If you want to compare it to something, I would recommend the fall conspiracy to capture the Michigan governor, put them on a mock trial and then publicly execute them for their "crimes": https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/fbi-plot-michigan-go...
How would they have done that? Nobody would listen to a bunch of hooligans pronouncing orders from the House rostrum. In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders, providing actual institutional power to the usurpers.
There was no institutional power behind these people -- do you think some general at Andrews was waiting for the phone call to signal his support for the guy in the viking hat?
This was an act of vandalism, and maybe burglary or "home" invasion robbery.
Attempted murder is still a felony, even if's a very dumb attempt. The same is true for coups.
> In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders, providing actual institutional power to the usurpers.
The Q folks think this is exactly what the military is going to do.
In order for a coup to be successful, institutions need to endorse the new order or have their heads replaced with loyalists. Capturing the symbolic seat of power, or even killing elected representatives doesn't accomplish that. In this scenario there would've needed to be a body of bureaucrats and officers in every branch and every agency who would see the house leader lynched on TV and then said, yes I'm ready to do the bidding of the usurping administration.
This would be hundreds of people, if not thousands, in the highest ranking civilian positions who would all have to endorse or be arrested. Then because this is a federalist system, local governments would all have had to endorse the new system or be replaced. Also, the judiciary. Also, all branches of the military.
Unless you believe we were on the precipice of this happening, it wasn't a coup, and if you do think we were anywhere close to seeing this happen, you're insane and wrong. It was at best a bumbling terrorist attack. More accurately IMO, it was mob violence resulting from an epic failure of crowd control.
There were a number of different, complementary means envisioned, the simplest of which was reflected in the chant “Hang Mike Pence”, which existed because the pro-coup political intelligentsia had proposed that the Vice President could and should simply refuse to open the certificates from selected states, denying the Democrats a majority of counted EVs, or alternatively could choose unilateral to accept “alternate” slates of electors from some of those states, an approach Mike Pence rejected. Removing Pence would result in a different presiding officer who might be more amenable to the plan.
And, sure, that still seems like a pretty dumb plan, but an insurrection doesn't stop being an coup attempt because the plan is stupid.
> In a coup, someone like a general is waiting to hear the signal to throw in with the coup leaders.
You’re thinking of a coup in favor of a faction that doesn't already hold the cheif executives office. An auto-coup, which is what was intended, usually involves some mechanism to provide a pretext to either extend power beyond it's lawful limits or extend it beyond it's legal term, not to seize it from the current holder. The only person you need to ready to do anything is the existing executive, who just needs to accept the offered pretext to retain power. Which Trump already announced his support for this theory and his anger at Pence for refusing it, which was a major contributor to the insurrection.
In the meantime, people who continuously talk about insurrection seem to be living in a fantasy land. Just as you say, without the military the "insurrection" means nothing.
Kill enough congress members so the election can’t be certified. Elect Trump speaker of the house (speaker doesn’t need to be a member of congress). Since the election wasn’t certified, the constitution declares the speaker (now Trump) becomes President on the 20th.
They didn't need a general waiting in the wings, they just needed the President who was already sitting in the WhiteHouse.
No one is pretending that the crazies on the left don't need to be accountable. There are those, of course, who believe that. But you are arguing against a point that hasn't been made--and most definitely one I did not make.
I'll say it myself, just to be clear: Anyone who riots (or foments an insurrection) needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law after a fair trial.
I watched my friends businesses burn last summer, as well as many other businesses near my home. The common response was " "we're doing this because we have this right, we're frustrated at the system that did X or Y". None of my friends caused any real or perceived in-equality towards anyone, none of them are racist, all of them as well as I, support the right for individuals to love and marry whomever they want. They were by and large allies, yet someone arbitrarily determined that because their business was there, Insurance would cover and they could loot and burn it. They decided that when they responded in public days later, that they were white males and even if they weren't bad, it was retribution for whatever grievance someone held. Anyone that doesn't believe that those actions, that persisted for months, weren't abhorent and just as destructive to democracy and our country, then you're not being honest with yourselves.
