THREAD on the DC coup: 1/ It's a few thousand people, inadequately policed, but they pose a danger to life and limb for US lawmakers and currently control the Capitol...

2/ It will require an armed sweep and a security sweep of the building to get it under control. That Pelosi and Schumer called in the Virginia NG means DC and - worse - the DoD are not co-ordinating....

3/ Forget the theatre. Foreign governments will be asking: is there an unbroken chain of command? Everyone in security knows how fragile states are. The DC police, DoD have hours - not many - to get this under control. Trump is publicly absent, having incited it...

4/ The laws of insurrection are "audacity x3" - unless they keep going this will fizzle. But in several US states there were plans to surround state Capitols. Ten million more people voted Trump than in 2016 and the media has stoked the "stolen" narrative

5/ The moment the US people believe their 244 year old democracy is being stolen by some far right assholes in cosplay gear, they will, and should, take to the streets to defend it.

6/ The minimum payback for this is Trump arrested, jailed and his graft syndicate broken up. Proud Boys, who organised this, needs to be proscribed under anti-terror legislation...

7/ This is a warning to all liberal centrism. We, the left, want an alliance to defend democracy but be serious: we are facing Hitler/Mussolini-style groups (circa 1922-3) and you need to forget your anodyne bloodless political crap... this is a crisis!

8/ The Kapp Putsch 1920 was defeated by a general strike. take a look at the imagery. It was less frenzied than the chuds in the Capitol.... US organised labor needs to put mass strike on the agenda tonight...

9/ There are a lot of lessons from Europe in the 1920s about how to stop fascism. I spent the past 12 months researching them. The main lesson is: maintain the state's monopoly of coercive force. Do it now.