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> nothing less than a failed coup d'état. No it was not. Go watch that famous YouTube video about the keys to power. They had nothing, no source of power at a
by ars 5y ago
> nothing less than a failed coup d'état.
No it was not. Go watch that famous YouTube video about the keys to power.
They had nothing, no source of power at all. At the bare minimum they would have needed the military on their side. Or 20 million people. They had neither. (Yah - even with all the people voting for Trump, only a fraction of a fraction were willing to use violence. The overwhelming majority were unhappy, even very vocal, but they accepted the results.)
It was basically a riot. A bunch of idiots making a mess and destroying things. Even if they had "succeeded" they still would not have had any power.
- sofixa 5y agoJust because you estimate their chances of success to have been low ( personally i disagree, there are probably enough nutjobs in the military and police forces, and they had non insignificant amount of federal and state political power), doesn't make it something else than a coup d'état. Did they attempt to seize power and overrule the results of an election or didn't they? Their miserable failure at it isn't an excuse.
- ars 5y agoTrump was still president at the time. Who were they seizing power from? Your description would make more sense if they had done it after Biden was president, but they didn't.
- sofixa 5y agoThey tried to seize power by overturning the pending confirmation of election results. The legitimacy of Trump was him getting elected, him refusing to let go would be seizing power.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThere's this thing called an "auto-coup". It's where the one currently in power seizes power that he does not legitimately have, in order to avoid handing over power to the one who beat him in an election. Trump either was trying to do that, or came very close to trying (depending on how you draw your lines).