# What did Trump and his followers think would have happened if the Jan. 6 coup attempt had succeeded? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 19, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027 "2022-01-19T01:46:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/21 "2022-01-19T19:28:47Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > …we could have had Biden giving the Army orders… Definitely not Biden until his inauguration. Maybe Pence, but I don’t know what authority he would have. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/22 "2022-01-19T19:39:49Z")
I think it’s a bit of a fool’s errand to try to differentiate between how a “hard coup” and a “soft coup” may have played out. There was no Constitutional and legal way for Trump to retain the Presidency. Any “machinations” taken by Pence or Republicans in Congress to try to throw the electoral count to Trump or to the House for a vote would have been blatantly illegal under the Electoral Count Act (see [this concurrent thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-slates-of-electors-from-seven-states/957800/88) for some relevant discussion). Even if the Supreme Court for some reason decided to legitimize the coup, on January 20 each officer would have to decide what his or her oath to uphold and defend the Constitution means in these circumstances. And coups always come down to what the folks in uniform decide to do. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/23 "2022-01-19T19:46:14Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > From what I gather, the opposite may very well have happened. In other words, had Trump managed to force Pence and Congress to certify him the victor, we could have had Biden giving the Army orders to arrest hundreds of prominent Republicans, including Trump and his enablers. But that’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Biden would have had no authority to tell the military to do anything until he was sworn in as president - but if Congress and Pence had certified Trump as the victor, Biden would never get the authority in the first place (in theory.) ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/24 "2022-01-19T20:02:25Z")
I think you make really good points, **ParallelLines**. > [@](#): > > Trump: Winning is all that matters, I can win this, if only everyone does what I say. No further expectations or concerns about long term damage, that’s someone else’s problem. My people (Senate, slavish followers, SCOTUS picks) will have my back and no one else will be able to do anything as long as my people stay firm. I do think this sums up Trump’s mentality. He is an idiot and _was_ of the mindset that, if he cheated but could maintain the barest semblance of following the rules (e.g., Pence has the authority simply to reject states’ slates of electors), then his opponents would have to give in to the gotcha. > [@](#): > > Trumplican Party: Keeping our power is all that matters, and while putting myself at risk was a pain, we need to seize the moment… I think the role of elected and appointed members of the government is unclear and perhaps was unclear to them in the moment. E.g., it really seems that McCarthy and Trump Jr. were telling Trump to call off the dogs on Jan. 6, while others were explicitly involved in machinations to get the election results canceled “legally” (Giuliani). I think a lot of them were taking “wait and see and hope this goes Trump’s way” approach, some others were trying to placate Trump out of fear, and the biggest fascists among them were goading Trump to declare martial law. Pence, despite being one of the worst Trump enablers of all time, was trying to do what he thought was right and legal (which I can respect, though I can’t respect the man as a whole). The intentions of the actual Jan. 6 insurrectionists, however, was pretty unambiguous: foment or actually effect themselves a coup. It was, in other words, a big mess. Not very well done, which words could apply to most Trump ventures. > [@](#): > > True Believers! - How dare those lying ratfink bastards try, but we showed them! As my preacher/bar buddies/Qanon/paramilitary group said, we had to be ready for total war, and we barely saved 'Murcia for good people like us from those commies/others/pagan! I’ll be watching my neighbor/furriners/leftists, and if they try anything, I’ll be ready along with my shotgun. And I’ll make sure my friends are as well. Yihawwwd! Yes. And among this subset, from what I have seen of what they’ve said and written, there was a strong undercurrent of believing that their victory was a matter of fate or what God wanted. The whole Christofascist thing. They don’t see that, in spirit if not exactly equivalent in aesthetic, the Trumpian coup attempt was very much the same thing as the Nazis’ [Gleichschaltung](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung). I had a pretty good online friend, a very smart guy, one with whom I could have intellectual conversations, support Trump’s declaration of martial law based on the “stolen election.” He and others like him, didn’t seem to see the game theory aspect of doing so: that, thereafter, anytime a president wanted to retain power, s/he could simply make noise about the election being unfair/stolen, and every election would be a power grab based on such accusations. It would seem that people don’t foresee the consequences they don’t want to see. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/25 "2022-01-19T20:05:00Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Instead, I’m seeing a lot of what Dopers think would have happened. Anarchy. Which is the real ideology of many of those instrumental in giving Trump his first term. Anarchists aren’t too picky about the exact details of the consequences of their actions, as long as it blows everything up. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/26 "2022-01-19T20:14:27Z")
