A central driver The unchanging constitution no longer ensures stability: quite the reverse. As shown by the January 6 attempted coup, it brings instability. Daniel Lazare defends his long held position James Creegan criticises me on multiple counts in his recent article dealing with the January 6 attack on the US Capitol (‘Drivers that led to January 6’ 18). He says I exaggerate in describing the uprising as an “attempted coup [that] was all too real” and which had “a significant chance” of plunging the country into “the depths of authoritarianism”. He says I underestimate “the legitimacy elections confer upon capitalist rule” and hence the ruling class’s attachment to the constitutional status quo. He takes issue with my description of the two bourgeois parties as equally mendacious and argues that Donald Trump’s lies were in fact “more numerous and blatant”. He says I do not appreciate the role that the loss of “white status” played in fuelling the January