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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 100.16.166.109 (talk) at 16:01, 8 February 2021 (→‎too much POV: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Title brainstorming

Originally this was titled "Attempt to overturn the 2020 United States Presidential Election", but an editor expressed concerns that it wasn't neutral. What would we think about Attempt to overturn the apparent results of the 2020 United States Presidential Election, which would still be neutral about the election results but less vague than "disputes" which could be anything. Or some other win-win that's both neutral and non-vague? Feoffer (talk) 05:13, 22 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing wrong with "dispute," which is how the article on Georgia's Rose Revolution describes the parliamentary elections that precipitated the power shift. Similar NPOV wording can be seen in lede of the article on Ukraine's Orange Revolution. Like the elections that led to those events, this presidential election is disputed — a typical word for this kind of situation. I'd recommend "Disputation of the 2020 United States presidential election". Lereman (talk) 01:24, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comments elsewhere[1] point out that a result can be overturned but not a defeat. Instead, the wording could be Attempts to reverse the 2020 United States presidential election. Qexigator (talk) 17:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 7 January 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not moved The few !votes in favour of moving this to the "coup" title seem to be referring to events best left to another article (2021 storming of the United States Capitol), therefore are slightly misguided, and in any case the consensus is solidly against the proposal. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]




Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election2020—2021 United States coup d'état attempt – This is undeniably a coup attempt. The incumbent President, who lost reelection is trying to do anything in his power to stay President, hundreds of members of his party in Congress are refusing to accept the legitimacy of his loss, and have tried to block the certification of his opponent, Joe Biden's win as President. The President has also openly called on his millions of supporters to stand by and come across the capital to stop the certification of Biden. Hundreds of people illegally stormed the United States Capitol to stop the certification, openly opposing the peaceful transfer of power, hoping to ensure Trump would still be president. This storming of the capitol was premeditated and instigated on social media, with images of protests in gear made in advance of the storming today. Members of the press, media outlets, and of Congress, who fled from the storming has called this a coup attempt. There have been dozens of articles before today's events describing how Trump and his supporters were attempting a coup. Other articles on coup attempts were moved to those titles with less evidence and documentation, especially in African countries. Not moving this article is racist, and whitewashes the truth. We might not want to believe it, but this is a coup attempt. It doesn't just happened to people down there in Africa, but can happen to us here. This article has to be moved. Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 00:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose As I stated in the earlier section on this wording, what we're seeing does not meet the definition of coup d'état, which is an attempt to remove the sitting executive, usually by force — not an attempt to maintain a sitting executive in power. For example, the 2020 Malian coup d'état that Kew Gardens 613 has brought up was the effort of the Malian military to remove Mali's then-president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. Lereman (talk) 01:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Lereman: That is just semantics. This is a clear attempt to overthrow the newly elected government. It is popularly being called a coup, even if it "technically" does not meet the definition.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 01:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and snow close. Lack of sources calling this a coup attempt. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At most sources have called the storming of the capitol a coup. FlalfTalk 01:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose A coup is normally violent, and while occasions during these past few months have been violent, it's mostly been political and legal. To call the all of these attempts collectively a coup would come across as even a little misleading in my opinion. FlalfTalk 01:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are you seriously calling what happened today not violent? Hundreds of protesters, some of whom were armed, storming violently into one of the most heavily protected and important buildings in the country, pushing back police and other law enforcement, and threatening the lives of congressmembers, in which they lay in fear of their lives?. In addition, one woman was shot dead. The only reason why it was not more violent is that the police aided the protesters. If this were a Black Lives Matters protest, hundreds of people would have been shot dead. This is not misleading at all.--Kew Gardens 613 (talk) 01:13, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The capitol protests have been bad, but that doesn't mean the whole thing can be categorized as a coup. I will admit I phrased it poorly, but I still believe that this move would be detrimental. FlalfTalk 01:58, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is a general article about months of different activities. Today's attempted selfcoup should receive its own article specifically. ThirdDolphin (talk) 02:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As I said above, not all topics covered in this broad article can be considered part of a coup. Until the dust settles more and reliable sources come to a consensus about what this broad topic is, the current title is appropriate. Mdewman6 (talk) 23:56, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ University, Stanford (2021-01-06). "Stanford scholars react to Capitol Hill takeover". Stanford News. Retrieved 2021-01-07.
  • Oppose - Reliable sources generally don't characterize this article's subject as a coup. Opinion pieces will refer to it as such as sources will describe it as "coup-like" or "parallel to a coup" (as it's carefully worded in AugsteBlanqui's source), but not as a coup itself. I've seen many sources ask the question of whether it is a coup, that's as far as they'll call it one. I have seen some sources that describe the events that happened at the Capitol as an attempted coup, but that event has its own article, 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, and describing that as a coup would be done on that page, as it's not the subject of this article, which has a broader overview than yesterday's events. - Aoidh (talk) 01:06, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That source you cited is talking about Wednesday. I'm talking about this article's subject, which isn't about what happened on Wednesday in the Capitol; there is another article for that. Your source doesn't support this article being called a coup, and I'm sure we can find a source or two that might say this general subject is a coup, but they would by far be in the minority. - Aoidh (talk) 03:50, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose and SNOW close. We already have a separate article about the January 6 events at 2021 storming of the United States Capitol. Whether that storming should be characterized as a coup attempt is entirely separate from whether that’s an appropriate or reliable-source-supported characterization of all the attempts to overturn the election which this article is about. I already closed this proposal per SNOW because it was a clear waste of time and precious editor resources, but was reverted by the proposal’s nom. I urge someone else to SNOW close this. —-В²C 14:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Small Typo

