Their main opponent also tried to stage a coup. And for years, this person wasn't removed despite many other posts that would have otherwised violated ToS -- special treatment for being a head of state. So there's some context to this quip.
Please, calling it a coup is a joke. France has larger demonstrations almost monthly (at least during non-Covid times), I've seen larger riots in the aftermath of hockey games.
It was a few rednecks rioting...
Read the article. It wasn't a "few rednecks rioting" -- there were two pipe bombs. Elected representatives were in actual danger; capitol police were struggling to hold back the participants. That the "rednecks rioting" were so poorly organized doesn't make it any less a coup. Our elected officials were being sheltered in windowless rooms.
That said, it doesn't really matter that the gilets jaunes were protesting for longer and in larger numbers; directly comparing them is a category error. The gilet jaunes were operating within the norms of how French civil society currently operates. The Capitol protesters/insurgents/whatever were expressly trying to overturn them. Maybe not a coup, maybe not treason, but sedition at the very least.
Funny the guy who encouraged everyone to go to the capital (despite the almost universal disagreement) hasn't testified.
We can't let the laughable ineptitude of these people distract us; they may not be so freakin' stupid the next time they attempt to overthrow our duly elected representatives.
We definitely can. The whole world laughs at the US when they call it a coup. We've seen plenty of real coups in our lifetime, this ain't it.
Coup attempts are not defined by crowd size.
And when crowds do lead to governments being overthrown, usually it's crowds in the millions encouraging those institutions to overthrow the government. Again which didn't happen.
By any definition it wasn't a coup d'état or even an attempt at anything with a chance of success.
No, a coup doesn't have to be by military and government officials (though they are usually best situated, and in any case were involved in the autocoup attempt of which the attack on the Capitol was a part—but neither the whole, the beginning, or necessarily even the end once it failed.)
And a coup attempt can (this specific subtype is called a self-coup, autocoup, or autogolpe) seek to irregularly extend the powers or the term of the current leadership, not overthrow anyone already in power, and this is what the one involving the 1/6 attack was.
And a coup attempt doesn't always involve taking over anything, in the same way a murder attempt doesn't always produce a dead body.
Really though, that's never been successful and calling it an attempt is being extremely generous. It's like saying writing a Tweet is an attempt at writing a novel.
Well, sure, and if that's really what you wanted to do, that would be a (very badly) attempted coup.
On the other hand, if you had a much larger group of “friends”, including high officials of the federal executive branch, federal legislators, state legislators, and others in and out of government, and instead of going from a pub and breaking a few government windows you coordinated on a scheme to substitute alternative electoral votes for the certified ones from several states relying on an abuse of office by the presiding officer of the joint session counting the electoral votes to effect that, when the regular presiding officer publicly rebuffed the effort gathered a few thousand people including multiple organized armed groups to violently assault the Capitol, erecting a gallows and calling for the hanging of recalcitrant presiding officer, having members and legislative staff escape only moments ahead of the mob (and those moments in part because one breakthrough of barricades was stopped by deadly force), delay deployment of National Guard forces to respond to the attack,...
Well, then you’ve got, while in the actual case still unsuccessful, a lot more credible coup attempt.
Again though, this is exactly my point. I am not from the US. I couldn't really care less. But the problem is that someone's obviously ludicrous subjective interpretation of an event is being stated as an objective fact, and then applied by social media. Do you not see how this can backfire on you? In other words, you have no problem when it is being rigged against people you don't like but how are you going to respond when it is rigged against you?
This is the reason we have courts. This is the reason we have free speech. It is indivisible, applied to everyone equally.
None of his posts violated ToS (there are people on Twitter who are orchestrating genocide), you just don't like them.
Yeah, lots.
> They usually involve armies and mass executions
Military coups are one kind, but even they often involve only a fairly small group of officers, and a few trusted henchmen to execute the coup. Often, key military leaders don't use the military, they just prevent security services from intervening to stop the coup attempt. (Which executive branch officials did for some time during the 1/6 attempt.)
But not all attempted coups are military coups, and the class known as “autocoups”—attempts to extend the domain or time of the current leaders power beyond it's lawful parameters—often look different anyway, since they aren't centered on displacing the existing leader but either disrupting and/or providing an excuse for cancelling a regular change in power or forcibly pressuring some other government body (often by incapacitating or removing key opponents) to acquiesce in a change of terms.
Federal code defines seditious conspiracy as two or more people conspiring to overthrow or destroy by force the United States government, or to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of any U.S. law.
> Their main opponent also tried to stage a coup.
But that said it still seems like a real stretch to me to say that the US federal government was so weak that there was ever a serious risk of 10 idiots overthrowing it and installing their guy. It seems like the word "coup" is somewhat meaningless if the same word is used to describe highly organized government takeovers by military leaders, as well as a small group of yokels that didn't even know what to do when they got into the capital building so started walking around taking pictures like tourists. I don't know what word I would use instead, probably "riot" or maybe even "rebellion" (actually, Shay's Rebellion seems way worse than what this was), but "coup" has never felt right to me.
Also worth pointing out I think is that they've been charged with seditious conspiracy (which I agree is a big deal) but none have been convicted (yet). Prosecutorial overreach is a huge problem in our country that needs to change. (to be clear I'm not saying this is a case of prosecutorial overreach, I honestly don't know. But it is certainly possible given how widespread it is in general in the US). Especially hard hit bit it are marginalized groups that can't adequately defend themselves. I've seen cases where the prosecutor didn't think they stood a chance of getting a conviction but they wanted a plea deal so they charged him with as much as possible to scare him into a guilty plea so they didn't have to go to trial.
It also shouldn't be overlooked that there is a massive political incentive for the current people in power to paint this as much as possible as "a coup." Selfishly I do hope they succeed, because I think Trump and many of his people are toxic to our democracy, but I strongly prefer to win "fair and square" rather than hyperbole.
The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys (charged with conspiracy as well in the attack, and in direct coordination with each other) are part of a network that connected to the fairly well documented effort by the Trump inner circle to enact a plan to subvert the vote count and either avoid the counting of or replace the lawful votes from certain states through channels including Roger Stone.
The main mechanism sought to be used was discussed publicly in the media prior to the attack, which sought to forcibly implement it when Mike Pence indicated he wouldn't go along with it voluntarily, by disrupting/delaying the count, removing Pence from the presiding role (“Hang Mike Pence”), and using intimidation to ensure that whatever officer replaced Pence would play ball.
> But that said it still seems like a real stretch to me to say that the US federal government was so weak that there was ever a serious risk of 10 idiots overthrowing it and installing their guy
An autocoup attempt by the sitting President, other high executive branch officials, members of Congress, at least two different organized violent groups, and thousands of followers mobilized by social media for violent attack on the Capital isn't just “10 idiots”.
> as well as a small group of yokels that didn't even know what to do when they got into the capital building so started walking around taking pictures like tourists.
That largely occurred after the evacuation of members, which itself was not complete when people broke into the Capitol; there was a concerted effort to reach the chambers where the joint session was being held, the Speakers office, and other areas where members and other high-value targets were likely to be initially.
I’m not sure if your minimizing misrepresentation is deliberate or just a result of effective propagandization.