> No they're usually defined by military and government officials taking over institutions to overthrow the elected government.
No, a coup doesn't have to be by military and government officials (though they are usually best situated, and in any case were involved in the autocoup attempt of which the attack on the Capitol was a part—but neither the whole, the beginning, or necessarily even the end once it failed.)
And a coup attempt can (this specific subtype is called a self-coup, autocoup, or autogolpe) seek to irregularly extend the powers or the term of the current leadership, not overthrow anyone already in power, and this is what the one involving the 1/6 attack was.
And a coup attempt doesn't always involve taking over anything, in the same way a murder attempt doesn't always produce a dead body.
> A coup? Seriously? Have you seen what a coup looks like?
Yeah, lots.
> They usually involve armies and mass executions
Military coups are one kind, but even they often involve only a fairly small group of officers, and a few trusted henchmen to execute the coup. Often, key military leaders don't use the military, they just prevent security services from intervening to stop the coup attempt. (Which executive branch officials did for some time during the 1/6 attempt.)
But not all attempted coups are military coups, and the class known as “autocoups”—attempts to extend the domain or time of the current leaders power beyond it's lawful parameters—often look different anyway, since they aren't centered on displacing the existing leader but either disrupting and/or providing an excuse for cancelling a regular change in power or forcibly pressuring some other government body (often by incapacitating or removing key opponents) to acquiesce in a change of terms.
> A coup attempt includes illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.
That’s a rather incomplete definition:
—quote—
Threats to democracy involve officeholders’ abuse of the official powers given to—
them within a democracy through the unconstitutional extension of those powers
either temporally or substantively. This abuse is most dramatic in a coup d’état. The
traditional coup occurs when one part of the state attempts to take over other organs
of the state using force or the threat of force. Because the military represents that
part of the state meant to control a monopoly of force,3 the military is the most
frequent – but not the only – culprit. Other kinds of coups could occur if a head of
government uses unconstitutional means to dismiss judges who deliver unwelcome
judgments (what Dr. Mort Halperin calls an “auto-coup”), or to get rid of an
“uncontrollable” legislature in order to rule by decree instead (another form of autocoup). A distinct but functionally similar threat is of the erosion of democracy, where
officials abuse their constitutional powers to take over gradually the powers of other
institutions, as in Zimbabwe.
> There are two key components of this definition. The first is that it is illegal. […] But an even more critical aspect of Powell and Thyne’s definition is that it requires the involvement of elites
And the attack on the Capitol was both illegal violence and with the involvement of elites, who egged it on because they sought to benefit from it, so what’s your point?
> How is a mob storming the legislature at the direction of a politician not a coup attempt?
Especially when the specific goal is to use threats of violence to induce officials to overturn the election in which the inciting politician was defeated.
This is an act of terrorism meant to effect an auto-coup.
> We don’t have a word as popular and overused as “coup” to describe the attempt to shut down the transfer of power
The more technical term for the kind of coup attempted (an extension of power beyond the legitimate term or scope by or on behalf of the current leader, is “auto-coup” or “self-coup”.)
> Her arguments amount to "this was a coup attempt because I've redefined what a coup attempt means to fit this specific instance".
No, its a classic autocoup (self-coup) attempt. Executive leader directs loyalists against another government power center for the purpose of either extending term beyond what has been secured through the regular process or seizing additional unauthorized powers in the existing term. It wasn't even covert, they were literally overtly directed to go to Congress for that end.
Now, was it a poorly planned, uncoordinated, sloppily executed, and ultimately failure of an autocoup attempt? Sure, but that doesn't make it not a coup attempt.
> I'd call that a coup attempt. You might call it an insurrection. I think that's quibbling over semantics.
This seems like a good opportunity: since this scenario/though experiment is a product of your mind, you should have access to knowledge of whether it actually was a coup attempt (the people in question genuinely had the intent to overthrow the government, and a legitimate plan of sorts) - so, did they?
> By this logic I could gather 10 friends from the pub, go to a government building, break a few windows, say we want to overthrow the government, then go home and call it an attempted coup.
Well, sure, and if that's really what you wanted to do, that would be a (very badly) attempted coup.
