>No ancient Greek would have had any trouble in understanding what happened on the 6th or that it was a serious attempt (albeit an incompetent one) to seize power. Having a leader or a political faction move with a mob (often armed, but not always so) to try to disperse the normal civic assemblies of a Greek polis and occupy their normal meeting place was a standard maneuver to try to seize power during stasis. As Dr. Roel Konijnendijk, an ancient Greek history specialist, noted in this excellent discussion on the r/AskHistorians reddit (where he posts as Iphikrates), “In the Greek world, most attempts to seize power by force tended to take the same form: the seditious party would contrive an opportunity to gather in arms while their opponents were unarmed and off-guard, and seize control of all public spaces.”
(The link author has a PhD in ancient history)
(the "acoup" name is incidental, it stands for A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantries)
And while yes, the Dems have flip-flopped between calling Trump Hitler and wishing him a speedy recovery, that's because they're spineless slaves to proceduralism who won't break decorum if the fate of US's democracy depends on it.
They might have incentive, but that's irrelevant to whether it was an insurrection. And it was, it was textbook.
https://acoup.blog/2021/01/15/miscellanea-insurrections-anci...
>No ancient Greek would have had any trouble in understanding what happened on the 6th or that it was a serious attempt (albeit an incompetent one) to seize power. Having a leader or a political faction move with a mob (often armed, but not always so) to try to disperse the normal civic assemblies of a Greek polis and occupy their normal meeting place was a standard maneuver to try to seize power during stasis. As Dr. Roel Konijnendijk, an ancient Greek history specialist, noted in this excellent discussion on the r/AskHistorians reddit (where he posts as Iphikrates), “In the Greek world, most attempts to seize power by force tended to take the same form: the seditious party would contrive an opportunity to gather in arms while their opponents were unarmed and off-guard, and seize control of all public spaces.”
(The link author has a PhD in ancient history)
(the "acoup" name is incidental, it stands for A Collection Of Unmitigated Pedantries)
And while yes, the Dems have flip-flopped between calling Trump Hitler and wishing him a speedy recovery, that's because they're spineless slaves to proceduralism who won't break decorum if the fate of US's democracy depends on it.