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A final set of thoughts on 1/6 and what we might want to call it.
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A lot of emphasis by coup scholars has been put on how this was not a military coup attempt. That is correct. The martial law idea floated by Flynn et al. in Dec. does resemble a military coup plot, but thankfully the Pentagon emphatically said no https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/us/politics/trump-sidney-powell-voter-fraud.html
The risk of such actions had led top Pentagon leadership to take the remarkable step of publicly stating they would play no role in the election https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/milley-2020-election/index.html
And it also resulted in a letter from all living former SecDefs condemning any plan to use the military in an election dispute https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/10-former-defense-secretaries-military-peaceful-transfer-of-power/2021/01/03/2a23d52e-4c4d-11eb-a9f4-0e668b9772ba_story.html
But military coups aren't the only things scholars have identified as within the typological 'coup family' - there are also party coups, palace coups, and autogolpes. https://twitter.com/adam_e_casey/status/1347250008219930626?s=20
Just because we (thankfully) didn't have security force backing for this attempted autogolpe, does not make the attempt less real. The lack of support (among other factors) is why these efforts were likely to fail
Others have stated that we shouldn't call it an autogolpe since the attempt was so disorganized. The lack of planning and a long-term goal for the seditious insurrection misses the fact that this wasn't some random Wednesday
This mob tried to stop the certification of the next duly elected President. Some members of this group also appeared to be attempting to kill Congresspeople
The seditious actions of this mob were encouraged by the sitting US president as the final (and hopefully not penultimate) attempt to overturn the results of a democratic election and hold onto power
This to me, at least plausibly meets the characteristics of an attempted autogolpe. To call it simply an insurrection misses the crucial connection to the actions of the president and the goal of keeping him in office
We also know too little about the timeline of events between requested Guard deployments and approval by Army Sec Miller and others. Of course, as more info comes to light, it will hopefully exonerate top Pentagon leadership. It was likely simply a tactical failure
Hopefully as we learn more we find no intentional foot dragging, and no relationship between delayed deployment and the attempted pressure calls by Trump to senators during the attack
Should Polity already code the US as falling below democracy threshold? No. Should scholars be confident that this is absolutely one thing or another? No. Clearly we should update our analysis based on new information. That is key to good social science
Historical datasets that track such events should be updated as new information comes to light. If we call it an attempted autogolpe today but not in a month due to new info, that is good and as it should be
A great thread on some of the additional information we’d like to know in classifying/responding to this event: https://twitter.com/harknesskristen/status/1349741449764601859
