Why would anyone say that? It wasn't a coup by definition and, even if it had been, neither the people you'd need to bribe/murder nor the records you'd need to burn and replace were present.
> 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”.)
> 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.
> 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.
A failed coup attempt is not a coup.
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