The Whiskey Revolt is a barely totally different case, because it was a extra diffuse phenomenon, not a single political occasion, and a few of its happenings have been extra mob-like and thus extra like Jan. 6. However we keep in mind it as a “revolt” exactly as a result of it grew into one thing extra than simply the tarring and feathering of tax collectors. Its escalation, in actual fact, resembles the American Revolution (not a shock given the historic context) in its motion from spontaneous protests to committees of correspondence to conventions to a militia revolt in opposition to federal authority, culminating within the formation of a rough-and-ready military that marched on Pittsburgh, to cite from a 2004 paper, “underneath a six-striped flag representing claimed independence for 5 Pennsylvania counties (the 4 ‘infected’ counties plus Bedford, simply to the east) and a contiguous county in Virginia (Ohio County).”
That the following present of pressure by the federal authorities collapsed this revolt and not using a pitched battle doesn’t change the truth that there was, for a time period, an incipient political formation in these western counties against the authority of the federal authorities and the Structure. That, once more, isn’t what occurred on Jan. 6. The whole John Eastman fantasy was that Trump might get away with retaining the White Home inside the parameters of constitutionally delegated powers, utilizing the supposed authority of Mike Pence to leverage an 1876-style legislative endgame for a disputed election. And when that implausible hope dissolved, the offended mob principally believed itself to be standing up for constitutional authorities in opposition to the purported chicanery of Biden’s allegedly fraud-enabled victory. The rioter carrying a Accomplice flag was invoking previous revolt, sure, however he was not practising it in the way in which the Whiskey rebels clearly did.
Serwer would probably reply that saying Trump sought to retain energy underneath the Structure, not as a post-constitutional dictator, is a sanitized model of what he did and aimed to do, since his technique concerned abusing the powers of the presidency to induce the cooperation from state officers that his scheme required to succeed.
However one can abuse the powers of the presidency for one’s personal political profit with out it being an revolt or revolt underneath the phrases of the 14th Modification. Woodrow Wilson engineered laws that led to the imprisonment of a political rival; that was depraved and abusive, but it surely was not revolt. Richard Nixon lined up an election-year felony conspiracy in opposition to the Democratic Occasion; that was abusive, but it surely was not an revolt. Trump’s scheme to fabricate supposed proof of voter fraud, had it discovered many extra cooperators amongst Republicans, would have been worse — however “worse than Watergate” isn’t within the textual content of the 14th Modification.
Or think about a world the place Trump himself did what he accused Biden and the Democrats of doing and arranged a ballot-box-stuffing operation in key swing states that made him the elected president by the narrowest of margins. (Mainly, a model of what Lyndon Johnson and the Daley machine have been accused of doing within the 1960 election to tip Texas and Illinois to the Democrats, or what some conspiracy-minded liberals claimed occurred with Ohio voting machines in 2004.) Think about that it labored — and that Democrats had a specific amount of proof that this occurred, however their authorized challenges have been unsuccessful, a last-ditch spherical of objections and protests failed to forestall Trump being sworn in, and dispositive proof emerged solely after his second time period was properly begun.
