The January 6th invasion of Congress included people with zip ties and paramilitary equipment. While there were a lot of idiots there, there was a core which had a plan of capturing important people like Pelosi, and they came fairly close. There’s no question that Trump abetted it, but the Secret Service refused to drive him to the capital and the effort failed.
As it happens, I know and like someone who was there, though obviously they have different politics than I do. I talked to them briefly about it and one thing was clear.
They genuinely believed and believe the election was stolen. Now both sides cheat, though as far as I can tell the Republicans do so more, and Democratic election finangling is primarily meant to exclude progressives and left-wing populists from running. But the point is that if you believe an election was stolen, and you take steps, even violent steps, to fix that you, consider yourself a patriot trying to save democracy.
Now, of course, the people who encouraged the occupation of Congress may well not have believed that the election was stolen (we’ll leave Trump out, he’s delusional and there’s no way to know what he really thinks.) But a lot of the people who were there genuinely believed it was.
These people didn’t understand Trump. The main thing I pointed out to my acquaintance, was that Trump betrayed them. He could have pardoned them before he left, and he didn’t. They were loyal to him, and he was not loyal to them. He was also a fool, because if he had pardoned them, they’d be there for him in his next attempt, and most of them now won’t be, in large part because most of them are going to prison.
You come for the king, you’d best win. If you’re going to invade Congress, well, you’d better succeed. These people didn’t think things thru, and neither did Trump. As I wrote early in Trump’s reign, he might want to do a coup, but he was too incompetent to pull it off, and so it was. The only chance of it happening is if it was run by someone more competent under him, but Trump had a habit of getting rid of his most able lackey, like Bannon.
There needed to be a plan to call in paramilitary forces who would have wanted another Trump term, and a chance to reform America. The most (dis)loyal of these are the border guards, who are brutal brownshirt thugs and there needed to be more doubt about the election to give cover to politicians and business leaders.
Some work has been done on this since 2001. A lot of electoral officers were replaced by Trump loyalists who will certify based on politics, not vote counts, and judges, likewise, have been systematically replaced when possible.
But bottom line, Trump didn’t have enough enforcer class or elite backing, and he didn’t have enough right wing radical support either. There should have been much more simultaneous action at the state level. The goal would be to force the issue to a supreme court controlled by Republicans and get some legitimacy, as was done in 2000 (which, according to the numbers I saw and ran back in the day, was a Democratic victory.)
Trump’s a boob in many ways. He has (non moral) virtues, but he’s fundamentally scattered and somewhat stupid. That doesn’t mean he isn’t effective, however, and thinking that smart and effective a synonyms is a mistake too many people continue to make.
You don’t need a majority to succeed at a coup, 70% of the population can be against you, but you do need a chunk of the enforcer class on your side with the rest unwilling to stop you or so much of a minority they can be crushed. You do need support from an elite faction, and you do need about 30% of the population on your side.
I leave it to readers to decide what the risk is in the US.
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