Riot, Revolution, Coup, Putsch, Terrorism, Sedition or Insurrection?

But her e-mails!

 So what do you call the outbreak of violence at Capitol Hill?

The consensus appears to be riot. But I don't think riot does the job.  A riot suggests merely a violent public disorder by a crowd.  A riot implies an outburst of senseless violence.  Riots are often political in motivation, but with the intent merely to show anger and disapproval over some action by government (or some other actor).  Riots stop short of an attempt to overthrow the government.

At the same time, the outbreak could not be called a revolution, or even a failed attempt at revolution.  Revolution seeks the overturn of the state.  The recent outbreak merely sought the overturn of an election, not of our entire form of government.

Many have called it a coup, or at least an attempted coup.  A coup does not attempt to overturn or destroy the state, merely to change the names at the top.  The Capitol Hill outbreak actually sought to illegitimately perpetuate the name at the top after he lost an election, but the concept is essentially the same.  But I do not think coup is an accurate term.  A coup is normally the work of the army, or at least some paramilitary security forces.  A coup not only does not seek to overturn the state, it is an illegal action by the instruments of the state to change the leaders of the state.  Or, more succinctly, a coup is, by definition, an inside job.  And for all we are hearing about retired and active duty military or police taking part in the revolt, or even about insider assistance, the overall outbreak was clearly an outside job.  If the Capitol Hill police had initiated the revolt, I would call it a coup attempt at a very low level.  If they had joined the revolt one court argue.  And certainly if all the soldiers and National Guard brought in to protect the inauguration were instead to rise up to block it, that would rate as a coup.  But mobs (even with paramilitary leadership) do not stage coups.

Putsch

Is it a putsch?  I honestly don't have a good enough sense of what a putsch is to answer.  A putsch is some sort of revolt that stops short of a revolution. Some people use the term as a synonym with coup.  Historically in English the term putsch is normally associated with two unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Weimar government -- the Kapp Putsch and the Beer Hall Putsch.  The Kapp Putsch was not the work of the regular German army but by the Freikorps, the paramilitary private armies that uneasily coexisted with the state, supporting it against left-wing rebellion, but were outside the government's control and of very 
dubious loyalty (at best).  When the Social Democratic government attempted to disband a unit of Freikorps, the unit refused to disband and instead demanded dissolution of the Reichstag and new elections.  When the government refused, the Freikorps marched on Berlin.  The army refused to fire on Freikorps, but stood by, allowed it to take over, and recognized the military government.  The attempt at overthrow was thwarted by a general strike. But the government did dissolve the Reichstag and call new elections, and the forces of the hard right (and the hard left) made gains.  

So was it a coup?  My own take is that it was something of a gray area.  The Freikorps was not officially part of the state, but it had an uneasy alliance with the state and might be considered an semi-official army.  The official army passively allowed the coup rather than actively participating, but it was a friendly, rather than an neutral, passivity.  The Kapp Putsch was a sort of a semi-coup, but I think you could call it a coup if you squinted a little.

Better known to most Americans is the Beer Hall Putsch.  Hitler and his paramilitary Stormtroopers seized a Bavarian beer hall where there right wing politicians were holding a rally and declared his intention to overthrow the Bavarian government and march on Berlin.  Hitler won over the crowd and marched on the government, but the army and police fired on his forces and the revolt was quickly quelled.  This was not a coup, at least as I understand the term.  It was not an inside job.  This Stormtroopers remained outsiders, while the instruments of the state sided firmly with the state.  Would it have been a coup if the military had joined the rebellion?  Maybe. 

Pooch

I suppose by this definition, one might call a putsch a sort of an aspiring coup.  A putsch, by this definition, is a revolt by a non-state paramilitary that seeks the support of the military.  If the official military (or police) joins in, then the putsch becomes a coup.  Otherwise it remains a failed revolt.  And by that standard, I suppose the Capitol Hill incident bore some resemblance to a putsch.  There do appear to have been some serious paramilitary types in the crowd.  And the crowd does appear to have expected the Capitol Hill Police to have joined them.  (The army was not in the picture at the time).  But the serious paramilitary types in the crowd were, to all appearances, a distinct minority.  Most of the crowd were simply a mob, and mobs do not make coups or even aspiring coups.  The revolt was not a putsch, though some might call it a pooch, as in screw the.

Some people have used the term terrorism.  The U.S. Code defines domestic terrorism as activities that:

(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; 

(B)appear to be intended—

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

(C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States

The Capitol Hill revolt certainly was dangerous to human life (one police officer was killed and many others injured) and violated US laws.  It appears to have been intended to influence the policy of the US government by intimidation or coercion.  So I am inclined to agree this was technically terrorism.  But it does not meet my more colloquial and less technical understanding of the term. I have trouble thinking of lone wolf political violence as terrorism, because I tend to associate terrorism with a secretive conspiracy.  And in this case the problem is just the opposite.  The attack was so open, so flagrant, by such a large crowd that it just lacks the secrecy I associate with terrorism. If the attack had been carried out the the small paramilitary core, the label would fit.  But mobs don't engage in terrorism, just as they don't stage coups.

Is it sedition?  Revolt by a mob seems a whole lot closer to sedition than either a coup or terrorism.  Looking again at the U.S. Code, it does not list a separate crime of sedition, but instead defines seditious conspiracy as:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

So apparently there are no lone wolf seditionist; sedition requires a minimum of two individuals.  It also appears to cover a lot of territory, including opposing government authority by force (done), interfering by force with the execution of US laws (in this case, election law) or seizing US property (broadcast all over social media).  The only reason I would hesitate to call the revolt sedition is that most definitions I have looked up define sedition not so much as rebellion as inciting rebellion.  That would make Donald Trump clearly guilty of sedition, but the crowd guilty of, well, something else.

What about insurrection?  The US Code is not much help.  Its definition of insurrection or rebellion is definitely circular:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

It is also interesting that insurrection or rebellion carries a sentence of ten years and sedition carries a sentence of twenty. 

Nonetheless, in the end I would say insurrection is the best description of what the Capitol Hill mob did. They sought, by a violent assault on the Capitol, to force Congress to overturn a lawful election.  What happened was not mere rioting because it sought to forcibly overturn a lawful succession in power.  It was not a revolution because it did not seek to destroy the state but only to change the names at the top.  It was not a coup because it was not an inside job.  It was too loose and unorganized to be a putsch.  It was too numerous, too open and too brazen to be terrorism.  And it differed from sedition in being what was incited, rather than the act of incitement.  Call it an insurrection, then.  Whatever the name, it was an unprecedented attack on our form of government.