantee that if it was a choice between vacationing in FL every summer with no hassle (imagine the "vacation tax" on blue state visitors or requiring a passport to go across state lines) or having your Starbucks on every corner versus 4 more years of Trump whining, people would choose the latter.

Who's gonna secede? Blue states are on the country's edges. Everything else blue is mixed in with vast swaths of red. There's no geographic consistency to it. It wouldn't work. And it would take something far worse than a stolen election for people who don't even bathe their own pets to suddenly put themselves, their families, their jobs and their lifestyle in jeopardy to consider armed conflict to "save" something that can remain relatively stable at the sacrifice of who's running the country. It's just a fact.

Yeah... that's the problem. Most people would realize it wasn't about 4 more years of Trump whining. Especially considering Trump has openly spoken about a third term. Who would stop him if he could steal a second term?

I think y'all are way too cynical about people just going along with a coup and future dictatorship when cities burned after George Floyd was killed.

So I really really don't understand how we go from the left is out of control, and months of protests over BLM, including some riots, etc. to... well people will just shrug and go on with things after Trump steals the WH.

And if California threatened to leave or just refuse to enforce Trump administration pronouncements, that would definitely make people perk up and take notice. Would you put it past Newsom making the suggestion?

No one would do anything until they personally felt it. That's what many of the sane Trump voters I know have told themselves. They see what is going on, what he has done to this point, and they chose tax plan or anti-abortion or whatever because at this point, it's just theoretical damage to the country until it hits home.

Much in the way GOPer enabling Trump to go as far as he is in challenging the election just think it's humoring a dufus... until the election is stolen. And it won't be considered a coup, because the court system will have blessed it. That's how it would happen.

But I never thought the leopards would eat my face!

Yeah, bullshit Ksyrup. If Trump steals the election through some BS (not if there were actual widespread fraud uncovered), then I will march on Washington myself and push down the gates and murder him in the street if I have to. Or get killed trying. Quality of life be damned

OK. You will be in the minority is all I'm saying.

50% of the country will absolutely believe the election WASN'T stolen. So that's your starting point.

Yep. I don't think anyone is saying there won't be anyone who wants to start a revolution over it or that nobody will be mad. I'm sure states would talk about seceding etc. But there wouldn't nearly enough people willing to give up their comfort to actually go to literal war over it, and if you want to really secede you have to do that.

bingo...

I've seen so much splayning to accept what was formerly unacceptable and thought the bottom was in only to find it was false that I am done guessing bottoms.

And again, if it's the courts that ultimately give it to him, that's a flaw in the system, not a coup. The takeaway is that the system is broken because a group in power took bad faith to a place no one ever thought it would go.

To come full circle on the FOFC board, this like someone in a multi-player game refusing to abide by the house rules and claiming victory because they gamed the system by not agreeing to the honor system and that allowed them to win in the way they did.

No, what you said is "no one would do anything until they personally felt it". That's incorrect. Minority or not is not the issue.

I'm a middle-aged white male, the stakes for me are pretty low, except theoretically.

But we're talking a number of steps beyond George Floyd violence is where this will go. It will get ugly fast. No one wants to go to Civil War, but the spectre is there. GOP knows this, and we won't go there.

Yeah, I just don't see it going that far. But if it does, you're not going to have some mild "let's break some windows" rioting. There will be widespread death and destruction. Maybe not rising to the level of a years long war, but it will be ugly for a time.

Right. It'll make the George Floyd protests look like a walk in the park... and it likely will get more violent. It does depend on what the national guard would do in response. In a lot of cities they'll let mass protests go on for months (see Portland). If there is an attempt to violently put it down, it will be really, really bad.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...ritarian-data/


Would y'all like to "both sides!" this?

Sometimes I imagine Putin sitting in front of a computer reading threads like this. He takes a sip of Cognac and then just grins maliciously.

So who's Putin here?! Show yourself!

I lost track of which thread we got deep into speculating about the Trump media plans ahead, but...

President Trump has told friends he wants to start a digital media company to clobber Fox News.

"He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it," said a source with detailed knowledge of Trump's intentions. https://t.co/4654GjS90r

— Axios (@axios) November 12, 2020

so, yeah...

I think the most likely endgame here is for Trump to start his own news network and announce he's running in 2024. Even if he's too old and even if he had no realistic chance the free money from donations and the rallies are an addiction.

True, that's what I said. But I guess what I meant was not enough people will do anything for it to make any difference, or change anything, or certainly not to get to the point of a civil war or secession.

