I don't think there is any reason to exaggerate. People have a will and a right to protest against their perceived injustice at a state or federal level. A coup also usually involves the military and a taking of government by force, neither of which happened yesterday. If this were a coup then the BLM "protests" over the summer were also a coup, and they were causing significantly more damage to small business with destruction and looting.

You are being disingenuous if you label this as a "coup" regurgitating biased media talking points.

This is such a god-awful take.

They rushed through barricades of the legislative building during a session. This session wasn't merely "some bill" for gun control, or abolishing taxes, or amending the Constitution, or what have you.

It was the procedure of finally and officially certifying the results of an election that has been improperly questioned by the incumbent. This election has been concluded to be free of systemic fraud, or any level of fraud sufficient to flip any state. And yet these seditious citizens broke in with the intent to stop such a vote from occurring, to the extent that representatives had to flee to safety and several people died.

I personally did not support the level of property damage from the summer protests, but the differences are large. Protesting for political change through collective action, and being attacked in many instances by the very force they claim is oppressive.

The protesters in DC were attacking the will of the people, based on lies and the encouragement of the sitting President - and pretty much welcomed in by local law enforcement.

When did BLM protestors force their way into a capital building with the express goal of overturning the results of an election?

How would protestors overturn the results? Do they get a vote just because they are standing on the senate floor?

Do you really think Trump protesters wanted to overthrow an election result by breaking into a building? Have you seen the videos of Capitol Police removing barriers and leading them into the buildings, or some of them taking selfies with the protestors?

Either the Capitol Police are fucking terrible incompetent or they wanted this to happen.

BLM rioters burned down a police station in Minneapolis/St Paul. They took over 6 square blocks in Seattle and their "community police" shot up a Jeep killing a 14 year old boy and removed all the evidence (https://battlepenguin.video/videos/watch/9f81cd38-3ee9-4f26-...).

These people walked into a public building and everyone is upset because they walked around the sacred halls of the rich and powerful; the house of the people. It was peasants in the castle and we can't have that.

Was it wrong? absolutely. That's why the vast majority of people stayed outside.

Oh and a woman was shot by that incompetent Capitol Security force. It's okay though because her life didn't matter since she's white. I'm pretty sure it was her fault because victim blaming is alright if the victim is a privileged air force veteran and isn't an oppressed minority.

The Capitol was the focal point of the protest due to the location and in this case the perceived injustice of the election. When almost half the voting population thinks there is something wrong with the election, maybe its time to listen to those people. If anything I think the hivemind and unemployed young people showing frustration was the spark that ignited what happened yesterday.

I am not trying to justify it as good or bad, but it was not a coup by a long shot and you cant haphazardly label it as such.

There are times when I try my upmost be very careful with my language. And this is one of them: What was undertaken on Jan. 6th was an attempted coup. It was insurrection. It was sedition. I refuse to allow that fact to be downplayed or obfuscated.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2021/jan/06/coup-heres-so...

You are entitled to your opinion and your echo chamber of choice, but you are doing a disservice to your fellow citizens if you think in black and white

The perceived injustice of the election only exists thanks to a massive, baseless propaganda campaign led by President Trump himself.

The courts have "listened" to the "claims of injustice". They found nothing of merit. It's over. Trump lost, fair and square. His inability to handle the loss and his disregard for our democracy has wreaked havoc across the nation.

Genuine request as I've seem this framing a lot and cannot understand it:

Can you point to the specific things that occurred which you believe were part of an attempted coup, and why you believe they were?

Trump wanted Pence to violate them constitution and overturn the election. When Pence refused he then went to an angry protest and told them to match the Capitol and fight like hell.

The then refused to deploy the National Guard to protect the Capitol and reportedly was thrilled at the fact that the certification was interrupted by the rioters.

After much pressure he finally put out a weak statement telling the rioters he loved them and they should go home, but the election was still a fraud.

What part of that fails to fall under encouraging an insurrection?

All of it

A coup requires that power is taken illegally (usually violently), and held. Are you saying this rabble of idiots were intending to take power somehow (what power?), just by occupying a building? How could this have ended with them (or even Trump) in power?

>A coup requires that power is taken illegally (usually violently), and held

I (obviously) can't know what was in the minds of the folks who broke into the Capitol.

However, multiple news reports detail that a number of the folks arrested were carrying police-restraint style cable ties, firearms and explosives.

Given that both the Vice-president and the Speaker of the House (#2 and #3 in line of succession to the presidency), as well as both houses of Congress were in the Capitol at that moment, it's fair to ask who those folks intended to restrain with those cable ties?

And once they were restrained, what would they do with those restrained people?

Again, I can't say what was in the minds of the folks who attempted to occupy the US Capitol building, but some certainly brought weapons and tools indicating that they wanted to take hostages and possibly harm/kill them.

Do you usually bring molotov cocktails and police-style plastic restraints when you go sightseeing? Out to dinner, maybe? Or even to a protest rally?

While the protestors didn't storm the Capitol or bring tools to restrain people and destroy property, some segment of the rioters/insurrectionists did so.

As I mentioned, taking hostage and murdering the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and perhaps many members of Congress probably wouldn't have destroyed our government, but it certainly could be considered a coup attempt and definitely would be insurrection.

> Are you saying this rabble of idiots were intending to take power somehow (what power?)