Hmmmm………I believe I’ve [discussed](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fake-slates-of-electors-from-seven-states/957800/66) this a lot. There was no consensus because there was no single orchestrated plan. Rudy Guiliani thought that the courts would finally come through with a stay on certifying Biden’s win if he just had one more day. The Sidney Powell and Patrick Byrne contingent thought that the seditious Congressmen would present evidence of fraud during the joint session that was so compelling that everyone would agree to having the National Guard conduct live-streamed recounts of the disputed states. The rest of the gang thought that Pence would reject the votes and send it back to the states, then the state legislatures in the disputed states would declare that the election “failed” and select their own Trump electors. or They thought that Pence would reject the votes and it would be thrown to the state delegations in the House of Representatives who would then elect Trump. I’m still not really clear which seditionists supported the first option and which supported the second. The fictitious letters from the DOJ that Mark Meadows and Jeff Clark wanted to send fit the narrative of having the individual state legislatures overturn the results of their state, but at the same time they were invested in the idea that Pence rejected the certified results, the US congressional state delegations could pick Trump. The Oathkeepers and other right-wing groups thought that if they caused chaos in DC, Trump would impose martial law and…….declare himself King of America, or something. Trump mostly just wanted to see how far everyone would go to prove their love and loyalty to him by getting him the thing he wanted, which was to not be a loser. It was very confused because everyone had a different plan. Some will use this confusion to reach the conclusion that there was no plan, but that is not the case. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/27 "2022-01-19T20:30:55Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > They thought that Pence would reject the votes and it would be thrown to the state delegations in the House of Representatives who would then elect Trump. This is the one that seems to have had the most chance of success. If Pence had gone along with it, who would have stopped this and how? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/28 "2022-01-19T20:43:06Z")
Seems to me that the Senators could have stopped Pence. He doesn’t have unilateral authority to reject slates of electors. Can’t a majority vote overrule any decision from the chair? I doubt people like Romney or Collins would have voted to end democracy. The people storming the Capitol didn’t have a clue as to what they were trying to accomplish. They were in a frenzy, convinced that the election had been stolen and they wanted to riot. They were pawns in the game. The inner circle all had their own demons- Donald is a moron, Guiliani and Powell are criminally insane, guys like Flynn thought martial law would solve all problems. The inner circle was incapable of hatching a coherent plan, God forbid we ever get competent criminals in the White House. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/29 "2022-01-19T20:43:53Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Per the title of this post, what do you think that Trump and his toadies really thought would happen? Were they naive and expecting everyone to just go along, or were they actually expecting a conflict over the scammed win? I have opined on this in other threads, but the gist of it is that the Jan 6th rioters weren’t supposed to enter and trash the Capitol. They were supposed to march on the Capitol and get rowdy, to pressure Congress into rejecting the official slate of electors. Antifa demonstrators were expected to appear, which would provide a pretext for deploying the National Guard, military, police for physical and political control of the Capitol via marshal law. Having gained executive control of the building, environs, and city streets, they would then contrive to ram through the “alternate” slate of electors and throw it to the house if necessary. Conflict would be expected, but Trump would control the narrative stating that fraud was uncovered and they were righting the wrong by force. If it ran through Jan 20th and Congress acceded to it, then it would have been the law of the land. Conflict would have been futile. Needless to say, the plan had a million weak points. The main one being that Antifa didn’t show up to oppose the rioters, so the actual Capitol intrusion had the optics of being a one-sided bunch of nutjobs bullying the outnumbered police. If the street fighting had materialized as expected, I’m still not sure it would have helped swing the electoral count, but Trump absolutely would have won the narrative that the election was rigged and disrupted by left-wing malcontents. Things aren’t great now but they could have been (could still become) even worse. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/30 "2022-01-19T20:48:32Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I doubt people like Romney or Collins would have voted to end democracy. Oh they absolutely would have. Collins would have muttered that these events were very concerning, but Trump should be certified because he’s learned his lesson. Romney would have come up with the most outrageous both-sides call for civility heard thus far. Republicans don’t care about pluralistic democracy at all. They prefer the sort of democracy that prevailed at the framing of the Constitution… a democracy for white males, preferably land-owners, and foisting off heavy issues like slavery to the states. ---
