According to that logic, does any sort of protest outside the capitol = "coup attempt"? After all, you don't need to actually need people breaking in to cite "anger of the people outside".
The rally was organized under the headline "Stop the Steal." It was very explicitly the intent to prevent the peaceful transition of power.
No, because other types of protests outside the Capitol (i.e. over abortion, environmental issues, civil rights, war), and their related tactics within Congress are not aimed at stopping the constitutional process of certifying a lawful election.
That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
responding to your edits:
>That's is quite literally what differentiates a coup from the others: A coup uses force and threat to unlawfully take control of the government.
But using force to prevent the legislature from functioning when they're not certifying elections is fine?
>Normal protests outside the Capitol are about influencing the legislative process, which is a completely different function of Congress. But even then, it would be unlawful to influence the legislative process by threat or use of force.
I'm specifically talking about protests that involve denying access to the legislature, not just a bunch of people protesting in the free speech zone.
Correct. A coup is by definition an illegal attempt to take control of government. In a democracy, attempting to prevent a lawful election from being certified is a type of coup.
> Why is the "constitutional process of" passing bills not protected?
It is protected. If an insurrection invaded the Capitol to influence the legislative process, that would be illegal. Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
You're losing track of the thread. A few comments up we were discussing whether violent action was needed at all, because the parent poster was talking about "trying to reject the vote certification by using the anger of the people", which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
> Anyone involved in organizing or carrying that out would be charged with crimes.
but not "insurrection", apparently?
Coups enacted by politicians are facilitated by the breakdown of law and order and loss of security around the processes of power in government, the most delicate of those being lawful transitions of power. Violence assists by removing security and law and order.
> which could plausibly be achieved without any violent action (eg. a bunch of angry protesters).
A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
> but not "insurrection", apparently?
I didn't say which crimes. Prosecutorial strategy is a real thing and the bread and butter of the Dept of Justice. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators. This is, for example, how organized crime has been successfully prosecuted.
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
So the insurrection-ness of a protest/riot increases during "lawful transitions of power"? Suppose this premise was true, does that mean something like this[1] is also an insurrection (or "almost [...] a coup"), because it happened during a "lawful transitions of power" for a supreme court justice?
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/28/brett-kavanau...
>A bunch of angry protesters shouting in the demonstration area have no leverage beyond drawing media attention to their cause.
Sounds like you're agreeing with me. ie. you can't cite "anger of the people outside" as a potential reason for "reject the vote certification".
>People physically invading the halls of Congress and threatening lawmakers are doing something fundamentally more powerful, and also illegal.
Not disputing it's illegal, just that it's not an "insurrection".
>I didn't say which crimes. It makes far more sense to roll up low-level offenders with lesser offenses to build cases against higher level conspirators.
What are you saying here, that the lack of prosecution for insurrection is totally consistent with an "insurrection" taking place, because they'll eventually work their way up to the real conspirators and charge them with insurrection? Well, it's been a year now, and nothing resembling an insurrection charge has surfaced.
No. For one, that protest was during the nomination debate, not the actual swearing in by the Chief Justice, so not a transition of power. It was also not a violent mob.
It absolutely a differentiator that the Jan 6 scenario was a violent mob forcing their way into the Capitol to overturn an election. No amount of semantic judo or whataboutism will make the utter brutality of that mob equivalent to a nonviolent protest.
Finally, the Supreme Court nomination protesters were arrested for when they tried to block lawmakers from getting to their offices. They are no different in their manner of protest than nonviolent pro-life/anti-abortion protesters who have obstructed members of Congress at the Capitol, and neither are like the Jan 6 perpetrators.
If you watch the most violent parts of all of those protests, it's hard to understand how smashing a police officer's face in a door and beating another with a fire extinguisher can be considered equivalent to holding open an elevator and shouting "shame" at a Senator.
A very cogent question. The answer is no. Originally the plan was for Mike Pence to unilaterally decertify various states. This version of the coup would have required no violence.
