Thread by @egavactip

Saturday is a good day for a leisurely thread--and composing one might take my attention away from the aggravated disc in my neck at the moment.

I think a good idea for such a thread is on what terms to use to describe what happened on January 6 at the Capitol in D.C.

Over the past half-year, I've heard so many different words used to describe what happened on that day, including treason, terrorism, mob action, riot, uprising, insurrection, overthrow, coup, attack, sedition, storming, protest, assault, and others.

I should note at the outset that what happened on January 6 was complex and unusual, with a variety of different types of people and groups taking part, each with their own ideas, agendas and compulsions. It's hardly likely one term is singularly perfect for what happened, nor

am I going to tell you how to describe it. But I can--perhaps--give a bit of insight into the question of terminology, based on my background in extremism and in history.

I will note that, with one exception, none of the terms I listed above are *wrong*, in that they all can be used to describe at least part of what happened. The exception is the term "treason," which is just not applicable here. Treason consists of levying war against the US

or aiding its explicit enemies--a deliberately narrow category. The list of people who have been convicted of treason (even including state treason laws) is low: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p…. But in today's polarized society, the term treason is slung about with abandon.

Two terms used for the Jan 6 incident seem particularly vague--referring to what happened on that day as an "attack" or "assault." These terms are often used by people or sources that don't really want to take any sort of stand. For example, the Wikipedia entry on the event is

titled "The 2021 United States Capitol Attack."

Certain terms used widely in the days after the incident are terms related to mass/mob violence, such as "riot." Certainly a riot occurred on January 6, but it soon took on characteristics not necessarily typical of riots. Today

this terminology seems much less common, except among right-wing news outlets, which continue to use it fairly often, perhaps as an attempt to minimize what happened on January 6. If you do a google site search on Fox News ("january 6" "capitol" site:foxnews.com),

it seems that Fox News tends to refer to the incidents of January 6 as a "riot"--or even by the milder term still of "protest." This is in contrast to other media, which tends to use a more expansive range of terms (there may be a possible study here).

One then gets to the more severe terms, such as terrorism, sedition, uprising, and insurrection. Here is where things get a lot more complicated. First, some of these terms (terrorism and sedition) have technical legal meanings as well as a general meaning. Here, too, these

terms all require judgments on areas such as intent and prior intent, the presence or absence of planning or coordination, the degree to which events were spontaneous or programmed, or coordinated with outsiders, as well as issues such as scope and scale.

Let's take terrorism first. What happened on January 6 was quite different from previous attacks on the Capitol widely acknowledged to be terrorist in nature (such as history.house.gov/Oral-History/E…). Many of the people who were present on Jan 6 were not violent, most did not enter the

Capitol, & even of those who did, most committed lesser crimes or acts of violence. Also, many people had no prior plans to do anything like what they eventually did do, but did so opportunistically or were swept along in the heat of the moment. Bad? Yes. Terrorism? Perhaps not.

However, within the mass of participants, law enforcement investigators have identified several parties who had greater degrees of coordination, planning, and intent. A number of these people have been charged with more serious crimes, including conspiracy, a charge that can be

used for domestic terrorism. Even if the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys turn out not to have planned prior to January 6 to storm the Capitol on that day, the actions they did take that day might be enough to be considered a plot related to terrorism. The trials of these people

should reveal more information to help make judgments.

Sedition is another word with a legal definition. It consists of conspiring to overthrow the US govt or to wage war against it, or to oppose by force the operation or laws of the US, or to seize US property by force.

Was the takeover of the Capitol an attempt to seize US property by force? Possibly so. Did the participants conspire to overthrow the U.S. government? I would argue that this would be hard to prove for most participants. However, did the stormers intend to stop the execution of

the laws of the United States? Well, it seems pretty clear that one intent of almost all the participants was to prevent the certification of the 2020 election and thus the turnover of power to the victor of that election. That certainly seems to fit the definition of sedition.

So it certainly seems that there is at least some justification for using the term "sedition."

The terms "insurrection" and "uprising" are much looser terms, without precise legal definitions. They do, however, tend to suggest a greater and wider scale than an incident at a

single location, encompassing violent acts across a nation or at least a region (one might think of the Philippine Insurrection, now more often called the Philippine-American War). Insurrections and uprisings often start more or less spontaneously, without a great deal of prior

planning, which essentially fits what happened on Jan 6. It is true, too, that insurrections and uprisings can start in one place and spread to others if successful. So on that basis, either term would at least be arguable for January 6. Perhaps especially if combined with the

term "abortive." After all, most uprisings last weeks to years rather than a single day.

As for "coup," that doesn't seem to fit very well, as coups are explicitly planned events using political or military actors. While recent news stories have made clear many of the

attempts by Trump and is allies to somehow remain in power despite the election results, they focused more on invalidating the election results. More information would have to come out about close connections between those efforts and the storming in order to justify a term like

"coup," at least in my opinion.

Your opinion, on the use of any of these terms, may of course vary. The mere fact that so many terms have been used illustrates how complex the events and nature of January 6 actually are--with more threads still to be unraveled.