Sieges and Coups: Two Threats to Liberal Democracy

A coup is a short, sharp intervention, like the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. A siege is a slow protracted affair, like the Federalist Society's decades-long campaign to seize control of the US judiciary. Both coups and sieges can pose serious threats to basic institutions of liberal democracy. In resisting those threats, liberal democracies are handicapped by their own liberal democratic commitments.