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Comment by CivBase | Hacker News Reader

According to some of the more conspiratorial comments in this thread, a coup.

The actual answer is probably that they do not believe the claims of election fraud have been sufficiently investigated. I'm sure they want a more thorough investigation to be held before the election results are officially recognized by congress.

That and they're just angry people who have resorted to rioting - like how a toddler resorts to a tantrum when it doesn't get its way. This appears to be an increasingly common theme with modern US politics.

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Let's be honest, no amount of proof would convince them. They would move the goalpost as far as necessary for them to get what they want. They just KNOW they WON the election and I fail to see what would budge their belief.

I think it's a mistake to think that these people argue in good faith. I tried listening to what they have to say and they're not consistent, they're not coherent, they're not honest and they want the truth only if it confirms their beliefs.

I agree. I'm not saying these people's demands are reasonable. I don't believe they are. OP just asked what their motivation was and I tried to give a serious answer.

I understand. I just happen to side with OP on this, from where I'm standing, it looks like a coup attempt. It doesn't look conspiratorial at all. It looks like they're saying "fair elections" but they're meaning "Republican rule".

People are reasonably concerned about whether Trump will cooperate with the transition of power. But I still think it's really reaching to call this a coup.

There is no organization. There is no plan. There is no sign of a premeditated attempt to overthrow the government. There is just a mob of angry rioters barging into a government building.

I'm curious what you believe constitutes a coup.

Did you hear the rhetoric coming from Don Jr, Giuliani and Trump during the morning of the rally? Certainly sounded like they were calling for action... the opposite of what they tweeted after the lady lost her life in the capital building. No way this protest/mob happens without Trump gassing them up for months without evidence. Trump has disgraced this nation and some of his loyalists are hoping for civil war (as made clear by there custom made ‘MAGA 1/6/21 civil war’ t shirts).

It's not conspiratorial! The president has stated, repeatedly and at length and to many different people, that he'd like to invalidate the election results and make himself the winner. This reflexive dismissal that he could mean what he says is coming very close to ending the country.

That does not make this a coup. This is a riot. While there is no doubt that the rioters want the election results to be overturned, there is no indication that they have the ability or intention to use force to make that a reality.

These are angry people being disruptive and destructive. That's what a riot is. Calling it a coup is conspiratorial.

There are many indications that they have the intention to use force to make it a reality. There was one protester standing at Pence's spot in the chamber, demanding that he come back and deliver the election to Trump!

It's true that they don't seem to have the ability. But they didn't seem to have the ability to take over the Capitol building either. It's very dangerous to look at people trying their hardest to do a coup and dismiss it just because it'd be an uphill battle to make it work.

One person shouting ridiculous demands does not a coup make.

Can we agree on a number then?

I'd consider it a coup if there were an organized group with a remotely plausible plan for overthrowing the government.

Then we should be happy that they weren't a little bit more organized because then you might be looking at your elected officials as hostages. At this point in time their lack of ability should be counted down to luck, and nothing else.

I agree that it's a good thing they weren't more organized. All riots would be more dangerous if they were more organized.

Not sure what to make of the "luck" comment. I suppose we're always lucky that bad things aren't worse than they end up being.

You're well into a utilitarian definition of planning, if it succeeds then it was planned if it doesn't then it wasn't.

The luck is assigned to all of us, including the idiots that tried this.

If 60 failed court cases wasn't enough, what could possibly pacify these people. There were dozens upon dozens of opportunities to make the case election fraud had occurred. The courts would have listened if they had anything to present.

I'm starting to believe we need some kind of regulation for companies who profit off of proliferating and re-enforcing echo chambers, though I'm not sure what that would even look like yet.

[deleted]

This comment seems bizarrely aggressive. I read CivBase as expanding on your point—the reason people are refusing to acknowledge the results is (at least in part) because they’re in the echo-chambers being run for profit. Not sure where you got the accusations of shilling from.

Comment removed. Unfortunately, it incorrectly read as a low-brow way of suggesting my perspective was just some corporation pushing a view. On a second read, that wasn't the most judicial interpretation of the comment, and HN rules necessitate applying the strongest plausible interpretation, which is yours.

wolfgang's interpretation is what I intended.

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