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Comment by seriousquestion | Hacker News Reader

That was a protest that devolved into a riot, armed with phones for selfies and a viking LARPer as the centerpiece. Please see Myanmar for what a coup looks like;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d'%C3%A9tat

edit; Myanmar is implicitly an example of both an attempted coup and successful coup. If they failed, it would still be an example of what a coup looks like. It's not protesters and rioters with iphones. It's soldiers with guns and vehicles. The capitol riot was terrible and should be denounced (as it has by almost everyone), but to describe it as an attempted coup is straight up gaslighting.

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Is it just a "protest" if the organizers intended to storm into a federal building and use force to prevent a free and fair election?

That answer probably depends on whether one supported or is sympathetic to their cause or not, even although it really shouldn’t.

The election had already occurred. The protest=>riot was attempting to stall the certification of that election while possibly removing a few members of Congress.

You just used softer language to say the same thing I said.

Also, their organizing rhetoric, i.e. "Stop the Steal," did not imply an attempt to be annoying and temporarily delay the election.

Protests do not stall free elections anyway.

In the US the election in November is the beginning of the election process. Winning the election in November is the first step to becoming president, but winning that election does not make one president. The process is this:

- An election occurs which allocates electoral college delegates for each state

- Those delegates meet and cast their votes for the candidate of their choosing.

- After they vote, each state creates a Certificate of Vote. This is the actual legal document that elects one as president. 6 copies are made: one sent to the VP, one sent to the SoS, two to a US archivist, and two to the chief judge from the closest district court.

- In early January, Congress meets to count the certificates. That is the actual election. Everything before then is just process.

So while the election had occurred, the process was not yet finalized. Until those votes are counted by Congress, then the person elected by the people in November is not elected president. The rioters were absolutely attempting to disrupt the most crucial part of the process -- the thing that legally elected Joe Biden president.

Myanmar is an example of a military coup, in a country where the military has significant political status already. Not all coups are military, by any means.

Many involved were acting with the hope & intent to stop the transfer of power from one administration to the next. An inability or failure to accomplish that goal doesn't make it any less of an attempt.

> Please see Myanmar for what a coup looks like

You're right - that is a coup. There's a reason the post you responded to says "coup attempt" which, as we all know, was unsuccessful.

> There's a reason the post you responded to says "coup attempt" which, as we all know, was unsuccessful.

Not to mention that the Feds infiltrated the groups involved & the "coup attempt" was staged, as known BLM-affiliated agitators & government informants with criminal records were outed as the inciters & leadership of the groups involved.

Has there been any public investigation into who is Q-anon? Surely the alphabet agencies with all of the glorious panopticon tech would know who Q is. Surely, with all of these agencies experiences with cults over the last few decades had an inkling what was going on. If there was a grass-roots insurrection, where was the chatter & why was it not stopped? Could it be because these agencies were involved?

In the meantime, there are riots, attacking of government officials, murdering & raping of the people, & destruction of government & private property among many cities around the country, yet these are labeled "peaceful protests". And Antifa is "just an idea" or a "myth" and multi-racial white supremacist neo nazis are literally everywhere. Up is down and down is up in this bizzaro narrative...

Martin Luther King & Malcolm X would both be rolling on their tears in their graves to see how their movements & names have been compromised & turned into a clown show mockery by the very same FBI that persecuted them & race-pimps who profiteered off of their messages...

Imagine hearing this today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNciryImqg

Whether or not it was an attempted coup depends only on what the intentions of the “rioters” were. So, what do you think their intentions were in storming the chambers of our legislative branch just as the results of an election were being certified? Was their intent not to disrupt the peaceful transition of power and overturn the results of an election to keep “their guy” in power?

Honestly I think the best argument for it not being a coup attempt is that these people had been deluded into thinking they were trying to thwart a coup attempt from the other side. Because, you know, Biden stole the election. Or whatever.

Not a great look either way. But the fact that it was inarguably an incompetent and generally shambolic effort, or that much better organized people have executed much more effective coup attempts elsewhere in space and time, doesn’t mean it wasn’t a coup attempt.

I'm pretty sure there were coups before guns existed.

> Please see Myanmar for what a coup looks like;

Coups can take a variety of forms and not all of them include armed forces taking physical control with threat of force.