I don't see an edit link to fix this. "might have marred the election, the despite testimony given by elections officials" should be "might have marred the election, this despite testimony given by elections officials" 174.0.239.118 (talk) 00:43, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done Geogene (talk) 04:28, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lead section

I agree that the lead section should be shortened, but I have reverted a recent series of edits to the lead section which, in addition to dramatically shortening it, made some edits that were unexplained and which I did not view as improvements. I would suggest that major content edits to the lead be discussed here, or at least made in a series of edits with clear edit summaries rather than one or two massive edits. Neutralitytalk 16:01, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1933 overthrow section

The section just added today relating to a 1933 event seems completely unrelated and irrelevant. Surely there were many attempts long ago to affect elections or install new governments but every one need not be discussed here.

98.37.74.80 (talk) 03:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since the comparison is done by a recent article in a reliable paper, it's not WP:SYNTHesis, but if it's WP:DUE is another matter. I left it there for now as it's a very short mention. —PaleoNeonate – 01:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It still has no bearing on these events, so I removed that out of place line. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Include "pillow coup"?

coverage has been extensive, just look up mypillow news, and the revelations from it seem fairly relevant for the development since the storming. jonas (talk) 06:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Who is writing this garbage

WP:NOTFORUM EvergreenFir (talk) 07:01, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Who wrote this wildly inaccurate article just reading it makes you think that whoever did is trying to force their opinion instead of actual facts Ludwigfromhere (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Complaints get nowhere. If you have specific suggestions, then make them. Give one example of a sentence that is problematic, and why. Provide reliable sources to back up your claims. ~Anachronist (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As to who wrote it, are you aware of the history link? —В²C 17:35, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do not see any false information. ESBirdnerd (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Censorship is not okay! Wikipedia has been turned into a narrative tool!

WP:NOTFORUM. Please give specific details of what you believe needs to be changed, with sources if necessary.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

You revert anything that doesn't fit your agenda. You disregard reality in favour of bias and inaccurate portrayal. Absolutely despicable. You should be ashamed. No wonder millions believe this election was stolen when any dissenting argument gets censored, and evidence gets ignored and swept under the rug. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Smankey415 (talkcontribs) 07:24, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

These accusations are so vague they are pointless. Please identify specific reverts that you think were inappropriate and explain why, ideally referencing WP policies that you believe were violated. —В²C 14:19, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incumbent

At the start of the article, it says "incumbent Donald Trump", please change that to "45th president Donald Trump" because Trump is not the USA president anymore. 2603:9000:6505:52E1:6147:E0C7:620F:4058 (talk) 14:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done, but done partially. He was the incumbent then, and "incumbent" in the context of that sentence is correct. I did change it to "then-incumbent" to make it more clear that it's in the past. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:38, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Claim that Biden isn't really President

I've seen this claim on Facebook, and a link on another site, along with the claim Trump isn't finished. One theory is that the real inauguration is March 4 and Trump will take the oath that day.

Is this anywhere on Wikipedia?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 22:58, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, because the inauguration date was changed by the 20th Amendment and the idea that Biden isn't president is fictitious. Mdewman6 (talk) 00:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless, isn't this a notable conspiracy theory?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:21, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If anything, it should be discussed at the QAnon article. But I have to say, this conspiracy theory is over the top. If inauguration were still in March, why was Trump inaugurated the first time on January 20, 2016? Was he not really president for the first ~2 months of his presidency? This "theory" doesn't come remotely close to saving itself from its own false logic. But I defer to reliable sources as to whether it is notable enough to be mentioned somehwere. Mdewman6 (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I realized that too, and after discussion, this is the result. By the way, Trump was inaugurated in 2017.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The 20th Amendment states that the term of the President expires at Noon on January 20. Accuracy would dictate that since Mr. Biden completed the Oath of Office at 11:51, the United States had 2 concurrent Presidents for 9 minutes (until Mr. Trump's term expired in accordance with the Constitution). These are indeed interesting times in which we live.Mafairbanks (talk) 05:08, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Biden took the oath early, but was not yet president. He became president at noon (or 12:01, depending on your reading of the amendment) regardless of whether or not he had taken the oath or when he took it. The oath does not make him president, it only is a requirement for him to execute the powers of the office. Mdewman6 (talk) 18:59, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV seems to be lacking - Request to edit