Trump told them he won the election. He told them it was fraudulently stolen from them. He told them that this could be rectified by interfering in the proceedings. His intent was to take and retain power by remaining president through intimidating congress into refusing to count the electoral college votes. So yes - they were intending to take power. The fact it was based on a made up fantasy with no basis in reality does not alter the intent of either the rabble or Trump who incited them and painted that reality for them.

I have heard this theory stated, but where is the actual evidence that this was the plan and their actions were aligned to that? So far I've only seen people asserting that this was the plan, rather than showing actual evidence linking these things together. It's easy to join dots that don't exist, just as the Trump people seem to have done with electoral fraud.

Did you conveniently ignore that some of the folks who broke into the capitol were armed with spears, clubs and firearms, carrying ziptie handcuffs? If the capitol police were not able to secure the escape of the senators and representatives, what do you imagine might have happened when the mob descended upon them?

Are you saying their plan was to attack those senators and representatives, in order to gain and keep power? What evidence do you have for this?

Don’t spend much time on parler do you?

No, but I would need to see evidence, not just your opinion that such evidence exists. Same as for electoral fraud.

Well yes: the point was to delay or prevent certification oof Biden as president, with the aim of keeping Trump in power.

What other reason for the attack do you imagine there was?

Did you conveniently ignore the part that the Capitol Police, one of the most well armed and well funded police forces in the US, are either terrible incompetent and couldn't protect one of the most important buildings in the US.

Or did you ignore the videos of them removing barriers, or Trump supporters yelling at people breaking glass to stop, or protestors getting selfies with the guards in the building and tapping them on the shoulder and thanking them for their service?

I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but there’s at least one video of protesters violently removing the barriers https://mobile.twitter.com/elijahschaffer/status/13469665149...

This is a good list as well https://www.reddit.com/r/Keep_Track/comments/ks56rh/trump_ri...

Here's one video: https://noagendasocial.com/@cgarison/105517331411076930

There was also one on Steve Bannon's War Room too this morning towards the end.

There are multiple ones if you just search of the Capitol police literally waving people in.

oh and here is a video of Trump supporter stopping a vandal:

https://freespeechextremist.com/media/d5a1870d-1c9d-45a9-be2...

The links don’t open for me, sorry. I’ve seen the first video judging by the thumbnail; it shows a cop waving to someone offscreen. Other cops maybe? Given that we have plenty of video of police being attacked I’ll need stronger evidence for the “cops waved them through” theory.

Occam's Razor suggests that the cop was gesturing to other cops on the line that they were retreating from their position and falling back. To suggest otherwise strains credulity and would require much more substantial proof.

That sounds plausible. Police do not calmly wave rioters through in one area while their colleagues are getting beat up elsewhere. Once us vs. them mentality settles in it’s game over.

>Steve Bannon's War Room

Oh my, surely an unbiased source. Why not inform us what Alex Jones is saying as well?

None of that is relevant to my point above.

Exhibit A: Trump's attempted coercion of the GA secretary of state to overturn a certified and triple-counted election.

Exhibit B: Rudy going around and encouraging Republican state legislatures to throw out the vote of the people and instead appoint Donald Trump.

Exhibit C: Trump continuing to tell his supporters that they're right to be angry and this whole election was an undemocratic coup against him even when ostensibly telling them to go home hours after they've breached the Capitol building.

Exhibit D: Literally everything else Trump and his cronies have said over the past 2 months and the past 5.5 years.

Read a transcript of Trump’s verbal diarrhea from his speech yesterday. This was clearly a putsch

coup is a bit much. this happens from time to time at the state level, protesters push their way into chambers. they should have just been arrested, the police dropped the ball.

It’s a putsch because the intent was to disrupt or prevent the certification of the next president, literally the formal approval of the transfer of power. This is not a bunch of yahoos upset with a governor about coronavirus restrictions.

No, this happens at the state level from time to time. There were protesters who broke in to state chambers to disrupt a vote on abortion rights iirc. There's also been the same on gun rights votes too. I can't find a link because any search for "protest" turns up yesterday's events.

Everyone wants to use words like coup or insurrection as outrage bait and more clicks and views. It denigrates the plight of people who have actually lived through the real version of those events. As a US citizen, it's embarrassing actually.

I’m not sure why you are not able to understand this. Disrupting legislation is not the same as disrupting the machinery by which we hand power from one executive to the next. Google “self-coup” or “autogolpe” to see how this is not exactly an uncommon action by would-be tyrants.

Do you have evidence that was their intent? And how exactly could they have succeeded, and kept Trump in power?

By their own admission, their intent was "revolution". It's really bizarre to me that you are continuously trying to whitewash these seditious traitors' actions in this thread. Is it a willful act of naivete, or something more disingenuous?

I am asking for rational explanations and evidence for the original claim that this was an attempted coup (something I have experience with sadly). Evidence and logic are valued here. You are accusing me of whitewashing sedition (I am not), being naive (I am certainly not on this topic), and being disingenuous (ditto) for taking that approach. I think you should re-read the HN guidelines.

This went a bit further than a protest I would think.

No it absolutely did not. Stop buying the bullshit the media is feeding you.

It's not the 'bulsshit the media is feeding me', it is the eyewitness testimony from the rioters.

Instead, I'd suggest you try to re-calibrate what you think is normal.

If busting the windows out of a Walgreens goes beyond a protest, so does busting the windows out of the US capitol.