I assume you're being downvoted for low effort, because you're not wrong. That said, public perception is driven by media presentation, and the media dialed the hysteria knob to 11 in the aftermath of the Capitol Riot. It's honestly the most blatant propaganda that I've ever observed in American media.

How many people read those 'FIVE DEAD IN CAPITAL RIOTS' headlines, read the vague articles expressing dread at 'right wing violence', and went away thinking that the protesters had been committing murder? The truth, of course, was that only one person died a violent death during the riot, and it was at the hands of the capitol police. The other folks died of heart attacks and strokes! The fact that the (geriatric) body count was used to sew FUD about right-wing violence was and is absolutely astounding.

How many people still think that two capital police officers were killed by rioters? The media went out of their way to state (and later to merely imply) that Officer Hodges had been crushed to death by a crowd as they tried to enter the building, and that Officer Sickwick had sustained mortal injuries during the riot--neither of which was true. Hodges is alive and well, and Sickwick died of a stroke the next day. The media went on spinning the Sickwick lie as his body layed in state, and on and on for many months after the attack.

Unsurprisingly, the fact checkers did what they do as well, bending over backwards to support the 'armed' in 'armed insurrection' by counting up the pocket knives and pointing out that *one* of the rioters had a handgun[0]! In a nation containing >150 million firearms, and in an era when folks are regularly attending protests whilst armed to the teeth, it's pretty clear that these protesters went out of their way to leave their weapons at home.

The real kicker, IMO, is that if you were following the news in real time, you would have noticed that the rage surrounding the incident presented a stark contradiction to the current narrative. On social media, the lefties couldn't decide whether their rage should be directed at the protesters (who, having broken several prestigious windows, were naturally being hailed as 'TERRORISTS' in a twitter trend), or at the capital police, many of whom were captured on video while contradicting the 'coup' narrative--smiling, opening doors for protesters, and helping feeble old insurrectionists down the capital steps!

[0]https://www.factcheck.org/2021/03/capitol-protesters-were-ar... [1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/brian-sic...

Over 100 officers were injured in the riots. It doesn't have to have killed people for it have been a violent riot.

I certainly agree that it was a violent riot. I was arguing against the silly idea that it was an attempted coup d'etat. The gp (which called it a coup) was flagged, and the parent comment was heavily edited, so there is a lot of missing context here.

Your post has a few things wrong. People don't have to die for violence to happen. I believe you are correct that the coroner eventually declared Officer Sickwick's death was unrelated but that doesn't change the fact that he and other officers were attacked. You also seem to think that because some officers aided some protestors that proves all of the protestors weren't violent.

There are plenty of weapons out there that aren't firearms. You can be armed and not carrying a gun. While I'd agree that many of the injuries are consistent with a large crowd there are also documented cases of people in the crowd using weapons like tasers, pepper spray, and a flag pole. There are lots of pictures of zip tie cuffs being carried in the capital buildings. How often do you hear about people going to a peaceful protest expecting to capture prisoners? You need a license to carry a firearm in DC. It shouldn't be surprising that in a protest made up of people from outside DC you wouldn't have many people who have the right license. Flying with a gun is also a PITA so that's another reason some people who travelled to the protest may not have brought their guns with them.

Finally, there was at least one group that set up a cache of guns offsite so that they could ferry them in if needed [0].

[0] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/capitol-riot...

I think we're largely in agreement. My intent wasn't to argue that the riot wasn't violent, it was to argue that it was a) not as bad as it was made out to be, and b) clearly not a coup attempt. The GP has been flagged and the parent comment heavily edited, so the original context is lost.

If you want to play footsie with technical definitions, sure, this was really not a coup but a putsch.

The end result would have been the same. And I shudder to think how f*cked we'd be as a nation if it had succeeded.

The chances of a group of unarmed people, and a LARPer with zip ties, overthrowing the most powerful government in history is 0.0%. Even if that was the intention of the group. Which it clearly wasn't.

That otherwise logical thinkers are getting caught up in such hysterics is unnerving.

It very much was their intention to scare lawmakers into letting their lame duck president get a second term. After the first non-peaceful transition of power in US history I really don’t see the point in humoring your stance that it was “just a protest.”

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