it's as bad as I thought

[mellowtigger]

There's still debate about the use of the word 'coup'. I initially understood why there were detractors, but now I no longer understand why. In addition to my initial assessment, more information is now available to prove it was an engineered crisis.

Trump Stacks the Pentagon and Intel Agencies With Loyalists. To What End?
So far, there is no evidence the appointees harbor a secret agenda or arrived with an action plan. But their sudden appearance amounts to a purge of the Pentagon’s top civilian hierarchy without recent precedent.
- https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/11/us/politics/trump-pentagon-intelligence-iran.html

Trump tried to pressure Mike Pence to do his bidding to overturn the election, threatening repercussions if he didn't.  Reminder: Someone was wandering Congress specifically asking, "Where is Pence?"

People close to the vice president now believe he is being set up as a "scapegoat" to shoulder the blame inside Trump-world after Pence refused to buckle to the President's demands to engineer a procedural coup that would keep Trump in power.
On Tuesday, Pence came under intense pressure from Trump to toss out the election results during a meeting that lasted hours in the Oval Office. The vice president's chief of staff, Marc Short, was banned by Trump from entering the West Wing, the source said, as the President repeatedly warned with "thinly veiled threats" to Pence that he would suffer major political consequences if he refused to cooperate.
"The message was pretty clear," the source said.
- https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/trump-pence-riot/index.html

The WaPo story goes into great detail about the security response, and it appears bureaucratically complicated due to the fact that D.C. is (still) not (yet) a state, but the relevant passages are these (also confirmed in this news video):

The Defense Department controls the D.C. Guard because the military force answers to the president rather than the mayor. The president’s power over the D.C. Guard is delegated to the defense secretary, then the Army secretary, who makes command decisions. It is therefore up to the Pentagon leadership to call state governors if the D.C. Guard needs reinforcement....  “I was actually on the phone with Leader Hoyer, who was pleading with us to send the guard,” Hogan said. “He was yelling across the room to Schumer and they were back and forth saying we do have the authorization, and I’m saying, ‘I’m telling you we do not have the authorization.’ ”  Hogan said Maj. Gen. Timothy Gowen, the adjutant general of the Maryland National Guard, was repeatedly rebuffed by the Pentagon. “The general . . . kept running it up the flagpole, and we don’t have authorization,” he said.
- www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-protests-washington-guard-military/2021/01/07/c5299b56-510e-11eb-b2e8-3339e73d9da2_story.html

The military were manipulated to stall.  The police were at least partially complicit.  Meanwhile, some of the insurrectionists were prepared for more.

First of all, given the well-documented overlap between ex-military, law enforcement, and right-wing militias, it’s entirely possible these guys were weekday warriors using their training in service of extracurricular interests. (One of the Twitter sleuths who are now trying to track them down sure seems to think they’re ex-military.) More importantly, the long awful course of history reminds us how slippery the slope is from playacting as a strike force to actually behaving as a strike force. Once the zip ties go on, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a “real” terrorist or not.
- https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/was-there-a-plan-for-hostages-or-killings-at-the-capitol.html

I repeat that what happened on January 6th was a failed coup, intended to support loyalists within government who tried to deny reality and ignore votes. Thankfully it had the opposite effect on some of the useful idiots who finally realized their own lives were endangered by this nonsense.  It was not an ordered coup, but a manipulated one. Still a coup.

History threatens to repeat itself.     <-----  IMPORTANT

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

so ... you think it was a trial balloon to see how much support they had among the armed forces / police?

[mellowtigger]

No. It was a real event with two possible outcomes for Trump, both good.

OUTCOME 1: The best outcome for Trump obviously failed, with some opposition killed (with enough metaphorical distance that he would publicly deny directing it while simultaneously gloating) and any wavering Republicans shifted by fear to conform to his wishes.

Trump already knew he lacked sufficient support within the armed forces command, hence their revolving door of replacements recently. Failing outright support, he needed only their non-action, which he got. They acted constitutionally, which is not a fault, but it suited Trump's needs. They were manipulated to serve his cause.

The police, however, Trump was probably hoping for better conversion rates. Details are still being revealed, most of them bad. There was a lot more active participation in the command structure than I had hoped.

OUTCOME 2: Regardless, Trump still got his "power of the people" display to help steel his remaining support. Even after the awfulness of the last 4 years, there were still 74 million people who voted for him, even more than in 2016. The Republicans who distance from Trump after January 6th will be a small minority. The remainder are large and have their "strong man Trump" image reinforced.

The one beacon of hope in all of this is that some police fought back hard, and there's even an image somewhere of one insurrectionist tearing up his thin blue line flag. (found it) Trump is a persistent danger. Even if he is imprisoned, his family and some Republicans are happy to carry on. If that happens, then we're fine, because none of them is as skilled in manipulation as the orange menace.

My main worry at this point is that Trump will roam free and/or a brand new leader will emerge, perhaps somebody pictured in that crowd. Option 2 means that the disaster has been delayed for a few years, that's all.

[bitterlawngnome]

I think this was the Beer Hall Putsch, not Kristallnacht (as Schwartzenegger suggests). And fur hat boy is playing the "arrest me! arrest me!" game very very well. I think he's a serious menace.

[mellowtigger]

I agree on both points.

edit-P.S.: The Schwartzenegger video troubles me in its second half. It appeals to authority again. Conservatives just can't help themselves. Must this pattern repeat throughout history indefinitely?

[mellowtigger]

At least one news site agrees with your Beer Hall Putsch connection.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-01-16/donald-trump-insurrection-capitol-beer-hall-putsch

[bitterlawngnome]

It's plain as day, to me. I think the comparison is not being made because Americans just don't know the story. Look at this article, it has to spell out the whole thing in excruciating detail and then explain why it's relevant. Americans have been trained to scream HITLER whenever they don't like someone, without having been taught any of the history. HITLER means "I don't like you". And in this way, the comparison has been robbed of meaning. People of any political stripe just assume you're screaming because you don't like someone's hairdo.