First posted 1/6/22 5:04 pm judging Jan. 6, 2021 was not an attempted coup d'etat.
*Judgment reversed on 1/7/22 at 1:28 pm holding that it was an attempted coup.
#Jan. 7 4:24 pm holding that it was not an attempted coup but a terrorist attack.
Final Jan 8 post time judging it a (largely) unarmed, violent attack with purposes to stop democracy and to terrorize and to punish those it could.
5:04 p.m. EST, Jan. 6, 2021
At around 5 p.m...officers used tear gas and flashbangs to clear the west side of the inauguration tunnel and the terrace below. Though officers had been clearing the Capitol for more than two hours, this final push dispersed the mob. About 30 minutes later the Capitol building was declared secure.
# No.
The rally was named "Stop the Steal," i.e. prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election. They failed, but they attempted it. Trump had signaled this date, prescribed in the Constitution as the date when the presidential election results would be made official. Their intent in invading the Capitol on this date at the very time when the vote-counting formality was occurring was to stop it. They invaded the room where the vote-counting was taking place.
Scholars and military historians dispute that 1/6/21 was a coup attempt on what I term "technical" grounds. A coup requires the military, they argue. Like Allende in Chile: regular troops using heavy weapons, tanks, planes, bombs, helicopters, killing the president. This distinction is lost on European military officials and diplomats. They immediately reported to their governments that it was a clear attempted coup d'etat.
I would argue that an attack to prevent the certification of the right of an elected government to assume power, incited by the then commander in chief of the country's armed forces, as was the case here, and which is done with civilian-acquired military-like armament, which was not the case here, would have qualified as an attempted coup d'etat. However on Jan. 6 this commander in chief did not have the loyalty of the generals. They would not have obeyed an order to bomb and strafe the Capitol, nor to occupy it with active-duty troops. Trump tried to get around this though. He chose the next best thing: military veterans, the civil military, i.e. the police, some active, some retired, the various civil militias. But, the crucial distinction between Jan. 6 and an attempted coup d'etat is that there were virtually no firearms, much less the sophisticated weaponry and platforms of the military.
So how much of a threat was this to Democracy in America? It was an attempt, in part, to stop a democratic outcome. Under all of the circumstances I do not believe that there was the intent for a coup d'etat. They had virtually no guns, much less the heavy weapons of even a third-rate military. If they had gotten the Electoral College ballots and the electronic vote-counting machine...I don't know. Could the states resend the ballots? I don't know. I remember my concern that night was that the ballot-counting needed to be completed that day. The Constitution states that the ballots shall be opened and counted on that date. It doesn't state an exception for rain or sleet or snow or terrorist attack.
So let's say the perps had succeeded in seizing the ballots. What do they do then? They had no plan. Here is where the coup d'etat theory fails completely. They had neither the numbers nor the weaponry to seize and hold the government of the United States to keep Trump in place. I find from the planned non-capability the lack of intent for coup d'etat.
Did Trump have a plan what to do next? I don't know for sure but to reasonable belief, no. For instance, to my knowledge and belief there was no plan to have the military seize the government once the Electoral ballots were seized. (In fact, the opposite likely would have happened: The military would have seized Trump.). There was no plan to assassinate the president-elect and vice president-elect as another example. To reasonable belief Trump's plan stopped with Pence declaring Trump-Pence the victors regardless of what the numbers were. When that failed that was the end of any intent by the commander in chief to effect a coup d'etat.
"Stop the Steal" had two purposes all along: 1) stop the democratic process of Electoral ballot-counting, and 2) terrorize and punish those who would not do their, and Trump's, bidding. As a civilian attack to terrorize and punish, Jan. 6 did far less property damage with infinitely fewer human casualties than did 9/11. But the 9/11 attackers sole intent was to destroy and kill, stopping Democracy in America was never a thought in their minds, so 9/11 did no damage to American democracy. Jan. 6 had the co-intention of stopping democracy in America from functioning; it was incited by the president of the United States and the commander in chief of the armed forces. 9/11 did no damage to Democracy in America. 1/6 did.
"I don't think we made out too badly" was my judgment at the end of the day on Jan. 6, 2021. Today, my judgment is that it was the heaviest blow to the American democracy since the Civil War, and like that war, it is continuing.
America has usually been a center-right country politically and it has tilted at various times toward the right end point, fascism. In my view this is not merely one of those right-ward tilts. Forty-seven percent of the country, and 90% of the Republican Party, has turned its back to the center and has taken a step or couple or more, it is hard when you're in the middle of it to gauge, toward fascism.
Democracy is process-determinative not result-determinative. One cannot kill a democracy by assassinating its leader; the easiest manner of execution is to "stop" the process. That is what Trump and his Low Lifes attempted to do. That is what they are continuing to attempt to do. They are not democrats but religious authoritarians.
An authoritarian movement in contrast is result-determinative. It dies when its charismatic Leader dies. We see this now. Trump, though defeated by democratic process, is still the "dagger" at the throat of Democracy in America. He retains his iron grip on the Republican Party, all potential successors to its nomination are frozen in place. An authoritarian movement cannot be killed by democracy. When Trump dies Trumpism will die with him. It is impossible to see anyone else assuming the mantle. But when both Trump and Trumpism die the tilt toward fascism in America will remain.
