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Yeah, “coup” is still a reach. No power was seized. Not even close. This isn’t 1973 Chile. You’re giving these unorganized white nationalist nobodies way more c

Yeah, “coup” is still a reach. No power was seized. Not even close. This isn’t 1973 Chile. You’re giving these unorganized white nationalist nobodies way more credit than they deserve. If it were a coordinated effort by Trump or the GOP instead of LARPers living out their conspiratorial fantasies, then sure.

kadoban 6y ago
That they failed doesn't mean they didn't try. You don't think this was a coordinated effort? President Trump (and several of his allies) has been stoking this flame for _weeks_ explicitly and to the day. He gave a speech the morning of the attack, explicitly pointing them to the Capitol. He seems to have also, behind the scenes, disuaded the usual defense mechanisms that would have prevented this from being even as effictive as it was. I'd expect much more information will be coming out about that as this is investigated further. I'm not seeing how you're saying this wasn't coordinated though.
- throwaway201103 6y ago
  If Trump wanted to stay in power why didn't he order the military to sieze the Congress and declare martial law? He thought a loosely organized band of civilian protestors were going to actually keep him in office?
  - kadoban 6y ago
    Because that very likely wouldn't have worked, and it'd more obviously and quickly have consequences for him when it failed. He thought he could at least intimidate his political enemies, and convince his allies and those on the fence to _at least_ make a bigger mess of the transfer of power.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Fundamentally, because he’s not very good at this. He’s lazy and impatient, if it can’t be done with a few tweets at 4AM, he can’t do it. For his entire presidency, Trump has really been good at chaos and bad at planning. He regularly failed to do things that were either within his powers or easily doable because he just didn’t follow the process right (DACA, muslim ban), or because he couldn’t work with others (wall, relief checks), or because he just didn’t have the patience to follow through (TikTok sale). When things require organization skill, he falls apart. His two biggest moves have been shit posting on twitter, and shit posting while undermining his own ongoing negotiations. He is incapable of actually doing the work, any work. Actually doing a coup via the military requires skill and planning. There are a lot of people in the chain who can say no, or drag their feet to delay illegal orders. A smarter autocrat would’ve laid the groundwork to purge the ranks of non-faithful, done his best to bribe rank and file members, or worked to create a plausible story that required military presence in the capital. Instead he vetoed their pay bill because he was angry at Twitter, after he pardoned war criminals and called them all suckers. He is simply not a strategic thinker at all. Whipping up his rabid fans so that they plan something on his behalf in whatever fetid swamps they’ve been banished to online? Now that he can do, because it only requires some tweets that he thinks of in the moment. That he was able to get so far with such amateurish work is a sign that the republic is very, very sick. Hopefully we can fix our underlying issues before a smarter autocrat has a go at it, because if that happens we’re probably doomed.
function_seven 6y ago
That's why it has been labelled a "failed coup". It didn't work. But they all thought it would. Unless this is the most method-acting troll I've ever seen, those who barged into the chambers with zip-tie restraints and tasers truly believed they were there to facilitate the overthrow of the legislature and keep their leader in power. It was an attempted coup, and a failed one.
- vehemenz 6y ago
  If I jump the fence on Pennsylvania Ave and run across the White House lawn with delusions of grandeur about taking over the government—and promptly get shot—it isn't a failed coup. The Capitol breach is not comparable to a junta raiding a presidential palace. It was more like the lone nutjob, except there were a few more nutjobs. And a bunch of LARPers and miscellaneous morons tagging along to riot because the protestors outnumbered the cops. When I see a term like "coup" being bandied about inconsistent with its conventional usage, it looks to me like a rhetorical play rather than an honest analysis of what happened. "Sedition" carries all of the same gravity and probably is more accurate. Edit: I found a good piece on Quartz that argues this point better: https://qz.com/1953602/is-america-experiencing-a-coup/ https://qz.com/1953602/is-america-experiencing-a-coup/
  - function_seven 6y ago
    I take your point. This didn't rise to the level of the coups we've seen in other countries, typically carried out by the military. But it's also something more than "plain" sedition. Not only was it a group of nutjobs with little chance of success, but they were organized and/or encouraged by the outgoing President himself, and were aided by the anemic security that was also coordinated by the President (via recent appointments to the Pentagon, decision to discourage or deny National Guard assistance, etc.) That tie to Trump, along with the intentionally weak security, adds another dimension to this. EDIT: I read your link after the reply above. Thanks, it captures the nuance pretty well.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    > If I jump the fence on Pennsylvania Ave and run across the White House lawn with delusions of grandeur about taking over the government—and promptly get shot—it isn't a failed coup. Quantity matters. A single fence jumper is different than a thousand. One person is a nutball, a thousand is a mob. Proximity also matters. We now know that the mob came dangerously close to members of Congress. In at least two instances they came within feet of members, or within seconds of passing through barricades that were not yet erected. This is like your hypothetical fence jumper making it into the Lincoln Bedroom with a few hundred of his closest friends. Given that they literally beat at least two cops to death and erected gallows, there is no doubt that they intended the worst for Congress. > The Capitol breach is not comparable to a junta raiding a presidential palace. It was more like the lone nutjob, except there were a few more nutjobs. And a bunch of LARPers and miscellaneous morons tagging along to riot because the protestors outnumbered the cops. You are building up an incorrectly narrow vision on what a coup actually looks like, then using that to declare this to be a non-coup. You are absolutely correct that this looks nothing like a Junta raiding the presidential palace, but that is far from the only form that historical coups have taken. More than once countries have been toppled by a mob seizing the legislature while the military stands around without an idea of what to do. Arguably that is exactly what happened during the August 10th insurrection in Paris, which toppled a constitutional monarchy and led to the Terror.
tehbeard 6y ago
By that logic, there's no such thing as attempted murder, robbery etc because no-one was killed or deprived of property....

