A coup doesn’t have to follow a “Seven Days in May” script or a bloody banana republic model. The one attempted at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was a conspiratorial amalgam of Trump allies—from Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to Congressional lackeys and an inebriated Rudy Giuliani—to violently subvert the 2020 election and overturn the constitutional order. Former Attorney General William Barr labeled Trump claims of voter fraud “bullsh*t.” Periodic encouragement from Trump—whether via text, Ellipse exhortation or insufferable indifference during the deadly siege—underscored his demander-in-chief status and lit the fuse. This was no spontaneous “riot;” violence was no accident.
This was a brutal and deadly insurrection—in many ways worst than what the Brits did in Washington in 1814. That’s because the enemy–inspired by a false-narrative-promoting Trump to stop the peaceful, constitutional transfer of power–was seditiously within.