Considering how close you came to a coup and how the elected president could spend months trying to destroy democracy while also personally using his power and influence to try to sway local officials, it doesn’t seem like the complete audit isn’t really helping. Especially when 40%+ of the population thinks those audits are manufactured lies from main stream media.
How is the coup narrative so pervasive? There was no institutional support, nobody got killed except for a rioter, they all cleared out promptly by curfew. By all indications it was a riot and a pretty mild one at that given the previous summer. How is that a coup?
We know what rioters are capable of when they actually want to overthrow govt: look at the autonomous zones and capitals that got ransacked in the upper north west (Seattle, Portland, etc). Those were over weeks where cops weren't allowed into entire city blogs, they declared themselves autonomous, and people were killed to that ends. They also received tons of institutional support from media, politicians, and wealthy people.
I don't get how any honest assessment takes the actions by the partisans in DC as a coup. At LEAST the other riots were coups too, or more truly, only the leftist partisan riots can be considered attempted local coups given their stated goals and actions.
If you remember how the narrative evolved in real-time: in the preceding months the talking point was "only leftists riot", then on the capital riot and following days, the dominant narrative was "SEE! right wing people ALSO riot". Only days after that did the language start to coalesce around "actually this was was a COUP", and even then it was seen as hyperbolic even on reddit. Now it's been repeated so many times it's just taken as fact.
Even a successful coup is possible with no one getting killed;
> they all cleared out promptly by curfew
Because the coup attempt had already failed.
> By all indications it was a riot and a pretty mild one at that given the previous summer. How is that a coup?
“Coup” is not defined by intensity but by objective. The overtly intent was to use intimidation and/or violence against government officials to coerce a rejection of the electoral votes from sufficient states to allow the sitting President to extend his term nothwithstanding having been defeated in the election, at the instigation of the sitting President. It is a textbook autocoup attempt by its goals and ultimate instigation, which failed because the rioters were held back long enough for members of Congress to escape, but not by a wide margin.
Was it a hastily conceived, poorly coordinated, amateurish autocoup attempt? Yes, absolutely. Does that reduce its severity as a crime? No, no it doesn’t.
> I don't get how any honest assessment takes the actions by the partisans in DC as a coup.
It was a coup attempt, specifically an attempted autocoup. It wasn't a coup, because it failed.
> At LEAST the other riots were coups
No, none of those were coups, or even coup attempts. (The “Autonomous Zone” might be viewed as a hyperlocalized secession attempt, but that’s a distinct thing from a coup, seeking to separate territory from the control of an established government, not unlawfully take or extend control of said government.)
Why did the "coup" fail? We've all seen the videos, police never really showed up in force, army never showed up, national guard never showed up. It ended because...people went home. If it were actually an attempted coup, why didn't they dig in? Why didn't a single politician back them?
You just seem convinced of a coup and nothing will shake you. What did they do that was wholly different from a regular riot? Even on the inside they're just taking photos and walking around.