There will be death and destruction "over there" which is not where most of us are, and we'll barely notice a change to our lives unless we are willing to give up our current lifestyles (lives?) to go "there" and join in.

If the saying, "Past behavior is a reliable predictor of future behavior" is true, then trump will bankrupt that endeavor as well.

No, there will be death and destruction in your town. Book it

It's just a matter of whether he buys up a Newsmax or OANN or starts his own

SI

As I said in my original post, I'm almost certain it won't come to it. However, the Floyd protests are an example of what can happen and when we're talking potential coup that takes those stakes and multiplies them by several factors.

Trump had very little interest in being President of blue states. In the event he steals a 2nd term do you really think he's going to allow those blue states to continue to govern as blue states? There's no point to being a California, a Washington, a New York, a Massachusetts, and so on in that reality. There will be no federal funding, federal officers will be sent to your streets to "police", and countless other measures used to get you to fall in line and govern the "right way".

So this situation wouldn't simply be about 4 more years of Trump. It would be the end of our party system and way of governing. So yeah, I do see Newsom, Inslee, Cuomo, ect using the threat and taking the stand if push came to shove.

It's a given. He'll launch the network, lose interest after a year or 2, put one of his kids in charge of it, and then they'll run it into the ground and blame liberals for their failure.

Straight out of the trump failbook. I can only imagine all of the telethons they would have to 'help keep us keep you informed' and just funneling that money into their personal accounts.

I think you severely overestimate the will of suburbanites to proactively endanger their lives, and underestimate their intelligence to push insurrection in places where they are the clear minority - and likely have far less access to and knowledge of lethal weapons than "the other side."

+1 normal people of either political leaning, especially those with families, have no desire to engage in armed conflict with their "neighbors"

Many will sit and bitch on social media, while only those on the lunatic fringes of society will engage in violence, especially when confronted with those that oppose them, equally capable of inflicting that same violence on them.

KY supreme court unanimously upheld the governor's authority to issue emergency orders relating to Covid including the mask mandate. As we barrel toward 3K cases a day, this is great news.

I think you underestimate how many crazies there are in the burbs

Lets say Trump steals a second term, which is a greater than zero possibility. I think the likely outcome is protests that make the BLM movement look like small potatoes. In turn the "law and order" president sends in the military to squash the "violent leftists and Antifa." Since he has now replaced Sec Defense with a yes man the order is carried out. Boom. Powder keg that will completely explode. We will see violence in the streets and rioting on a scale we have never seen. In turn many "patriotic militias" take up arms to assist the military in restoring order, making matters even worse and turning our streets into a war zone. But hey, the libs should have just accepted their defeat quietly so it is all their fault.

We will see violence in the streets of big cities. It will be horrible and unimaginable if it happens. But we've already accepted 250K deaths like it's no big deal, and unlike Covid, these deaths would be largely confined to places none of us will be at or impacted by.

And that's in the best case scenario if you're NOT on Trump's side. If you're a part of the other 50% of this country, you'll think it's justified. The teenager militia dude killed 2 people with no claim to legitimate authority and he's a hero - you think all those people are going to suddenly turn on Trump and whatever he authorizes legitimate law enforcement/military to do to stop riots/protests? They'll be actively cheering it on and wanting to join in the fun.

This all happening in the middle of a pandemic lessens the chance a lot of people feel the pain. Covid has made the riots/protests less jarring because far less people saw it firsthand. We're all working remotely. When Louisville shut down for a couple of weeks, none of us had to scramble to leave our offices when the violence escalated - we were sitting in our basements working because of the pandemic. And that's the closest anything related to the George Floyd protests got to me. That scene plays out in a lot of places across the country.

well 50% of the country? No 71 million is the starting point and that is maximum. I have read it is like 70% so lets call it 50 million of 335 million population (15%). I do agree that most people are too lazy and comfortable to do much I fear...well at least until it is too late. Too late for that is probably when he changes the law for a third term.

/imagines Canada with a pair of legs

Certainly the loudest voices on the fringe are amplified, but I think it's a mistake to try to tie any for/against positions to just those who voted.

What would Trump stealing a second term do to the economy? It would have to destroy it, right? I would assume faith in the US from other nations would be non existent with the exception of a few countries that likely don't move the needle.

Read this article - Trump aides privately plot a flurry of moves in their final 10 weeks - POLITICO

If Trump signs a bunch of EO's the last few weeks, what stops Biden from just signing EO's to get of them?

