Trump l’Oeil: Ceci N’est Pas un Coup d’État

On January 6, 2021, Trumpism imploded. Following the general election of November 3, 2020, a grassroots movement had staged rallies across the nation to contest the election result, while Trump and his backers mounted a largely farcical parallel legal campaign to overturn it. On January 6, Congress assembled to finalize Joe Biden’s election as the forty-sixth U.S. president. For the first time, Trump himself now personally organized and led a rally targeted at overturning the putative electoral result. Urged on by the president, his supporters marched on the U.S. Capitol. Once there, they entered the Capitol building. The Capitol Police were overwhelmed by the massive crowd, and windows were broken to gain access. In places, it seems police simply stood aside and even waved protestors through open doors, contrary to the rhetorical designation of the event as a “storming” or “siege” of the Capitol. Some protestors even entered the inner sanctum, the floor of the Senate. Some committed minor acts of vandalism. Others wandered around like tourists, staying within velvet ropes and reporting later that they believed they had permission to be there. The principal act of violence that occurred was the fatal shooting of a female protestor by a security officer.1