Maybe a Bison.

...perhaps a "senior prank", if you will, for Trump's base as their moment in the sun sets. The fuzz didn't feel threatened because they didn't think they were serious about changing anything; they were right.

Everybody's assuming it was WHITE SUPREMACY IN ACTION - but is there any hard evidence of that? Motives and intent DO matter; they tell you what a person will or won't actually do.

Isn't it time cultural anthropologists actually started TRYING TO UNDERSTAND this culture, which has long billed itself as "Real Americans" despite being long-since outnumbered by all us Yonkle-come-latelies, rather than telling themselves it's okay to take the Malleus Maleficarum approach as long as it's against the correct groups?

The Nazis were defeated by the Marshall Plan; had it not been for that, the Red Army's hard-won victory in war would have amounted to less than nothing; it was truly America's finest hour. What are we doing instead right now? Versailles Treaty logic (at best).

As someone who organized for Bernie and local politicians I was appalled. They had no clue, no leadership, no plan. Just as well but if you’re gonna do coup then do it already. So either they are complete losers (yep) or they were a pre-orchestrated bunch to spread chaos. Or a bunch of losers led by some disrupters. Dunno. Weird.

They’ve been portraying Trump as Hitler. He isn’t the dictator — he’s Marinus van der Lubbe and the Reichstag fire.

He’s not the guy who exploits the emergency, his assigned role was always to be the emergency. He’s been the Powers That Be’s four-year excuse for a protracted power grab. Coup? He was never the intended beneficiary of any coup. He’s the excuse for their coup.

has an interesting take on yesterday's events.

The disarray in the American political system, whose name is Trump, is coming to an end. He was Wall St.’s cash cow, and now it’s time to dispose of him as he descends into full-on madness. The billionaires, the financial elites, and their political minions fed Trump’s starving giant ego for four years, got what they wanted in tax cuts and deregulation, and now it’s time to move on.

This is accomplished by Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and Mike Pence who have tired of eating Trump’s excrement and set a trap that The Donald walked into, blinded by his adoring fans and delusions of grandeur. While everyone knew for weeks the protest on January 6th was planned and would likely be raucous, the Capitol Hill police, who answer to Congress, which means McConnell, were not put on high alert. Additional police resources were not put in place even though the Mayor of DC pleaded for it, and of course, the protesters marched into Congress almost unimpeded.

I wonder if T-Rump was promised that the military, or some part of it, would rise to support him?

attempt. All one needs to do is rewind to about a year ago and head to Bolivia. That was a coup attempt. These people didn't have an actual goal per se. They didn't have a leader. Although they had a common interest, Trump, they didn't have common demands other than a rather nebulous "stop the steal" or "Trump is my president."

More importantly, all the news people fretting about how our democracy was in danger...except it wasn't. They cleared the yahoos out and fininshed the count, exactly like I knew they would. These people had no military backing. They had no reenforcemtns. They had no popular support. They wouldn't have been able to hold the capitol building, and if they had, ok, so the people in charge head to their respective secret locations and conduct business there until the capitol is cleared.

And this doesn't even address the fact that you still have 50 individual state governments that would need to be coup-ed in order for a US coup to work. Just arriving in DC and declariing yourself ruler doesn't necessarly get it done.

I think correctly identifying things is important. Calling this a coup attempt gives Trump more power than he deserves. Yeah, I've read a transcript of his speech that day. He did what he always did which was to say something that his supporters understand but he thinks will give him plausible denyability. In this case, it was something to the effect of "we will walk to the capitol and tell them." Technically, he didn't insite a riot. But in context of the full speech and the amped up crowd, it's really hard to claim some kind of action wasn't the intent.

But, there wasn't any plan (at least none that's been reported on.) There was no orgizination. There wasn't a leader. From all reports, Trump was passively watching the chaos on TV, not exactly leading it. Trump shook up the ant farm and sat back and watched the ants freak out. That's what he always does. He's not a leader. He's a brat and a troublemaker.

Don't take this as me trying to diminish what happened or approving it. I'm not and I don't. But look to Bolivia last year if you want to see a coup. This was amped up MAGAs throwing a temper tantrum on DC.

What a shit show. I found Nairn's comments insightful...

Any election can be overturned, as long as it’s a foreign election. The U.S. has supported coups consistently, nonstop, through every administration. Obama and John Kerry — after the Egyptian Army staged a coup and overthrew the elected president, Kerry said they were acting to restore democracy. Trump, when he was president, along with General Kelly, his chief of staff, supported the stealing of an election in Honduras, where the candidate, Nasralla, was winning the vote count, and where, just shortly before, the U.S. had supported a coup to overthrow the elected president of Honduras, Zelaya. That was under Obama.

More recently, Trump supported a coup in Bolivia to overthrow the president, Evo Morales. And after that, Elon Musk, the second-richest man in the world, worth $184 billion, he tweeted this just on July 24th. He said, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.” And I think that’s a pretty good statement of U.S. foreign policy. But now Trump, in a sense, is bringing that foreign policy home.
...
even after Trump is gone, Elon Musk will still be there. He’ll still have his money. The American oligarchs will still be there. The U.S. security establishment will still be there, ready to do to capitols around the world what Trump’s mob just did to the U.S. Capitol.