**Author:** ![flurb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/51bf81/32.png) [@flurb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flurb)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/31 "2022-01-19T20:54:35Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Seems to me that the Senators could have stopped Pence. He doesn’t have unilateral authority to reject slates of electors. Can’t a majority vote overrule any decision from the chair? Pence had no authority to reject slates under the Electoral Count Act, which prescribes which slates must be treated as valid. The Act does not contemplate the VP taking such an action or how it could be challenged by the joint session of Congress. It would be new territory. And at that point we’re outside of any legally recognized process. That’s when it starts to matter who the men with guns side with. ---
**Author:** ![SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpacemanSpiff_II)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/32 "2022-01-19T20:58:27Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I have opined on this in other threads, but the gist of it is that the Jan 6th rioters weren’t supposed to enter and trash the Capitol. They were supposed to march on the Capitol and get rowdy, to pressure Congress into rejecting the official slate of electors. Antifa demonstrators were expected to appear, which would provide a pretext for deploying the National Guard, military, police for physical and political control of the Capitol via marshal law. I agree with the first two sentences only. The idea - to the extent that there was a coherent idea - was that so many people would show up at the Capitol agitating about Stop the Steal that Pence and fellow Republicans would realize that the Will of the People was that they reject the “phony” electors. As to what would happen next, it varies by person, as Ann\_Hedonia wrote, but the immediate goal was to prevent the election from being certified, via public pressure. Basically very similar to what all demonstrators for any cause are hoping to accomplish via the demonstration itself - a show of strength that would impress the public in general and the decision-makers in particular - though in this case with much higher stakes and far more nefarious intent. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/33 "2022-01-19T21:00:39Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > But that’s a chicken-and-egg problem. Biden would have had no authority to tell the military to do anything until he was sworn in as president - but if Congress and Pence had certified Trump as the victor, Biden would never get the authority in the first place (in theory.) Legally he would have had to wait 2 weeks. But at that point IMHO the top military brass would probably have gone along with Biden in removing Trump by force, even if Pence had gone along with the coup. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/34 "2022-01-19T23:55:39Z")
Wow. No one has invoked Opal in ages. But I still think of her. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/35 "2022-01-20T00:23:26Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Legally he would have had to wait 2 weeks. But at that point IMHO the top military brass would probably have gone along with Biden in removing Trump by force, even if Pence had gone along with the coup. I thought the US military worked for the government and would not intercede with any attempts to change the government. Is there any plan for the military in a coup attempt? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/36 "2022-01-20T00:24:42Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Wow. No one has invoked Opal in ages. But I still think of her. Indeed! ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/37 "2022-01-20T00:32:58Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > The problems would have arisen when it finally got to the SCOTUS. Recent actions there have proven that any semblance of an ‘apolitical’ Justice are dead and gone. If the judges punted and let it go to Congress to make the decision, we’d have ended up with Trump being declared the ‘legitimate’ President (for certain values of legitimate). I really don’t think that this is true. The new court is highly ideological in favoring legal interpretations supported by Republicans but I’m not sure that they are political per se. They have their lifetime appointments and unlike the members of Congress don’t have to kowtow to the lowest common denominator in order to keep their jobs. As easonably intelligent people, they realize that overturning the fundamentals of Democracy in order to install an incompetent Narcissist as dictator for life is not in their interests. So no I don’t think that they would just roll over and let it happen. As evidence I point to their refusal to even hear any of Trump’s election fraud nonsense. If they really wanted him in charge they would have made an effort in that direction. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/38 "2022-01-20T00:38:50Z")
We can agree to disagree @Buck_Godot, but my feeling is they are political, but not willing to openly break the constitution (which is what preserves their power after all). Instead they will use any shred of legality or interpretation in order to forward their party’s political goals. They wouldn’t (in the previous scenario) be putting Trump in as dictator for life, just allowing congress to ‘decide’ the errors of the prior election is within the powers of that body. In the case of the election fraud, it would have required creating some evidence, which frankly wasn’t there. In this case, just a tortured application of existing legal statutes. After all, we’re talking about what Trump and his followers _THINK_ would have happened. And they absolutely believe that Trump’s hand selected (and protected!) choices would find in their favor. And if it things had gone the way postulated in the OP . . . I think they could have. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/39 "2022-01-20T00:47:00Z")
But they are certainly smart enough to see that that would be the result of their actions, and while they might want Republicans in charge so that they can rule on legislation that will support their ideal of America, I think they most likely loathe Trump. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2022, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027/40 "2022-01-20T00:50:52Z")
As I said, I disagree on what they consider the future results to be. Any more would be beyond the scope of this thread, and I think it’s certainly fair to assume _Trump and his followers_ absolutely believe that his SCOTUS picks would support him as a given, whatever the reality was/may have been. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-trump-and-his-followers-think-would-have-happened-if-the-jan-6-coup-attempt-had-succeeded/958027.md?page=3)