In January 2021 President Donald Trump was deliberately "trying to stage a coup" by inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol, which only failed because the military did not join in. It was not a usual Military led coup, but a coup led by executive i.e. an executive coup led by President Donald Trump himself. It was aimed at forcing two Houses of Congress to overturn the presidential election results, lost by Trump.
Coup experts Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne define a coup d’etat as “an overt attempt by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting head of state using unconstitutional means.”
Essentially, three parameters are used to judge whether an insurrection is a coup event:
1) Are the perpetrators agents of the state, such as military officials or rogue governmental officials?
2) Is the target of the insurrection the chief executive of the government?
3) Do the plotters use illegal and unconstitutional methods to seize executive power?
Election administration process of the Unites states is not so simple unlike India. In the Electoral College system, each state gets a certain number of electors based on its total number of representatives in Congress. Each elector casts one electoral vote following the general election; there are a total of 538 electoral votes. The candidate that gets more than half (270) wins the election. Unlike India, the US doesn’t have an independent election commission. States form an electoral college to certify the final outcome of the election process after people have cast their votes.
At the final stage, the outcome certified by the states is finally accepted by US legislators. This was the stage ongoing on January 6. The vice-president presides over the process in US legislators. Mike pence (vice-president) refused to overturn the election on demand of Trump. At the completion of the process, the victory of Biden was ratified and he is set to take oath on Jan. 20th.
There are two main hypothesis are formulized to understand possible reasons for Trump behind this coup attempt.
The First is the ideological reason, his commitment to restoring white supremacy was visible in his policies. Many rioters in the mob were carrying Confederate flags, which represent pre-civil war southern states, which stood to preserve slavery.
The Second is a personal reason, Trump fears persecution for tax frauds, corruption, abuse of power and the latest one is for Abetting an insurrection.
Scholar believes that coups happen only in poor countries due to the following reasons.
Poor democracies: In poor countries, oversight institutions like election commission or other bodies taking care of democratic processes are weaker and not able to go against the mighty politicians. Government here are mighty and has much to lose. Their control on economy and society makes them subject to imprisonment and coercion, once out of power.
Developed democracies: In richer democracies, firstly government doesn’t control all sectors of society, thus not subject to imprisonment later. Moreover, politicians have many opportunities after politics, thus they are not concerned about their well-being after government.
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Coup in presidential democracy |
Coup in parliamentary democracy |
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The executive and the legislature are independently elected. If they are from different parties, clashes are possible between them |
Both executive and the legislature are interlinked. Prime Minister is selected based on the majority in Parliament. Thus clashes between the executive and parliament are less likely |
There have three Reasons behind the failure of coup attempt in US. These are-
Third, American Courts played a constructive role in ensuring the fair play in the election process. Trump’s campaign filed more than 60 legal challenges from state courts to the Supreme Court but failed to secure any big gain. During his term, Trump appointed many judges and expected them to secure decisions in his favor but they followed the law and made their decisions on this basis only.