The point is, the media is choosing to doom and gloom this situation when I would argue half of America has had this same perspective for a year. I'm not arguing the merits of either sides grievances, though I think both have many valid points.
https://www.wvlt.tv/2021/01/07/who-is-elizabeth-from-knoxvil...
Stealing a laptop from a federal government facility while attempting to overturn an election's results and possibly assassinate elected officials, is an "insurrection".
And that's what the point of this was. Terrorism to push more of Congress to not certify the election.
> or probably some of the people who were carrying guns, or potentially the noose hanging outside
Or you just inventing this whole thing out of thin cloth. Because the only shooting was done by very much armed - with handguns and riles - Capitol Police, who we see aplenty on the videos, and who used these guns to shoot a women that didn't pose any threat. Now this needs justification so we hear tall tales about stabbing Congressmen with a spear (good thing he didn't have a fully semiautomatic longbow!)
> A cop was beaten to death in front of the Capitol.
He wasn't "beaten to death". He was hit with on the head once (presumably, it's still not known what exactly happened, and AFAIK no medical documents had been published), returned on his own to the headquarters, and then later developed a blood clot and suffered a stroke (presumedly due to the injury), which ultimately lead to his death. This is still despicable - nobody should attack cops, and the person who did it should be prosecuted for it, but it's not likely whoever struck him even intended that outcome. Even less sense makes to pretend like the people that were at Capitol intended to tear everybody they meet apart and stab them with spears. Surely, some of them clashed with the police - which has been routine circumstance at "mostly peaceful" protests the whole year, most unfortunately - but making it into some kind of SEAL Team 6 aiming at assassinating the Congressmen is pure baloney. It is just fascinating what nonsense people are ready to believe in when their partisan views demand it.
> Terrorism to push more of Congress to not certify the election.
The word you looking for is "protest". If you work for the media, then "mostly peaceful protest". That happened many times in US history - including occupying government buildings in the process. In Wisconsin, State Capitol was occupied for 17 days in 2011. And yes, they did it to change the actions of legislators. Nobody called it "terrorism" or "insurrection" - because it wasn't, neither then not now.
I'm also not inventing the whole thing out of thin cloth. People were arrested with caches of firearms near the Capitol. There is video evidence of gallows being constructed out front. You're ignoring reality to suggest these things never happened. These aren't fake reports, these are some of the few indictments which have so far been unsealed. I don't watch cable news, I don't get all my news from blogs. I read court documents. I read actual statistics. Go read the real, raw data.
As for the cop, it seems like you'd also argue car accidents don't kill people its the internal hemorrhaging that happens from completely unknown causes. Clearly the people beating the cop didn't intend to cause him harm, that's just how they say hello! You seriously think the protesters beating him with metal pipes didn't intend to cause him harm and potentially kill him? Do you go around being friendly and start hitting people in the head with metal pipes?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/15/police-offic...
They weren't trying to “topple the seat of government” in a destructive, undirected manner, they were trying to redirect the process being executed there of officially determining the winner of the Presidential election to their preferred outcome, and to retaliate against opponents (including the Vice President) who failed to play the role the mob and the President they saw themselves serving preferred they should in that process.
You’re exaggerating and it’s deliberate, which revels the intent of your argument is dishonest.
Well-documented events in the summer of 2020 kicked off unrest. There was no mass-looting before that.
Was is it? Did George Floyd have a lethal amount of fentanyl in his system at time of death? Did the medical examiner not mention any damage to Floyd’s neck? Did the video show Floyd asking to be put on ground after resisting getting in the vehicle like the police asked? Did Keith Ellison do everything he could to keep the video of the arrest from coming out? Was Breanna Taylor‘s name on the warrant at her active address? And despite it being authorized to be a no-knock rate, did the police announce themselves? Did CNN use the literal chevron “fiery but mostly peaceful protests“?
“Well documented” is a very misleading way to describe this summer’s violent unrest.
I’d say the murder of George Floyd was well-documented. That was my meaning.
It was an insurrection attempt by incompetents and LARPers, but absolutely an insurrection attempt.