This article reads like the script for a CNN hit piece, utilizing pointed adjectives such as 'baseless' and 'false' instead of using a neutral adjective like 'alleged'. There is a very negative tone which dismisses the underlying issue of voting integrity as some kind of baseless conspiracy theory. No where in the article are voter irregularities mentioned, such as ballots cast by dead people, returned ballots postmarked prior to the date they were mailed out to the voters, ballots cast by ineligible individuals, ballots counted after observers dismissed for the evening, etc., which cast a cloud over the accuracy and therefore fuel the notion that there was a possibility of inaccuracies or fraud.

The title, which includes the phrase 'Attempts to overturn' is problematic when the article plainly is worded to discredit or dismiss any arguments surrounding the validity, but the group has already hashed that issue and decided that this is the proper title for the article. As such, the reader should not be forced to digress from this article to search for the underlying issues which prompt the 'Attempts...'; for clarity and completeness, the issues which precipitated the actions of the Trump campaign should be included in this article objectively. Remember that at this point the issues are still pending in various courts and have not yet been heard. I would offer that, considering the title has been decided, then the body should be edited for NPOV.

I invite discussion on this. Mafairbanks (talk) 05:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Mafairbanks, The words 'baseless' and 'false' are the 2 most common terms used by WP:RELIABLE SOURCES to describe the allegations that the election was 'rigged.' They were in fact lies and a conspiracy theory. William Barr, Trump's Attorney General, investigated these claims and stated that he found nothing significant. Trump and associates filed over 75 lawsuits, and lost all the cases mainly due to lack of credible evidence. Best, IP75 (talk) 01:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I invite you to cite reliable sources for the irregularities you appear to assert as established facts. It is worth noting that "irregularities" routinely occur in elections, commonly attributed to simple, innocent errors. For example, some "dead people vote" every election because they drop their absentee ballot in the mail and drop dead. soibangla (talk) 01:51, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Biden's title in lede

On January 24, I changed Biden's title from the addition of 'challenger' to 'president' with an edit summary stating 'rm challenger, not a sporting event.' Also it's not commonly used in U.S. politics. Another user removed the title stating 'possibly confusing, he was not then POTUS.' I thought that 'president' was obvious stating 'president" is Biden's title for the next 4 years. it clearly states that Trump was the incumbent. this is common knowledge.' IdreamofJeanie reverted my edit stating 'he was not President at time of the election.emphasis on NEXT.' After discussion on their talk page, I realized we should use his title at the time period of the article which was 'president-elect'. I have never addressed a minor issue at this length, but I want this in the talk page so we never have to deal with it again. Best IP75 (talk) 04:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The New York Times published a lengthy article yesterday titled "77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election". I have not read it myself yet, but it appears to be a detailed explanation of attempts to overturn the election. They have also published a shorter version including "key takeaways" from the examination. The examination might prove useful in improving the article. Ahmadtalk 10:19, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

 Done FWIW: The following NYT News (01312021) edit[1] has been added to the main article - hope this helps in some way - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:07, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

Time magazine article

Why is there no mention of the Time magazine article about behind-the-scenes effort to influence the outcome of the election? It partly validates the claims of Trump supporters. [1]Vgy7ujm (talk) 21:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Vgy7ujm, can you propose an edit? What text would you like to add, and where? – Muboshgu (talk) 21:14, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I put it into the Conspiracy allegations section at 14:34 hours on the 6th, but it was quickly reverted.Vgy7ujm (talk) 21:36, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Vgy7ujm, yes, this edit was awful and was rightly reverted. Do you understand why? – Muboshgu (talk) 21:46, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No. How would you add this highly relevant citation to the article using NPOV?Vgy7ujm (talk) 21:58, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Vgy7ujm, first things first, recognize that the article in Time was written by Molly Ball. Then, notice that she wrote this article sarcastically, claiming a "secret cabal" of non-secret people trying to save the sanctity of the election. Finally, see that Fox News is disingenuous in how they present that article, taking Ball seriously, and getting Don Jr and Lauren Boebert to throw in a couple quotes. There is nothing in Molly Ball's article about attempting to overthrow the election. Her article is about how the election was saved. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:07, 7 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

too much POV

This article does not seem to be neutral. It calls the belief that the 2020 election was stolen a far right conspiracy theory, which does not sound neutral at all. Maybe you at wikipedia could include some perspectives from the other side (such as allegations and sworn affadavits, and other issues, such as violations of the elector's clause)?