Daniel Ziblatt is professor of political science at Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts). With his colleague Steven Levitsky, he is the author of The Death of Democracies (Calmann-Lévy, 2019), a book that referred to the United States under Donald Trump in order to understand the danger of the 45e US President for Political Freedoms. He is today one of the most renowned observers of American political life.
What is your take on the events that took place at the Capitol on January 6?
Seeing some of our fellow citizens launch an assault on a public institution is not without precedent in the United States. Such events have already happened. However, it was unprecedented to hear the president inciting the crowd to attack the legislative power. This type of political violence is entirely new.
Being confronted with unprecedented events explains the conceptual confusion that currently prevails. How to name what happened? Is this an attempted coup, a putsch, acts of internal terrorism, a riot, or a demonstration? All of these terms have different connotations. Writing the history of these events is already provoking heated debate.
What expression do you think is the most accurate to talk about this January 6?
We cannot say that it is simply a protest movement, or a riot, because that would be to suggest that there was no coordination between different small groups to prepare for this day. It is not a military coup either, because the hierarchy of the army did not take part in the events. The word putsch seems to me the most appropriate. We haven’t seen one of its extreme forms, of course. Nevertheless, we were indeed in the presence of an act of political violence more or less organized. We should not downplay its seriousness.
Some commentators also speak of a “Auto-coup” (“Self-coup”, or “Autogolpe” in Spanish), because it was not for an opponent to take power, but for the president in place to overthrow democracy for personal gain. However, Donald Trump was not in a position to carry out such a coup, because the American president is too weak institutionally, he does not have sufficient powers. So he had to content himself with making a speech against Congress, arousing the crowd’s anger against lawmakers.
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