But Pence refused to decertify the election, because he recognized he did not have the power to do so. He communicated this intention to Trump the morning of Jan 6. At this point, violence was the last resort to delay the certification on Jan 6.
The sitting President was the one who attempted the coup. He didn't need to seize power -- he already held power. The objective of the insurrection on Jan 6 was to prevent the transfer of power, which they absolutely almost did.
It’s about making ground, inch by inch.
If it's irrelevant as to their chances of success, it certainly seems like that's a coup.
Also why would you even bother doing it that way? You could use far fewer people who are coordinated and go after the politicians at their homes where there is much less security.
>[...] Admitting you’re trying to stop the process is an act of resistance against the government.
So you're saying resisting the government = insurrection? Is picketing outside of government offices (ie. the kind where you block people/cars from entering/leaving a building) an "insurrection"? Or does it only apply to capitols? Suppose you got a bunch of picketers to surround your state capitol, and representatives couldn't enter, would that be an insurrection?
So, yes, you can picket government buildings all you want, but the moment you start killing security and seeking to kill representatives, you've insurrected or are a party to an insurrection.
> Insurrection - a violent uprising against an authority or government.
BLM protests can get pretty violent. Are they insurrections?
> a violent uprising against an authority or government.
2 elements needed to be insurrection, Violence, and against authority or government.
BLM riots are violent, but not targeted at the government.
The Jan 6 insurrection was both violent and against the government. They disrupted government operations to try and change the results of an election. Can you find a definition of insurrection that wouldn't include the Jan 6 riots?
Can you name a BLM riot which was targeted at the government?
In fact, wouldn't all of the BLM movements accurately be described as targeted at the government because they were explicitly aimed at enacting change in government institutions like the police?
In another post you say that "until a BLM protest attempts to use force to overthrow a city, state, or federal government, it's a riot at best when violence is involved." But how do you classify the CHAZ in Seattle, where force was used to overthrow city and state governments and establish an "autonomous" zone where guns and violence were the only recognized power by the occupiers?
It’s literally the definition: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/insurrection
I've not seen anyone having a problem calling BLM riots riots when they happen. I've seen a lot of people struggle to call Jan 6 a riot or insurrection.
This isn't some new information.
We call that a riot.
https://apnews.com/article/politics-government-and-politics-...
Mike Pence did what he was supposed to, under severe pressure to do otherwise. The country (especially the left) owes him a huge debt of gratitude.
2. Live fire was way more than these guys bargained for. If they heard gunshots, even just pistol fire, and saw bodies dropping they would have scattered.
guns would have upped the ante on the core organizers and resulted in their decimation at the hands of local federal forces. This was just the beginning. from the angry anti government comments in this thread, their effort looks to be succeeding.
Page 12.
The only disingenuousness here is the attempt to manufacture an insurrection out of a riot.
To minimize the chances they got shot at by police (only 1 person was). They wanted to overturn the election, not die.
But just in case they needed it, this group had an armed backup force waiting at a hotel in VA:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/quick-reac...
Sure, there is. Make Pence incapable of presiding, convince (this may not be necessary if the person is already a sympathizer), by inducements or threats, the person acting as President of the Senate to act in the manner Trump and various political allies had encouraged Pence to and which Pence had refused and simply decline to present certain state electoral votes, denying an immediate majority and either requesting friendly state legislatures to send alternate ballots, or preceding to vote by states in each house in the absence of a majority.
The “they couldn't have seized power” argument only works when you consider the people physically inside the Capitol as a separate force completely unrelated to the people that set out the goals in writing, the people that—publicly and unambiguously—told the people to go to the Capitol to get Congress to follow the goals set out in writing, and the people in State legislatures and in Congress who had publicly backed the goals set out in writing.
Which is a bizarre level of willful blindness.
no, we didn't. there's no plausible way the people there would have seized power.