A Riot Is Not A "Coup"

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.public.news

If you watch the mainstream media, you might think that what happened on January 6th, 2021 was a coup attempt. But what if that’s not at all what happened?

The dictionary definition of a coup is a “violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.”

There’s no doubt that the chaos on January 6 was a bad day for the United States. But it was a bad day that would have been prevented had Congressional leaders granted the request by the Capitol police for National Guard backup

And, more importantly, the people who walked through the Capitol were protesting what they thought was a stolen election. They weren’t planning to take over the government and run it from the Rotunda. 

Let’s be real: an unarmed group of rioters in the most armed country in the history of the world could never take over the government. Coups require physically overpowering the existing government. That’s why they almost always involve the military. 

Contrast what happened on Jan. 6 to what happened on September 11th. No, not September 11th here in the United States in 2001, but September 11, 1973, in the Latin American nation of Chile.

On that day, a faction in the military launched a coup against the elected leader Salvador Allende, resulting in the installation of General Augusto Pinochet as president. Allende took his own life as his presidential palace was being bombed from the air. The toppling of his government ushered in nearly two decades of brutal military dictatorship.

Or take what happened in Iran in 1953.