kadoban 6y ago

That they failed doesn't mean they didn't try. You don't think this was a coordinated effort? President Trump (and several of his allies) has been stoking this flame for _weeks_ explicitly and to the day. He gave a speech the morning of the attack, explicitly pointing them to the Capitol. He seems to have also, behind the scenes, disuaded the usual defense mechanisms that would have prevented this from being even as effictive as it was. I'd expect much more information will be coming out about that as this is investigated further. I'm not seeing how you're saying this wasn't coordinated though.

throwaway201103 6y ago
If Trump wanted to stay in power why didn't he order the military to sieze the Congress and declare martial law? He thought a loosely organized band of civilian protestors were going to actually keep him in office?
- kadoban 6y ago
  Because that very likely wouldn't have worked, and it'd more obviously and quickly have consequences for him when it failed. He thought he could at least intimidate his political enemies, and convince his allies and those on the fence to _at least_ make a bigger mess of the transfer of power.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Fundamentally, because he’s not very good at this. He’s lazy and impatient, if it can’t be done with a few tweets at 4AM, he can’t do it. For his entire presidency, Trump has really been good at chaos and bad at planning. He regularly failed to do things that were either within his powers or easily doable because he just didn’t follow the process right (DACA, muslim ban), or because he couldn’t work with others (wall, relief checks), or because he just didn’t have the patience to follow through (TikTok sale). When things require organization skill, he falls apart. His two biggest moves have been shit posting on twitter, and shit posting while undermining his own ongoing negotiations. He is incapable of actually doing the work, any work. Actually doing a coup via the military requires skill and planning. There are a lot of people in the chain who can say no, or drag their feet to delay illegal orders. A smarter autocrat would’ve laid the groundwork to purge the ranks of non-faithful, done his best to bribe rank and file members, or worked to create a plausible story that required military presence in the capital. Instead he vetoed their pay bill because he was angry at Twitter, after he pardoned war criminals and called them all suckers. He is simply not a strategic thinker at all. Whipping up his rabid fans so that they plan something on his behalf in whatever fetid swamps they’ve been banished to online? Now that he can do, because it only requires some tweets that he thinks of in the moment. That he was able to get so far with such amateurish work is a sign that the republic is very, very sick. Hopefully we can fix our underlying issues before a smarter autocrat has a go at it, because if that happens we’re probably doomed.

function_seven 6y ago

That's why it has been labelled a "failed coup". It didn't work. But they all thought it would. Unless this is the most method-acting troll I've ever seen, those who barged into the chambers with zip-tie restraints and tasers truly believed they were there to facilitate the overthrow of the legislature and keep their leader in power. It was an attempted coup, and a failed one.

vehemenz 6y ago
If I jump the fence on Pennsylvania Ave and run across the White House lawn with delusions of grandeur about taking over the government—and promptly get shot—it isn't a failed coup. The Capitol breach is not comparable to a junta raiding a presidential palace. It was more like the lone nutjob, except there were a few more nutjobs. And a bunch of LARPers and miscellaneous morons tagging along to riot because the protestors outnumbered the cops. When I see a term like "coup" being bandied about inconsistent with its conventional usage, it looks to me like a rhetorical play rather than an honest analysis of what happened. "Sedition" carries all of the same gravity and probably is more accurate. Edit: I found a good piece on Quartz that argues this point better: https://qz.com/1953602/is-america-experiencing-a-coup/ https://qz.com/1953602/is-america-experiencing-a-coup/
- function_seven 6y ago
  I take your point. This didn't rise to the level of the coups we've seen in other countries, typically carried out by the military. But it's also something more than "plain" sedition. Not only was it a group of nutjobs with little chance of success, but they were organized and/or encouraged by the outgoing President himself, and were aided by the anemic security that was also coordinated by the President (via recent appointments to the Pentagon, decision to discourage or deny National Guard assistance, etc.) That tie to Trump, along with the intentionally weak security, adds another dimension to this. EDIT: I read your link after the reply above. Thanks, it captures the nuance pretty well.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  > If I jump the fence on Pennsylvania Ave and run across the White House lawn with delusions of grandeur about taking over the government—and promptly get shot—it isn't a failed coup. Quantity matters. A single fence jumper is different than a thousand. One person is a nutball, a thousand is a mob. Proximity also matters. We now know that the mob came dangerously close to members of Congress. In at least two instances they came within feet of members, or within seconds of passing through barricades that were not yet erected. This is like your hypothetical fence jumper making it into the Lincoln Bedroom with a few hundred of his closest friends. Given that they literally beat at least two cops to death and erected gallows, there is no doubt that they intended the worst for Congress. > The Capitol breach is not comparable to a junta raiding a presidential palace. It was more like the lone nutjob, except there were a few more nutjobs. And a bunch of LARPers and miscellaneous morons tagging along to riot because the protestors outnumbered the cops. You are building up an incorrectly narrow vision on what a coup actually looks like, then using that to declare this to be a non-coup. You are absolutely correct that this looks nothing like a Junta raiding the presidential palace, but that is far from the only form that historical coups have taken. More than once countries have been toppled by a mob seizing the legislature while the military stands around without an idea of what to do. Arguably that is exactly what happened during the August 10th insurrection in Paris, which toppled a constitutional monarchy and led to the Terror.

tehbeard 6y ago

By that logic, there's no such thing as attempted murder, robbery etc because no-one was killed or deprived of property....