Covid has/will have a far greater impact on the economy than another Trump term. I think you're overdoing the "steal" thing if it happens through the courts. It will just be taking "to the victors goes the spoils" to a different, unintended level. He took advantage of the court situation by installing friendly judges, they gave him the election. It's a failure of the system when it was finally stress-tested, but it's far from a military coup.

Nothing. The question is how much damage could those EO's do beforre Jan 20.

Look what our eagle-eyed @JacKnutson found on the White House Christmas Tours page pic.twitter.com/xEJVUZLQty

— Shawna Chen (@shawnarchen) November 12, 2020

^

Not legit.

I can't see it

am I going to open this and see a picture of a black guy with a huge unit?

Hopefully in patriotic undies!

So if Trump does run again in 2024, does he keep or dump Mike Pence?

Guess it was from a high quality parody site.

Wood?

Here we go, and anything that happens out of this is squarely on the shoulders of Trump and fuckers that have enabled him for 4 years.

Proud Boys converging on DC for ‘Million MAGA March’ protesting election

Even the name of the march is freaking racist. Agreed, this is all trump's doing and his enabling of them. However, I'd be surprised if it even gets into the tens of thousands.

I'll just throw this in here cause, why not?

Was there a memo I missed? Some big story about how we're simply never coming out of all this shit?

Cause in the past 48 hours I've now seen a couple things that don't fit with a "eventually this will end" motif.

A restaurant back home is selling off the tables they removed back when seating distance was a big thing (they removed roughly half their seating) The tables are pretty new, they're selling them for maybe 1/10th of what replacing them will cost. There's no indication of imminent closure otherwise.

Now tonight I see a doctor's office giving away most of their reception area chairs. (you know, the one's you sit in while waiting for your name to be called). Some wear & tear like you'd expect but nothing crazy, certainly not beaten down to the point that you'd be thinking "time to replace them all".
And, again, no indication of a full closure.

Just seems strange to me. Feels like clear signs that neither business expects to ever be back to relative normal ... but why now suddenly? That's the part that sticks in my head and makes me feel as though they've gotten a memo I missed or something.

And I was one of the first people to board the "I don't believe there's any intention of EVER letting people have their lives back, we're permanently fucked if we allow it" train ... but what tipped 2 unrelated business seemingly in the same direction at the same time?

It's not election-related, that I can rule out I think. The restaurant couldn't be run by more strident liberals if it was named Joe & Kamala's AOCafe.

Arguably at least, these two anecdotes are the most puzzling events (taken together) I've seen since all this shit began.

I bet it's related to cases being higher now than they've ever been. Probably convinced some people that it wasn't just one wave we can get over - which they may have known, but this made it real.

#Melania announces holiday plans at #WhiteHouse, saying `2020 marks the final holiday season for the Trump White House.' https://t.co/cTpt4NoxIR pic.twitter.com/ijWIs0wQ0U

— Nancy Ognanovich (@NOgnanovich) November 12, 2020

Yeah, I'd venture a guess that they don't think they will be in business by the time things get back to normal, not that we'll never get back to normal. We're long past the point where we could have gotten this under control and in fact are quickly sliding backwards going into the winter, so they probably see months added onto what they thought would be an end and simply don't see being able to survive.

Idk, Jon. I can tell you the local Chick-fil-A would love to never go back to in-house dinning. They are making way more money doing drive-through only. I can see restaurants possibly making better money with reduced dinning room, encouraging more take out which also takes less staff.

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As an update, my brother In law is home. He had to be given fluids along with a strong antibiotic. He is still weak, but is feeling better.

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I know I am opening myself to calls of bias, racism, etc. but am I the only one who is concerned that Trump's losing this election will become the new Ruby Ridge or Waco? I mean both sides and all that, but we just saw a conspiracy to kidnap governors. I also seem to remember a federal building being blown up in Oklahoma City over a lot of the anti government and taken away freedoms sentiments that are being expressed.

Or am I being extreme?

Definitely not the case with this particular one. They've been hammered by it, and has reduced them to 4 days/wk and skeleton staffing.

They've been more ... vexed ... than just about any restaurant I've seen.

A bad combination of a tight building, zero traffic spacing (i.e. they do probably 60-70 percent of their daily take in about 75 minutes a day), an awkward drive thru, a tight kitchen that operates with careful choregraphy, and an unusually narrow parking lot. I mean, it's been hell for a lot of places but darned if I've seen one that had more handicaps against it.

