Humanities desk
< August 2	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 4 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 3[edit]

US Capitol Attack[edit]

calls for speculation and debate

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

What would have happened if the rioters at the capitol would have been successful. For instance, if they stormed congress and managed to kill either all or some of the congressmen (those who wanted to certify a Biden victory) before the election results had been certified.

Would Trump have been able to mount a coup if Trump loyalists survived and voted to say that he had won a second term or where there mechanisms in place to stop that? Presumably if congress is massacred there would be fresh elections but need to be a lot of primaries so that either party could field candidates.

I know this seems like an outlandish question but in January the thought of congress being stormed at all seemed outlandish and it was remarkable how close the rioters came to breaching both chambers and it’s clear that some of them had murderous intent. —Andrew 20:26, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure how asking if the US has legal mechanisms to prevent a sitting president from mounting a coup against the certification process is a call for speculation or debate. The answer is either yes or no.

That was not what was asked. Not remotely. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:20, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The scenario I outlined was merely suggesting what most likely would have happened if the National Guard hadn't intervened. I explicitly asked after I set it out if there were 'legal mechanisms in place' to stop a coup. A perfectly reasonable question that if a president had managed to certify an election he lost as a victory after a coup in congress I would have thought. All the more reasonable given recent events where it nearly happened. May not have been phrased as you would have liked it but that doesn't render it an illegitimate question --158.180.192.10 (talk) 13:59, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What sort of "legal safeguard" do you imagine would prevent a mob from carrying out an insurrection, other than a show of force by the police, national guard, etc.? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd imagine something along the lines of the Supreme Court intervening, nullifying the fraudulent certification and appointing a caretaker government until new elections can be found and a new congress appointed? Or perhaps a majority of governors of state refusing to accept the fradulent certification process. Surely Trump wouldn't have just been allowed to assume office in such circumstances? --158.180.192.10 (talk) 14:32, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Intervene using what? They don't have an army. The president could paraphrase the alleged comment by Andrew Jackson - they've made their ruling; now let them enforce it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:36, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nor does the president. The president may be commander in chief, but this doesn't mean the Secretary of Defense has to do what they say even if it's illegal, nor does it mean the generals, individual officers etc must follow an illegal order. Actually they're explicitly not supposed to. Note in case as I outlined below, Trump would not have been president and therefore not have been commander in chief come 20 January unless you're claiming extraordinary and frankly BLP violating circumstances. Nil Einne (talk) 14:54, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone determined to pull off a coup isn't going to care about legal technicalities. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:02, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You're missing the point. This isn't about legal technicalities. The point is coups only work if people agree to do what the person said. If some president orders the army to execute the supreme court and congress, this only works if the army follows what they say. If the army says fuck off, what is the president going to do? The president isn't some magic god who can automatically make the army follow them. Coups work in countries where the armed forces are used to following their leaders without much consideration of legal or ethical boundaries. They ideally fail in countries with more developed democracies and legal systems since a substantial proportion of the armed forces will not follow illegal orders especially not when said illegal orders are to kill their own colleagues, friends, family and fellow citizens. Noting in such countries it isn't just the armed forces either. If the civil service and populace refuse to accept the coup, the whole country will rapidly fall apart. Even if the armed forces are willing to execute people in the street so they are forced to follow, your successful democracy rapidly becomes a hell hole no one wants to live in. More likely some sort of civil war sets in. The person in control of the nukes may ultimately win, although that assumes it's only one person. Nil Einne (talk) 16:20, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well then I'll ask it. What legal safeguards are in place in the US Constitution to prevent a sitting president from mounting a coup against the certification process? --Viennese Waltz 10:07, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That should qualify for High crimes and misdemeanors#United States, for when, as Ben Franklin put it, the Executive "rendered himself obnoxious". That's Trump 100% of the time. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:33, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That would qualify for impeachment - which would be hard to do if the president has rendered the Congress non-functional. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:35, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Most state have means to fill any vacancies in the Senate by gubernatorial appointment, at least temporarily, until elections can be held to elect a replacement. See List of appointed United States senators for details. So killing most or all Senators should not render the Senate non-functional for long if the state governments are still intact. For the house elections are required [1] (see also List of special elections to the United States House of Representatives) so I assume it would take weeks to re-fill the house. [2] suggests 49 days.

Anyway in terms of removing a president, another option would be the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. While there is some dispute over what should count as disability, it doesn't seem that it requires a functional Senate or House for it to be enacted, although some may dispute whether transmitting something to a role which is vacant fulfils the requirements.

But in any case, all this seems to be begging the question. The inability to certify the results of the election may be problematic, but it's not like it means Trump could hang around. AFAIK it's well accepted that whatever happened, Trump's term would end on January 20 [3] [4] [5] whether a successor had been elected or not. Constitutionally, the only way it wouldn't if he had been re-elected so begins another term on that date. Whether it was Nancy Pelosi or Patrick Leahy or whoever became president pro tempore of the senate or whatever taking over it wouldn't be Trump sticking around.

