I take exception to anyone saying that the events of Jan 6th were an attempt to overthrow The Government rather than to overthrow An Election. Is the US that feeble that several thousand unarmed people could possibly take over the US Government even if they had managed to take hostages or Occupy the US Capitol indefinitely? Could the election results REALLY have been overturned that day? If you feel either of these was possible, please explain. I honestly don’t think either was likely, or close to happening - maybe I’m being naive (not intentional).
I am NOT a Trump supporter. I do NOT condone what happened that day. I don’t watch FOX. My intention is NOT to minimize what happened that day, but to accurately describe it for what it was.
In the linked thread, I compared Jan 6th to a Walmart riot by saying, “What happened on Jan 6th was as much an attempt to overthrow the government as a Walmart riot is an attempt at a corporate take-over of Walmart.” Maybe not the best analogy, but one I still feel is fairly sound. Maybe the Walmart would need to be closer to the corporate HQ.
My position: It’s innaccurate to say that it was an actual attempt to take over the government, knowing what that would REALLY entail, and more just a bunch of idiots getting all riled up over the machinations of a Moron.
Normally, the Supreme Court would invalidate an election that was altered by undue or malicious interference. This Supreme Court…?
It is clear that the January 6 insurgents were literally attempting to prevent the certification of a legitimate election, up to and including threatening to kill people critical to that certification. That they were stupid, uncoordinated, and had no real plan other than to do what their Dear Leader was urging them on to do does not make it any less of an insurrection.
Hitler’s first foray into a coup was a bungling failure, too. A decade later he was running the country, and in six short years following had embroiled all major nations in a global conflict that killed many tens of millions and left much of Europe and Asia in ruins. Big tragedies have small beginnings.
I don’t believe it was an insurrection, because it was aimed at an Act or a Result and not at the entirety of the US Government. I would argue that the mob was acting out against a percieved specific wrong they thought was occuring rather than overall general opression.
Ok, let’s assume they had enormous “success” by their standards and the VP, and all the (D) congresscritters were dead as were a substantial fraction of the R congresscritters.
Now the mob is wandering around in a confused daze and Trump is still the president and he and his embedded henchmen have successfully prevented the DoD and the Capitol police from preventing the situation from getting that far.
Now it’s late that night & the mob is still inside and nobody is acting to get them back out.
Your turn. What do the good guys and the bad guys do tomorrow?
Of course it was a coup. We literally saw the man raise an army and sack the capitol. The men who wrote the Constitution, one hundred years after Cromwell, would not have been confused.
And neither were we: the Dope was tracking the (then) upcoming coup just 6 days after the 2020 election:
Who the government is, is determined by the results of the election. If you overthrow the election, you are overthrowing the government that should have taken power as a result of the election.
“Could they have succeeded?” is a different question from, “Did they try?”
Attempting to deny the office of the President to the winner of the presidential election, and award it to the loser is, for all intents and purposes, overthrowing the government. OK, not ALL of it. Just the little office of the president.
What else would you call it??
Look, the mob would have ran out of gas in the morning like most riots. A suspension of the results could have taken place for very good reasons. If it really rose to the level of insurection I would have no problem sending in the dogs.
The Presidency is, in very real terms, the executive authority of the government of the United States. While in theory that power is held in check by the legislature and judiciary, in reality the President holds a lot of power (although not generally the things that the President is often blamed for, like “fixing the economy” or “balancing the budget”). Trying to overthrow an election by the threat and application of force is the very definition of insurrection, and it certainly “overall general opression” even if the January 6th insurrectionists weren’t rushing into every Coast Guard station and USGS office, yelling “We have taken over the government and all your base belong to us!”
Being “aimed an an Act or a Result” (not clear on the need for capitalization but whatever) does not make it any less of an insurrection. The fact that they wanted to challenge the “Result” of an election they didn’t like, not in court or by presenting evidence to Congress but by breaking doors and windows, erecting a scaffolding, and yelling how they wanted to “Kill Pelosi!” and “Hang Mike Pence” eliminates any rational argument for this being just a demonstration that got a bit too vigorous or the sort of casual hangout that certain far-right political figures want to portray it as.
The word government can be used in two ways. It can refer to the current people in charge, or it can refer to the institution that allows them to be in charge. The former is more common in the UK, while the latter is more in the US. In the US, it would be unusual to say that we have a new government after an election. But this is very common in the UK.
That said, overthrowing an election does do both of these. It overthrows the people who have been elected to be in charge. But it also overthrows the institution, as you are saying the will of the people does not matter. That’s a change in the core type of government, making it no longer a democracy.
Does Overturning an Election equate to Overthrowing the Government?
Could the election results REALLY have been overturned that day?
Your OP seems to be asking a different question from the title. Did they have a real chance of overturning the election? Probably not? If they had been successful, would it have been overthrowing the government? Yes.
Donald Trump was also impeached for attempting to conspire with a foreign power to help him win this very election.
Donald Trump refused to acknowledge he would accept the results of the 2016 election if he lost.
But, yeah. That guy? When he organized a rally to coincide with a Constitutional procedure to the minute and then set that mob on the Congress to ‘Stop the Steal’…? totally not a coup.
I disagree 100% — I think it clearly rose to the level of insurrection, and that various insurrectionists are still breathing amazes me — but I’m curious: why not, uh, ‘send in the dogs’ when it did get as bad as it did? Why do you need it to rise to more than it did for that?
What is this “sending in the dogs” of which you speak?
The President himself, by his authority as CinC of the military and head (through intermediaries) of the lawful police forces with jurisdiction over the area has, by his own orders as obeyed and relayed by his own high placemen, prevented the proper authorities from preventing the massacre.
The next day the then-still sitting President and his placemen will issue further orders to consolidate his power as the sole survivor of much of the 25th Amendment succession hierarchy.
At which point either those orders will be followed, or he’ll be killed by some member of his security team, or by an assault on the White House by military units answering to a general who is greatly exceeding his lawful authority while saving the Republic.