Yes, RTB, and I think that David Allen Green post someone posted on the previous thread bears repeating:
The contest between violent populism and constitutionalism – and why it was not inevitable that yesterday’s attempted coup in the United States would fail
7th January 2021
davidallengreen.com
Yesterday we watched, in real-time, an attempted coup in the United States.
Was it an attempted coup?
Some are already fussing about the ‘coup’ word – that it was merely a security violation, a mere matter of public order.
That view is not correct, for three reasons.
It was an attempted coup.
First, an essential constitutional stage for a peaceful transfer of power was disrupted.
The constitutional stage – usually a formality – was the certification of the electoral college vote by congress.
It is this certification that would make the inauguration of a new president happen on 20 January 2021 by automatic operation of law.
No certification, no certainty of inauguration of a new president.
The disruption was the object and the effect of the disorder.
And until and unless the electoral college vote is certified then the 20 January inauguration is uncertain.
(The resumed Congress is still considering the electoral college votes as I type.)
Second, the disruption was at the behest of the losing candidate – or, if you nod-along with plausible deniability, it was at least done so as to ensure he stayed in office.
It was disruption with the purpose of keeping a losing candidate in office.
And that candidate then praised these ‘special’ people for what they did.
Indeed, for the candidate’s daughter, these disruptors were ‘patriots’.
And third, the disruption was forceful.
The mob forced their way in, and there are reports of fatalities and injuries.
This was not a peaceful protest or an exercise in civil disobedience.
So a group (a) used force to (b) disrupt an essential constitutional process (c) at the behest of (or in the interests of) a politician – and if that disruption had succeeded, the inauguration of a new president would have been rendered uncertain.
That was an attempt at a coup.