Talk:Sedition

Sedition by White Supremacists in the United States
The paragraph on the 1987 sedition charges of white supremacists is very vague, and leaves me with no idea of what their allegedly seditious actions were. Could somebody who knows about this please expand and clarify this. I want to know more, because it's one of the few times sedition charges were brought against defendants on the right instead of the left. —MiguelMunoz (talk) 10:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I added a next to the first sentence. Gorba (talk) 07:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Examples Should Remain Great
It's not enough to list every instance of Sedition. All that is needed are a couple to a few that provide a tremendous defining point for that Nation. Further, any cited examples should cease from providing a lengthy summary. The reference link can sufficiently supply the details. Many of the examples cited are unnecessarily verbose. Gorba (talk) 07:13, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to clean up United States Civilian
This section mixes civilians with the president, who is not a civilian (at least, at the time of writing this post). I recommend moving it to a new subsection entitled "Political" or "Politics." Gorba (talk) 07:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Update: It seems like a reasonable thing so I went ahead and made the change. Gorba (talk) 07:35, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Trump impeachment
Concerning this sentence: Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, president Donald Trump was impeached for seditious acts.

This appears to be based on a misreading of the source. The text of the impeachment states that "incited by President Trump, members of the crowd he had addressed [...] engaged in [...] seditious acts." It does not state that Trump himself engaged in "seditious acts".

Additionally, while the source cited appears to be the *LA Times*, the actual information used comes from the quoted text of the impeachment, making this a WP:PRIMARY source. Moreover, the impeachment text quoted in the source appears to be an earlier draft of the resolution that doesn't match the wording that was ultimately adopted. We should replace this ref with an up-to-date secondary source.

Suggested fix (note the refs would need to be expanded from bare urls): Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, president Donald Trump was impeached for inciting insurrection. The article of impeachment stated that Trump had incited lawless action through his remarks, resulting in "violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts" by members of the crowd.

-- AnonQuixote (talk) 13:37, 18 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Support, although I disagree with some of the reasoning put forth; The LA Times is not a primary source. I think you should use the existing LA Times citation for your second sentence instead of citing the article of impeachment directly, as the latter would be an actual use of a primary source. ― Tartan357  Talk 23:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Per WP:LINKSINACHAIN it would still be considered a primary source because it's directly quoting the original document. This doesn't mean it not reliable or shouldn't be used, but WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD does say that the original document is the preferred source for a direct quotation. AnonQuixote (talk) 05:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , fair enough. ― Tartan357  Talk 06:23, 19 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The full text of the impeachment refers to "Incitement of Insurrection" and "inciting violence against the Government of the United States", and that fulfills the definition of "sedition", which is "conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch", so the article is exactly correct in saying he was impeached for sedition, even if the article of impeachment does not use that word directly in relation to Trump. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:39, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , I am completely fine with this. To me, it seems clear that the terms "incitement of insurrection" and "sedition" are equivalent, so I am also fine with 's suggested text. They have suggested that wording because they believe the terms are not equivalent, but it's still accurate. ― Tartan357  Talk 06:17, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I'm going to weak oppose per . The terms may be equivalent, but the title of this page is "Sedition", so that word would be better to use to make it clear to the reader that Trump himself was the one who allegedly committed sedition. ― Tartan357  Talk 06:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's definitely incorrect to have "seditious acts" in quotes, since the quoted phrase was used in reference to "members of the crowd", not Trump. I think stating "Trump was impeached for sedition" is dubious without a RS that supports that wording/interpretation. So far we have consensus that "impeachment of insurrection" may be linked to this article, but no consensus on describing the impeachment charge as "sedition" on Wikipedia itself. I'd really like to open an RfC on that point to bring in a wider range of editor opinions, but so far I have been prevented from doing so by an admin who felt it was not constructive. AnonQuixote (talk) 00:19, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

There is also ...
Where the history of these legal codes has been traced, there is also a record of the change in the definition of the elements constituting sedition at certain points in history.

I can barely make sense of that sentence, so I've removed it from the article lead to the talk page. The core problem is that the sentence is built around the nebulous main subject-verb "there is also". Also? On top of what? Something that "has been traced" I suppose. &mdash; MaxEnt 00:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , I agree, this is barely intelligible. ― Tartan357  Talk 00:52, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Deleting Trump Impeachment Original Research
Sorry, but I'm deleting this paragraph "'Following the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol, president Donald Trump was impeached for 'incitement of insurrection',[65] which is, by definition, sedition.[66] Additionally, several political commentators deemed members of Congress who voted to object to the 2021 United States Electoral College count the Sedition Caucus.'" for the following reasons:

Strictly speaking, Trump was impeached for "incitement of insurrection"--not "sedition". To say 'incitement of insurrection' in the sense of the impeachment proceeding means the same as 'sedition' in Merriam-Webster's "incitement of resistance to or insurrection against lawful authority" is original research. Specifically, it is a synthesis of two sources. According to the WP:OR Project Page,

"'If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources.'"

That's exactly what happened: LA Times says (A) Trump was impeached for incitement of insurrection; Merriam-Webster says (B) the definition of sedition is "incitement of ... insurrection ...", then Wikipedia editors say that implies the conclusion (C) that Trump was in fact impeached for sedition. There may be reliable sources that say that Trump was impeached for sedition, but the LA Times article did not specifically say that, thus to combine that with Merriam-Webster to reach a further conclusion is an interpretation, aka original research.

As for the "Sedition Caucus", that is a nickname, literally, made up by some journalists for a group of congressmen that is neither a formal caucus nor necessarily seditious. The article is ostensibly about the legal term, not nicknames. Maybe if someone created a "Use in Popular Culture" section, it could go there.Warren Platts (talk) 14:28, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
 * There was a previous discussion of the first sentence, just above at Talk:Sedition, which didn't reach consensus on how, if at all, to mention the impeachment. One of the article of impeachment describes Trump as "inciting...seditious acts" so it might be worth mentioning on the page, although I'm inclined to WP:WAIT for now, until there are more legal results. I agree that the "Sedition Caucus" mention is just trivia at the moment. — WingedSerif (talk) 17:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)