On the other hand, if you had a much larger group of “friends”, including high officials of the federal executive branch, federal legislators, state legislators, and others in and out of government, and instead of going from a pub and breaking a few government windows you coordinated on a scheme to substitute alternative electoral votes for the certified ones from several states relying on an abuse of office by the presiding officer of the joint session counting the electoral votes to effect that, when the regular presiding officer publicly rebuffed the effort gathered a few thousand people including multiple organized armed groups to violently assault the Capitol, erecting a gallows and calling for the hanging of recalcitrant presiding officer, having members and legislative staff escape only moments ahead of the mob (and those moments in part because one breakthrough of barricades was stopped by deadly force), delay deployment of National Guard forces to respond to the attack,...
Well, then you’ve got, while in the actual case still unsuccessful, a lot more credible coup attempt.
> How about 'attempt to undermine the government'? That is much more accurate than coup.
No, attempted coup (specifically, attempted self-coup) is much more accurate.
> Words have meanings
Yes, they do. And the precise political science terms for the coordinated attempts by the 45th President and his allies to extend his powers beyond their lawful duration by extralegal means is “self-coup” or “auto-coup” (in the original French, “autogolpe”), which is a form of coup carried out by or on behalf of the existing leader.
> and using the words inaccurate/the wrong meanings is saying one thing but meaning another, and the word for that is lying.
Yes, that is exactly what you are doing when you explicitly refuse to use the correct term in attempt to minimize the act.
> Did we lose the Senate? What about the house? Do we have an enemy force occupying our capital? Are our nation’s leaders kidnapped? Are there insurgents fighting in the streets?
I see you understood the word “coup” but the “failed…attempt” surrounding that word.
Attempted murder doesn’t stop being a serious offense because no one died, and attempted coup doesn’t become a minor event because only a handful of people died and the attempt to improperly seize power by force failed.
> So it's only a coup if it's "aimed at stopping the constitutional process of formalizing a lawful election"?
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.
> Because announcing a coup in advance is stupendously idiotic?
There are different kinds of blows directed at leadership that work primarily by surprise seizure or elimonation of key personnel and/or facilities, perhaps the most traditional “military coup”.
There are mass mutinies by military formations, which are essentially armed direct-action protests by troops, often under their established leadership. A sizable formation declaring them and calling on others to join is not at all unheard of. Functionally, they can succeed as a form of coup or half-coup (replacing the top leadership or forcing concessions) while retaining the basic state infrastructure, or end up as a key part of a more complete revolution (or, obviously, just fail). They are a very real historical thing.
> there's no plausible way the people there would have seized power.
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.
> Again, you don't seize power by attacking a particular meeting.
Agreed, but that's not my claim. My claim is: these people thought that they could seize power by attacking this particular meaning (however absurd that belief might be). This is documented by posts stating their intent on social media, as well as their actions within the capitol. They also acted on their belief and committed a criminal act. So morally speaking, they had the necessary mens rea and actus reus to be guilty of the crime of an attempted coup.
I completely agree with your statement that this attempted coup was inept and therefore ineffective. I also agree that attempt did not share the characteristics of a historically effective coup. However, I disagree with your contention that a skilled implementation of a coup is necessary for an "attempted coup." Skill in an act is sufficient, but not necessary for an "attempt" of the act.
>>> They are also presently discussing their next day-out for rednecks in the form of another insurrection and coup attempt on the 17th of January.
> But if you play out the actual implications then you can use hyperbole and call it a coup. That's valuable language and you don't want to let a crisis go to waste.
The GGP labeled this with an both the correct term and an incorrect term.
1/6 was an insurrection, not a coup. An insurrection is a rebellion against civil authority, which this clearly was, even if it was incompetently executed. I think a coup is typically used for when power is illegally taken by military or police authorities, which this was not.
> AFAIK, in common use the word coup involves the military taking control of the government.
That is one common kind of coup, but distinguished from the broader category. That's why the phrase “military coup” exists to distinguish the kind of coup where the military (or some part of it) is the main actor in seizing control outside of normal bounds.
> According to that logic, does any sort of protest outside the capitol = "coup attempt"?
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.
No, a coup doesn't have to be by military and government officials (though they are usually best situated, and in any case were involved in the autocoup attempt of which the attack on the Capitol was a part—but neither the whole, the beginning, or necessarily even the end once it failed.)
And a coup attempt can (this specific subtype is called a self-coup, autocoup, or autogolpe) seek to irregularly extend the powers or the term of the current leadership, not overthrow anyone already in power, and this is what the one involving the 1/6 attack was.
And a coup attempt doesn't always involve taking over anything, in the same way a murder attempt doesn't always produce a dead body.
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