(08-12-2021, 03:24 AM)GethN7 Wrote: Maybe I should make it a bit more clear. It seems a bit more to me like an angry mob who attempted to throw a grand mal tantrum with a pipe dream of trying to overturn election results via wishful thinking than a purposely planned attempt at insurrection done with foresight and conspiracy.
The American Civil War can be argued to be a planned insurrection with malice aforethought with the express purpose of defying the lawful government. This comes off more to me as the Whiskey Rebellion, which was more a bunch of angry people lashing out in anger than anything done as an organized plan.
Both organized conspiracy and unlawful riot are wrong, not disputing either, but aside from a bunch of fools forming an angry mob and making asses of themselves in an unlawful manner, I see no actual planned and calculated attempt to achieve an overthrow of the US government.
Their plan boiled down to if you can call it a plan:
1. Get riled up on social media.
2. Head down to Washington D.C. and make fools of themselves.
3. ????
4. Profit?
Funny, from where I'm sitting the plan was this.
1. Rile up supporters on social media with claims of a stolen election.
2. Get them down to Washington DC and point them at the US Congress.
3. Let the mob overrule Congressional certification of the election.
4. Use either the murder of Congress (because they don't overrule the election) or the fear of Congress (because they overruled the election) to maintain power.
5. ???
6. Profit.
That the plan was stupid does not not make it conspiracy.
That the people performing the illegal and violent acts were a bunch of moronic patsies does not not make them part of the conspiracy. It's entirely possible to have acted in a manner entirely in accordance with the law and be part of a conspiracy that used your actions to facilitate illegal acts and thus be liable for those acts. And these guys were not acting in accordance with the law.
(08-12-2021, 03:24 AM)GethN7 Wrote: None of their actions would have resulted in any meaningful change, legally or otherwise. Putting them down would have been largely effortless and nothing they tried would have changed the lawful government of the United States in any manner recognized either domestically or foreign. It was a mob running high off stupid emotion from where I'm sitting, not a criminal conspiracy. It was still an unlawful excess that violated civil order and did pose a menace and deserved to be put down, but legally, aside from a loosely agreed plan to show up in the nation's capital largely based on knee jerk emotion, I've yet to set evidence of a coordinated attempt at unseating the U.S. government by force circa Jan 6, 2021 that would have made any coherent sense.
That presumes they would have been put down. You forget that the person they were trying to benefit was, at the time, still President of the United States for 14 more days, who could have simply and flat out refused to do anything about it. Yes, this includes not letting the military intervene, DC has no National Guard that is under an authority other than the federal government's, of which he was at the time still the boss. Not heeding those would've been legally complex at best for those ignoring him. Them trying to oust him from power would've been a coup itself.
And I would say 'dozens if not hundreds of Congresspeople were murdered' would be a very meaningful change, legally and politically. Keep in mind that one of the goals of the mob was to murder the vice president, which is a rather important position for continuance of government reasons if nothing else, and exact vengeance upon Congress. It would've permitted Trump to appoint a new vice president, among other things, and this time without the input of the voting public.
A murdered or ousted Congress would also be valid grounds for exercising emergency powers, which could've been used to force the military to keep Trump in power, while said murders would've also disorganized resistance to the coup.
I'm not saying that is likely to have happened. I'm saying that given the circumstances, unless nobody in a position to act acted against Trump, there would've been a coup. A coup is not just a mob storming a building, it is a combination of factors all of which lead to a specific person or group of persons being in power and nobody else being able to do something about it. There's a reason why one of the first things every coup attempt does is make sure that any military forces that can interfere are either loyal or paralyzed.
(08-12-2021, 03:24 AM)GethN7 Wrote: Besides, Trump was still legally president at the time, anything they did would have (and did) hurt him further, so it makes little sense this was a planned event that would constitute organized treason. All this did was further immolate Trump politically speaking, which was partially a result of him not knowing when to shut up on social media. In short, this was not so much planned malice as emotion-fueled stupidity. In the criminal field, this would be more, in a legal sense, a crime of passion, not carefully planned and executed malice.
On the part of the mob? Sure, I can see that argument. On the part of the organizers and the spokespeople who riled up the mob? Not so much.