Immediately after the 2020 election, we saw mobs of Republicans, egged on by Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump, besieging their local boards of electors in PA, AZ and other swing states. Luckily officials anticipated that kind of intimidation and hardened the targets.
That should say "boards of elections," above but the Republicans also sent mobs to stat Capitols to intimidate the slates of electors as they were being chosen after the results were certified. Trying to stop the same process they attacked at the US Capitol.
Stopping the count is a time-honored tactic in Republican politics. We saw it play out in multiple states in at least TWO prior phases of the 2020 election before the attack on the US Capitol.
The thing the GOP most wants us to forget is that this was an integrated whole. It was a conspiracy that involved the White House, GOP members of Congress, and the brownshirts and the streets.
The president, the traitors in Congress, and the mob all had one objective: Stopping the count. Setting aside the results of a free and fair election. Keeping Trump in power against the will of the people.
Like any large group of people involved in a massive undertaking, there was a range of opinions about how exactly this was going to be accomplished. It ranged from "Day of the Rope" executions to intimidating Congress into auditing the election.
But the bottom line is, they all wanted to overturn the election one way or another and thereby keep Trump in power. That's what made this a coup. Or a putsch, if you prefer.