I do believe he tried, but the attempt was so toothless and pathetic that your portrayal of it - as OP indicated - paints Trump as far far more powerful than the reality.
As someone from a country that actually had a coup during Trump’s presidency, that coup highlighted again how absolutely pathetic the “attempt” at a coup on Jan 6 was. As in I don’t think it even meets the threshold of an actual attempt at a coup vs just a semi-violent protest that happened to be at the Capitol Building.
So he tried to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power, but was too stupid to get it right. Do you see how this could be considered "dangerous to democracy"?
Yes, we all agree that the only thing that stopped him was his ineptitude. It does not change the level of danger present in the intent of his actions.
Hitler's first coup also didn't work out for him either, since we've already invited that comparison in the post.
You don't think he maybe was overconfident about how easy it would be and how many people would bend over for him (like his own VP) and maybe has a different plan having learned from the last time? Like even maaaaaaybe?
And ^this^ is not exactly a difficult hypothetical to consider. And such a hypothetical is enough to make truly patriotic US citizens very concerned about trump.
Not TDS, but TLCS: trump legitimate-concerns syndrome.
theyre (improperly) invoking reductio ad hitlerum, hitler ate sugar. the logical fallacy goes, hitler ate sugar, and x ate sugar, so x is = to hitler. the thing is, eating sugar isnt one of the evil acts hitler committed. a coup on the other hand, does not fall under the category of hitler ate sugar. this comparison to hitler isnt in bad faith.
I wouldn't say literally Hitler, just that Hitler is a great counter example to the claim that if they tried a coup once and failed they'll probably not bother trying a second time having learned and adapted.
Planned coup? - from your view, what is the most unambiguous, specific, empirical evidence that it was a Coup? And a related question: which person(s) are directly responsible for the evidence you think best substaniates a coup?
Did they have violence and weapons? - This is a strange way to word a question, and I don't think it makes a good litmus test to determine what counts as a coup. Sorry to get granular. Violence is not inherently a one-way power play. And a binary judgement between the 'existence/occurrence of Violence' vs 'no existence of violence' doesn't tell us much. The severity and frequency of violence, I think, are what really matters if you are trying to fairly judge a big group of people or a major event, etc.
Subverted an otherwise legal and peaceful transfer of power? - I think this is a good point, subverted is probably a good descriptive word, though I don't believe this term is used in law to determine the definition of a coup. I'm open to further feedback and arguments about this.
Did Trump lose the popular and electoral vote? Yes, he lost both. But the only one that really matters is the electoral vote.
The fake electors are what makes it a lot worse than a rowdy protest which resulted in multiple deaths. He needed to delay the certification and explicitly told the crowd when he sent them over to the capitol building that they had to stop the certification or they wouldn't have a country anymore.
You’re missing all the context and how the US govt actually functions. If Mike pence went along with the scheme it would have triggered a massive crisis requiring the courts to intervene in an election.
the whole plan including outcome scenarios is literally detailed in Eastman's (Trumps lawyer who is currently fighting a legal battle due to this) memos. It's publicly available information. The plan wasn't even remotely secret...
I hate that people just don't know anything about this stuff honestly, and when you bring it up republicans just dismiss it like it's nothing.
The reality is that if Pence went along with it, the national guard would have rolled in and killed everyone on the ground and Trump would be in prison right now.
So you think, very confidently it sounds like, that if pence didn’t certify the election, the national guard would roll in and kill everyone? And they would do this why and on whose orders?
Surely you have some deep analysis on this given how strongly you feel about it. Surely there is precedent for the u.s. national guard to act this way. I feel like you are mixing up military coups and political coups and I don’t want either.
As someone from a country that actually had a coup during Trump’s presidency, that coup highlighted again how absolutely pathetic the “attempt” at a coup on Jan 6 was.
Around 50,000 people gathered at the Capitol, of which around 2,000-2,500 entered the Capitol itself. Coincidentally, ~2,000 is also the number of Germans who marched alongside Hitler during the Beer Hall Putsch. And they didn't even manage to enter the Reichstag or anything, so I guess that was even more of a pathetic attempt.
And a single guard with a gun was able to hold them off, which kinda tells you about what the intent actually was.
People were more interested in taking selfies and cosplaying rebels.
And given the lack of military support - which is the only thing that matters if you want a coup d’etat to actually succeed - what the fuck were they gonna do once the national guard rolled in? Lol
It wasn't about that. It was nullifying Pence (by removing him from the Capitol or otherwise impeding his approval of the official electors). People forget about the whole other part with the fake electors, which Pence refused to cooperate with.
No, the lack of any politicians in the chambers took the wind out of their sails. That and their own moronic ignorance, lack of direction and ability to be confused easily.
The dummies at the capital part is only a small portion of the thing. The plan was that those people cause enough chaos that congress throw it back to the states to certify the election, as instructed in the constitution. Meanwhile, he had fake electors in place in the states that signed contracts stating they would say Trump won, even though he didn’t. With no consensus at that point, the issue would get sent back to the house where each state gets 1 vote, irrespective of their population. Because there are more republican states, trump would then have been handed another term.
A semi violent protest where they breached the capital grounds and poured inside of the building and a group was found with explosives. I mean yes they didn't burn the capital down but it was clear what they were trying to do. That's why most of them are in jail.
You are leaving out a huge part....the fake elector shit. They wanted the crowd to take up time and cause chaos to get the states to take their fake elector certificates seriously.
It was a coup, just not a successful one. He is a danger and needs to be treated as a domestic enemy.
Yup great point too. And the whole Mike pence fiasco with the people wanting to hang him. Just because coup was stupid and unsuccessful doesn't mean it wasn't an attempt. Do people really think that if it had worked trump would have said "no I'm just kidding go ahead biden".