If you're trying to argue Trump would have used extra-constitutional means to stay in office after the riot, or that those remaining would have certified him as the winner or instead said there was no winner and held a contigent election to election the president under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that's why this question was closed. As it should be since it's making suggestions about what living people would have done.

Note that AFAIK, the similar impediments to impeachment if most of the house was killed would also apply to certification. You would need enough members alive for a quorum (albeit potentially different quoroms). As the Politico source seems to outline, for better or worse Congress has rejected accepting a quorom of living members. (There are probably better and more detailed sources than Politico outlining what would happen if most of Congress was killed. Although many of them would be assuming there is a major attack affecting at least much of DC if not much of the US so will assume more disruption then in the congress invasion scenario. Still I'm sure you will find others like the Politico article, both from stuff like what happened in 2017 and also after the riots that caused this question.)

Nil Einne (talk) 14:49, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to find a source to confirm quorum requirements for joint sessions of congress or for certifying the electoral college vote but couldn't. I did find [6] [7]. One thing to remember might be that at some level democracies rely on people doing what they're supposed to and if they don't things tend to fall apart. For example, the person presiding could ignore the lack of quorum, and no one may raise a point of order (or someone does but the person presiding somehow ignores that). Then the legislature (or whatever) could say they did something although they clearly had no quorum since non was possible. Likewise a congress could try to certify a winner who everyone knows didn't win. But if this is happening, especially at the highest level, things have already broken down. This also applies to my point above about what happens if the Supreme Court makes a judgment but the other branches of government ignore it. However in successful long term democracies, it tends to be the case that one individual cannot simply ride roughshod of the norms and laws as others will say no. But either way, when you end up with that sort of stuff or some other form of constitutional crisis, any predictions of what will happen are basically speculation so not something we can deal with on the RD. Nil Einne (talk) 16:16, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It should be obvious that any and all coups d'etat are, by definition, illegal. They seek to change the legal leadership by means that are not spelled out in the law. The sole legal protection against a coup d'etat in the United States is the Constitution, which spells out how leaders are chosen. Any other means is extra-constitutional, and therefore illegal. DOR (HK) (talk) 16:05, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Until, of course, a coup d’etat is successful… at which point the new government retroactively declares the coups to be legal (perhaps by writing a new constitution). History is written by the winner after all. Blueboar (talk) 16:26, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A relevant example is 2021 Samoan constitutional crisis, where the outgoing prime minister refused to accept he had lost a majority, refused to allow Parliament to meet so the new government would be sworn in, and defied rulings of the Supreme Court and called for the judges to be charged.-gadfium 19:34, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

He didn't have an army behind him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:11, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bokhara - The Emir's State Railway[edit]

In Maclean, Fitzroy (1949). "A Little Further". Eastern Approaches (First ed.). London: Jonathan Cape. p. 141. the author has arrived in Kagan by train from Moscow, via Orenburg, Tashkent, and Samarkand. His aim is Bokhara, and he writes "I believed that an occasional train still ran along what used once to be the Emir's State Railway". Does this railway still exist? If not, when was it abandoned? Thank you, DuncanHill (talk) 22:56, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Trains still run in Bukhara. It's a normal city, with direct travel to nearby places like Samarkand, Tashkent or Ashgabat. Xuxl (talk) 15:17, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do they? Our article Kogon, Uzbekistan says the station there, where Maclean disentrained, has a station called Bokhara. I found this which says "Bukhara has two railway stations: Bukhara-1 in Kagan and Bukhara-2 in Bukhara. All trains arrive at the station in Kagan and the Bukhara-2 Station is used only for freight". Is Bokhara-2 on the Emir's railway? DuncanHill (talk) 15:24, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at openstreetmap (better for railways than google maps), Bokhara-1 is indeed in the centre of Kagan on the mainline (now on the extension of the Tashkent–Samarkand high-speed rail line), whereas Bokhara-2 is at the end of a spur line into Bokhara itself. Since the bloke in the book alights in Kagan and tries to get into Bokhara from there, it would indeed appear that this spur line is the "Emir's state railway". This book just says that the emir paid for that line, otherwise I haven't found any confirmation of that name. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:51, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the historical context I found - it does indeed seem we're looking to see if a branch line off the Trans-Caspian railway, built in 1900, still exists. From this book: [8], it seems that the Emir Muzaffar bin Nasrullah (ruled 1860-1885) was the one who agreed to the extending of the Trans-Caspian railway to Bukhara and beyond, and as part of the agreement with Russia, “Muzaffar also asked that the railroad pass at least six miles from his capital”. Later on in the same book (diff source because of google preview issues) [9], it says “The railroad passed eight miles to the south of the capital out of deference to the attitude of the populace, who called the locomotive Arba-i Shaitan (Satan’s Wagon). Yet within a year or two the Bukharans had changed their minds and evidenced great delight in riding the trains. By 1898 it was possible for Abd al-Ahad” [the next emir, 'Abd al-Ahad Khan, ruled 1885-1911)] “to agree to pay the entire cost (500,000 rubles) of a branch line connecting his capital with the railroad. The branch was built in 1900– 1901, and the net profit from its operation went to the emir.” 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:38, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]