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Now, more than ever, we should be using clear and accurate language to describe what's happening. It's not a coup, it's not a insurrection, it will not interrupt the transfer of power. It is dangerous political violence and should be discussed as such. https://twitter.com/ElectionTask/status/1346937395766198273
That's how Biden is discussing it
That's how legal scholars are discussing it https://twitter.com/Nedfoley/status/1346912679630307329
That's how coup scholars are discussing it https://twitter.com/HarknessKristen/status/1346919143937880066
Political violence has its own determinants, responses, and horrible consequences. It does not need to be bolstered by conflating it with every other kind of event. Especially when that can lead to other bad second order effects. No one is made better off by being less precise.
It's how both the majority leaders and minority leaders are currently discussing it.
No. It's not. And this is not helpful. One way you can tell is none of the political actors involved perceive it like this and most of the coup experts don't. Also because it's not. https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/coup-america-capitol-electoral-college-2020-election/
Somehow Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer failed to notice or mention the mob "forcefully seizing their executive authority." Somehow they failed to connect the dots of a perimeter breach and the entire institution of government changing hands.
I'm sorry, this is trash. If I have to hear one more person describe following a codebook correctly as "admirable" instead of literally our job, I'm going to lose it. No one in this dumpster fire is made better off by this constructivist, code it how you feel movement. No one.
It hasn't even been 10 hours and polity has all the research it needs to also make a political statement. The US has now somehow fallen below periods without suffrage, because of a perimeter breach. So brave.
http://www.systemicpeace.org/
http://www.systemicpeace.org/
I am a primarily quantitative social scientist, and I have been largely driven from doing work in political science because I don't trust the datasets we use, and this crap is exactly why.
To put that in perspective, here are the polity score updates for the US through 2020. The US is now scored lower than during Andrew Jackson, slavery, the CIVIL WAR, Reconstruction, Women's suffrage, the Sedition Acts, Japanese internment, and Watergate.
What could possibly be more institutionally undemocratic than all of the violent acts, actual sedition, and suspensions of basic human rights during these periods?
Trump purging loyalists, vilifying opposition, undermining trust in elections, and reacting to harshly to protests
Trump purging loyalists, vilifying opposition, undermining trust in elections, and reacting to harshly to protests
In 1932, Hoover had 43K WWI veterans and families, shot, beaten, and cleared from the Capitol with cavalry and tanks. I cannot tell you the frustration of debating complicated political questions in an environment where history did not start until 2008 and as told by Politico.
In 1971, the Weathermen detonated a bomb in the U.S. Capitol building causing $300,000 in damage but killing no one because they phoned ahead. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/bomb-explodes-in-capitol-building
In 1915, a Harvard professor detonated a bomb in the Senate reception room https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/02/a-look-at-the-history-of-attacks-in-the-u-s-capitol-44-years-after-the-weather-underground-bombing/
In 1954, Puerto Rican nationalists shot 5 Representatives from the visitor's balcony
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_United_States_Capitol_shooting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_United_States_Capitol_shooting
In 1919, a 4 day race riot occupied the streets around the White House, Capitol, and War Department. That war involved WWI vets, national guard, snipers, drive by shootings from Model-Ts, and snipers. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/one-hundred-years-ago-four-day-race-riot-engulfed-washington-dc-180972666/
No, i'm not impressed idiots held the capitol building for a few hours. There are 330 million Americans, in a $24.9 trillion economy, with a 1.3 million strong military. It's pre-scientific a-historical malpractice to conflate a small riot with actual American political power.
A mistake, I'll note again, none of the political actors involved seem to be making yet. People who you would think have strong incentives to make exaggerated claims about what happened today but for some reason aren't.
What's truly heartbreaking isn't that there are disagreements about how to code this. It's that there's disagreement about whether we should care. About whether the truth actually matters, or if it's sufficient that our community politically chooses to believe this. In a science.
I can imagine a wide range of evidence that could emerge or advances to the theoretical state of the art that would justify coding this case differently. I cannot imagine anything that would justify scientists being incurious or asserting facts by sheer political force of will.
