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The coup, however, was an elaborate plot developed over months to claim that the votes in the key swing states were fraudulent, for Mike Pence as the presiding officer of the joint session of the Congress to declare on that basis that the certification of the presidential election on the constitutionally mandated date could not be done, to force that day to pass into a twilight zone of irresolution, for House Republicans to hold the floor brandishing the endless claims of fraud, to move the decision to the safe harbor of the House of Representatives, voting by states, with a majority of 26 controlled by the Republican party, to deny both the popular vote and the electoral college vote to retain Trump in office, for protests to breakout at federal buildings, and for the president to invoke the Insurrection Act to impose law and order. It has been a common conceptual error to consider the insurrection alone to be the coup. The insurrection and the coup were distinct, but the insurrection emerged from the coup. The insurrection was not the coup itself. And what had they screwed up? They had screwed up the coup that led to the insurrection. To whom was Hice shouting that “y’all” had screwed it all up? It seems likely it was Meadows. Just as the violent insurrection launched, and paramilitary groups spearheaded medieval style hand-to-hand combat against the police and burst into the Capitol, Hice posted on Instagram a photo of himself headed into the House chamber, with the caption, “This is our 1776 moment.” Hice performed his assignment as part of the far-rightwing Republican faction, the Freedom Caucus, directed by Congressman Jim Jordan, of Ohio, who was in constant touch that day with Mark Meadows, the Trump chief of staff and former Freedom Caucus member, and a watchful Trump himself. He was tasked to present a challenge to Georgia’s electors before the joint congressional session convened on 6 January to certify the electoral college victory of Joe Biden. Hice, an evangelical minister, professor of preaching at a Southern Baptist seminary, and radio talkshow host before his election in 2014, has notably declared that freedom of religion should not apply to Muslims and that the Sandy Hook massacre of 26 people at an elementary school by a deranged shooter occurred because liberals were “kicking God out of the public square”.

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A fter thousands of posts appeared for weeks on a website called TheDonald.win detailing plans for the 6 January attack on the Capitol, including how to form a “wall of death” to force police to abandon defensive positions after Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, warned his senior aides of “a Reichstag moment” like the 1933 burning of the German parliament that Hitler used to seize dictatorial power after insurrectionists smashed several ground floor windows of the Capitol, the only ones out of 658 they somehow knew were not reinforced, that allowed rioters to pour inside after marching to the chamber of the House chanting “Hang Mike Pence!” after pounding on the locked doors and as the Capitol police led members in a run through the tunnels under the Capitol for safe passage to the Longworth Building, Congressman Jody Hice, a Republican of Georgia, raced by a Democratic colleague, who told me Hice was screaming into his phone: “You screwed it up, y’all screwed it all up!” (Hice has denied the incident occurred, but the Democratic congressman stands by his account.)

Conspiracy iceberg