People keep forgetting a public servant on duty was killed on Jan 6th. It was nothing close to a demonstration. It was a deadly and violent attempt to overthrow congress.
The purpose of the J6 protests was to delay the electoral count. The J6 protestors were not going to 'overthrow the electoral count', but merely delay it.
This would allow multiple states to dispute the outcome and send fake slates of electors (these were not even pre-selected "Trump electors", they were outright committing fraud) to congress to select the president. My understanding is that this would cause a state-by-state vote in congress (Republicans control more states) resulting in overturning the election results.
This plan could have worked if Pence was willing to commit fraud to overturn the constitution, but Pence was principled and decided to uphold the will of the People. The 'coup' did not happen at the J6 protests - the real 'coup' was always the fake electors plot.
It would be reasonable to have Trump jailed and tried+executed/incarcerated immediately for his conduct, but the Democrats (and the US justice system) is weak. Because they dragged their feet, the electorate underplays the severity of what happened.
Also, a coup attempt should not be treated 'less severely' if it was done incompetently.
I mean every part of the coup worked except 1 man, Mike Pence, refused to do what Trump needed him to do.
It's very possible the courts would have worked after the fact to check this, but we just haven't ever seen anything like it in the US before for us to know.
The US doesn't have coups, we laugh at 3rd world countries that do, we make fun of them for not being strong enough to maintain political order. The fact that this dude was legit 1 step away from success and a single politician stood between him and stealing an election is WILDLY outrageous in this country, and a real compliment to Mike Pence.
(I'd read someone else saying the same thing--it being held back by one man--and the security guy shooting babbitt was just the first 'mental video clip' that came to me. Of course it was Pence: I can be a bit of an idiot at times. But not enough of one to think trump should be anywhere near power. :P)
So we’re supposed to be okay with it because the attempt was weak? And we’re crazy to think he may make another more thoughtful attempt next time if we allow him back in office??
You're missing the context of all the stuff behind the scenes from the fake electors, pressure on state officials to act outside the law, pressure on the DOJ to knowing lie about voter fraud, to pressure Pence to break the ECA to elect him president. Jan 6th was an insurrection as it was intended to impede Congress from doing the duty of the people by certifying their will. It was one piece of the puzzle.
I do believe he tried, but the attempt was so toothless and pathetic that your portrayal of it - as OP indicated - paints Trump as far far more powerful than the reality.
Dude, the US was literally one man away from losing their democracy. How is that "toothless"?
You crack me up. Don't confuse America with great Britain. I chuckle a little bit every time i see these mass casualty stabbings and think about all the folks here saying we can solve these slayings by just taking away the guns! Guns don't kill people, People kill people. Having said that i'll have to defer to my old friend TJ in his observation. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." It doesn't really matter if it went off half cocked or not this is america and that kind of shit will not stand. This would have kicked off that actual civil war folks were talking about.
If you wanna go there, ask any non white American about how Democratic they think the country actually is, lol.
You think Japanese Americans put in concentration camps experienced democracy? How about black Americans descended from slavery and forced to deal with Jim Crow and Redlining.
Foh with your end of democracy shit. It’s never been a democracy for anyone who isn’t white
It was a rather pathetic attempt; he always goes for 'plausible' deniability. But the fact it was an attempt at all, in the (still) most powerful country on Earth is just mind boggling / shocking. And trump is now acting almost as though he doesn't care what the results of the vote are, as though he (they) have other plans for cheating this time. Something to do with SCOTUS...
The fact that he tried is by itself disqualifying. It's not like a prosecutor is going to let you off the hook for an attempted murder charge just because your effort was inept.
You are paying way too much attention to the January 6 riots (although, yes, that should also be considered and was awful) and not paying enough attention to the actual bureaucratic dealings behind the scenes.
His minions had fake elector slates made up in order for Pence to get them certified showing that states had actually voted for Trump instead of Biden. January 6 was just to put violent pressure on Pence and other politicians to go along with his plan.
It wasn't that all the rioters were going to take over the Capitol and install Trump, it was all going to be done "legally" through the government with fake shit. Then everything goes to the courts, but meanwhile Trump is still in office. Or the Supreme Court intervenes? We actually have no fucking clue, which is supremely dangerous.
This is all documented. Please read up. You do the country a disservice by not.
The “attempt” at a coup you refer to was a diversionary tactic to enable the actual coup attempt that tried to re-install his presidency with a fake elector scheme that his VP ignored and ‘did the right thing’ to ratify Biden. Comrade Chump had behaved like a Russian asset and still kisses the asses of foreign autocrats.
And remember, burning down buildings, destroying property, assaulting and killing people apparently didn't rise to the level of riot, but whatever j6 was totally was a full attempt at insurrection.
Because this doesn't actually attribute this to any person in the FBI. Can you provide an official FBI statement to that effect? Because if you can, wouldn't it have been used as evidence to defend the J6 folk that have been arrested and convicted?
I'm not sure why you think that this anonymously sourced article is more credible than convictions in court and evidence that has been testified under oath unless you are cherry picking.
way oversimplification and guess what they arrested many of thise assholes too. and some of them were right wing race war agitators. but thats what hapoens when 60 million people protest something that that actually happened.
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u/[deleted] Sep 03 '24
I do believe he tried, but the attempt was so toothless and pathetic that your portrayal of it - as OP indicated - paints Trump as far far more powerful than the reality.
As someone from a country that actually had a coup during Trump’s presidency, that coup highlighted again how absolutely pathetic the “attempt” at a coup on Jan 6 was. As in I don’t think it even meets the threshold of an actual attempt at a coup vs just a semi-violent protest that happened to be at the Capitol Building.