Although I have to say, what has shaken the U.S. population so badly, this assault on the Capitol yesterday, is really nothing by comparison to what U.S. operations have done in Latin America, in Asia, in Africa, in the Middle East, to other democratic movements and elected governments over the years. You know, just days before this, remember, the U.S. Congress, by an overwhelming margin, passed the defense authorization bill to pump more money toward the Pentagon and overseas special operations, and, through other measures, is backing those operations of the CIA, basically dedicated to, whenever the order comes down, being ready to go in and overthrow democracy. So, Americans are now getting a mild taste of their own medicine, in a sense.

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/7/us_foreign_election_interference_a...

Another insightful interview...

Black people, noting the obvious difference in terms of how police have a coordinated, overtly militarized response to any kind of protest that is challenging racism in policing or racism in the government versus what we witnessed yesterday. And I think that what we saw yesterday is just another one of these kind of flashpoint moments in history that just represents a culmination of everything that came before it, and really shines a spotlight on everything that is fundamentally wrong. And one of those things is clearly policing.
...
And white supremacy was foundational to the establishment of this nation. That is the central conflict. I mean, that is the main thing that I continue to say as an activist, is that, clearly, this is the central conflict. It is baked into our institutions. It was baked into our Constitution at the founding. And that continues to be the case. And that explains why — I wouldn’t even describe it as a difficulty in figuring out what is going on. It’s just the fact that it is the defining internal conflict of the nation.
...
So, again, for anyone in a position of security or authority who is tasked with securing national security and securing the Capitol and the safety of the people who work and reside there to claim that this was somehow unpredictable, again, flies in the face of any logic. And if we are going to be serious about addressing the threats that we face right now from fascism and from the far right, we have to confront the presence of that element in our police forces, point blank, period. This has been the main point that we have been making in the Black Lives Matter movement, in the call for defunding the police and shifting resources, because it is very clear that the primary function of police forces in the United States is to enforce racism above enforcing public safety.

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/1/7/us_capitol_pro_trump_mob_insurrection

Thanks for the thoughtful essay RR.

"I bet Osama Bin Landen is "turning over in his grave" for realizing, all they had to do to take over America, is fund white supremacists groups to dress up like Viking Guy and storm the capital."

Truly classic!

A central aim of the insurrection charade at the US Capitol was to ensure passage of a law against "domestic terrorism," enabling an authoritarian crackdown on dissent under the Biden Presidency. https://t.co/koXejUMk2a pic.twitter.com/2uqkGXSxgQ

— Club des Cordeliers (@cordeliers) January 8, 2021

the link:
President-Elect Says Rioters Are Domestic Terrorists

WILMINGTON, Del.—President- elect Joe Biden characterized the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday as domestic terrorists, referring to the violence as “one of the darkest days in the history of our nation.”

“Don’t dare call them protesters,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from Wilmington. “They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

Mr. Biden blamed President Trump for inciting the violence, saying he had “unleashed an all-out assault on our institutions of democracy.” The White House didn’t respond to a request to comment. “The past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution and the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” the Democratic president-elect said during remarks in which he also formally introduced his pick for attorney general, Judge Merrick Garland, and several choices for other top Justice Department jobs.

Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.

Federal law defines domestic terrorism as dangerous and illegal acts intended to coerce a population or influence the government. While it can be charged in some states, no generic federal crime exists.

Domestic terrorism spans extremist ideologies, but it has been predominantly a far-right phenomenon in recent decades, according to researchers.

from anthony freda during the Obomba Regime:

https://mises.org/wire/capitol-riot-wasnt-coup-it-wasnt-even-close

Contrast this with nameless MAGA hat–wearing flag wavers, and the inappropriateness of the term “coup” in this case should be blatantly obvious. With real coups, power is seized by a faction of the elite which has the ability to take control of the machinery of the state indefinitely. Although some of Trump’s critics claim he was somehow responsible for Wednesday’s mob, it is clear that Trump was not coordinating or directing any sort of military operation through Twitter posts. There was no plan for holding power. Had those who invaded the Capitol building managed to take control of the building for a time, there’s no reason to think this would have somehow translated into control of the state. How would it? The real coercive power remained well ensconced within an apparently undivided military apparatus.

Moreover, it has been clear for years that the permanent technocracy which controls the day-to-day execution of federal administrative power (i.e., the “deep state”) has long been committed to undermining the Trump administration—from high-ranking FBI agents to military diplomats, to Pentagon officials. From where would Trump draw the necessary cooperation from elites to overturn more than two hundred years of established norms in transfers of presidential power? In any case, the Biden administration is likely to be better for the state's elites than the Trump administration. There is no reason for any group of them to contemplate a coup against Biden.

Thus, if any of Wednesday’s Capitol rioters thought they were about to bring about a coup by smashing some windows in the Capitol, they were engaging in thoroughly amateurish thinking. It’s unlikely, however, that more than a few of the rioters thought there was a coup d’etat afoot. It’s more likely most of them simply wanted to dramatically display their displeasure with the federal regime and to signal they weren’t going to placidly submit to whatever the American bureaucracy decided to dish out.