According to this theory the USA should be a failed state then?
The political independence of the military, its culture of unwillingness to step into politics, and the taboo on the use of the military for policing on American soil, is another key component in American stability vs the rest of the Americas.
Whether this holds up for another 5 years is anyone's guess. My family is from Argentina, and having lived there myself I see the US sliding in that direction. One very telling thing is the increasing justification of political violence that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. However, America has been through periods of political violence before and has not degenerated into a dictatorship, although it's come close.
Instead, the police militarized. Then there is the National Guard(?).
However, I also lived in countries in Asia and Latin America where the actual military plays a major role in policing and putting down protests. Now I live in Portland, where the militarized local police put down protests, and I can say that the qualitative difference between those situations is that the local police do not represent the government of the country. They still answer to the courts. They can't throw you in a black hole without legal representation. They don't have the true power of the state behind them. They may be fucked up as hell, but they aren't the army, in the sense that the actual military is sent in to suppress uprisings around the world.
That was my point about what allowed America to escape the tragic cycle of coups that has befallen most other presidential republics ... the taboo on the military engaging in domestic policing. No other country in Latin America has that taboo, and as a result the army in each county functions as a bludgeon by whoever takes absolute power -- usually fascists, but in odd cases (Venezuela, El Salvador), leftist totalitarians.
It ensures a two party system which makes the government lean center (on both sides) and be very stable.
Had the capital riots gone a little differently I could see a civil war starting that would destroy America.
So what, they make it into the senate chambers, kill some politicians for being traitors, and then what? declare a coup and expect everyone to take them seriously?
We’ve survived assassination of the President on multiple occasions. I have no idea what people think the January 6 rioters could have done to meaningfully affect the country. It was a very small populist uprising that was quickly put down. (We’ve dealt with those too—Whiskey Rebellion, etc.)
That’s literally the civil war the commenter was talking about.
I don't see how claiming that you believe a few challenges would pop up along the way can refute the fact that Trump's goal was to overthrow the democratic process to force himself into staying in power in spite of the election results.
Quoting Mike Pence, on rejecting Trump's threats on Jan 6 insurrection:
> "There are those in our party who believed that in my position as presiding officer over the joint session that I possess the authority to reject or return electoral votes certified by the states," Pence said. "But the Constitution provides the vice president with no such authority."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pence-proud-his-jan-6-actio...
Your edit with Pence is confirming my point. Trump wanted to overthrow the government and his own appointees wouldn't go along with it because he wasn't offering enough assurance they'd get away with it. Re-read what I wrote.
The relevant part is that the president of the US of A, along with his political party, thought it was possible to overthrow the elections they lost to preserve themselves in power, and executed their plan to overthrow the elections. That's what the Vice President stated. Which part do you want to deny?
Even though the VP stated he intentionally rejected the president's plan, let's keep in mind that the president's plan also involved assassinating him along with members of Congress as part of his plan to overthrow the elections.
Which part exactly do you not accept?