‘Insurrection:’ Is That a Word We Really Want to Use?

As we prepare for former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, let me take a moment to explain why the wordsmith in me is troubled by the way that we’ve settled on the term “insurrection” to describe what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Or perhaps not the wordsmith: the unrepentant 1970s radical who still lives uneasily within my libertarian soul.

I wouldn’t deny for a moment that the angry mob that stormed the legislative chamber was involved in insurrection. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary define the term as “rising in arms or open resistance against established authority or governmental restraint.” Attacking the heart of the legislative branch in an effort to overturn an election unquestionably fits the definition.