Disclosure of sorts here I guess: the restaurant is pretty much iconic in my hometown. I graduated HS with the current owner/operator (who took it over from her parents). I've been eating their food for virtually my entire life (I have clear memories of it when I was no more than five years old). I remember when the building was built, etc etc etc. Point being simply that I'm abnormally familiar with this joint.

That's good new for sure though.

Me, last week: "Voting from now shall be conducted by Chick-fil-A drive thrus." Someone else suggested they could handle covid testing.

We have two, and they have this shit down. I agree with in-store dining being a drag on their business.

without in store dining, where will the old men gather to sit and occupy 2 tables for 2 hours while paying 6$ or less per person?

If you're attached to the 2A community at all (or at least the 2A community as it represents itself on YouTube and in the comments on those videos), you're not being extreme at all.

There a a bunch of folks who are itching for a fight, and having the excuse of taking back democracy and preserving the United States is the match that's ready to light their fuse. All they lack is cohesive leadership.

I think the degree of anger there was over the COVID restrictions and the fact that almost nothing happened is the lastest in a long line of evidence showing that they really don't care that much. Even the people who think it was a permanent governmental/communist powergrab whined a lot but then shut up and took it and went about their business. As has been mentioned, there simply isn't the will for that kind of coordinated effort. Keyboard warriors aren't the people you need to concern yourself with, to put it charitably.

Is it possible it could lead to another terrorist act or two? Certainly. Any kind of widespread revolt? No way. And I don't mean this in any way crass, but this is sort of along the if you're going to make a omelette ... kind of thinking. The level of division we have doesn't get fixed without casualties one way or another. You don't just get out duct tape and put Humpty Dumpty back together. And actions like Oklahoma City are unfortunately always possible and will never completely go away. We would probably differ on where we see those types of actions in society right now to some degree, but the threat of it is always there. It's part of the price for freedom.

We'd actually be in worse shape here around me than we already are.

yeah, I'm not sure why they're held up as these bastions of efficiency when in my experience they're the opposite. Their land plots also are typically set up so that once you even attempt to see how long the line is, you're already screwed and may as well just stay.

Yay Grant!

"Build on a postage stamp, what could possibly go wrong?"

Fair is fair, so I'll post a follow-up as there IS at least a plausible explanation to the restaurant deal that had me thoroughly perplexed earlier.

Several follow-up posts later, I saw an explanation of sorts.

The removed booths are more removed booths than originally taken out. With those gone they're putting in custom built small tables which (doing some mental gymnastics) probably equates to an extra 2 seats.

That sounds like damned little but given that they've been down to seating only 6-8 people at lunch, it's still a potential 25-33 percent improvement.

At least THAT I can get my head around some.

Our CFAs probably both benefit from being not much over a year old (one location is new, the other built a new building right next to the old building before tearing that down).

The drive-thru line basically makes a horseshoe around the building and the in-store parking. The "U" portion (which is straight rather than curved, really) splits into two lanes. A cadre of girls (at least it seems like they are always girls) equipped with touchpads take your name, order, and payment, then tell you which car you will follow when the lines zipper merge back into one. A worker (this one seems to often be a guy) at a booth stationed before you get to the window verifies your name and asks if you need your receipt. Then you get to the window -- two bays, really -- and get your food from workers also stationed outside the building.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/24...5!4d-77.387364

re: the gender stuff -- unrelated but maybe related. I idly asked my WM grocery pickup bringer-outter the other day something that popped in my head: do they work the same thing all the time? Like, do some people shop the grocery orders while other people bring them outside, or do they do both, or what?

She said that they were now essentially treated as their own department in this store, so they were allowed to mostly work that out amongst themselves. She said most did both, a few wanted to shop only, a few wanted to haul outside only.

I could imagine where CFA might have something similar going on.

It seems to be both locations though. So...I dunno. Then again, it might just be that girls in the area are more industrious than the guys. *shrug*

I could understand not wanting to be public-facing though. One of my first jobs was at Hechinger's (killed by Home Depot basically). One of my friends got a job there as a "board kicker." I figured cool, being a football player and more buff than my friend I could work in the back lifting whatever. Where did they put me? On register. When I later worked at Burger King I did basically everything and did it happily - mopping, changing fryers, working the broiler, fryers, then the sandwich boards. I began to grumble when they eventually wanted to train me on the registers.

Look man, I can handle them, not being an idiot. But fuck if I wanted to have to deal with people. (Both in putting up with them and the social anxiety involved.)