We joke about how Trump is acting. We roll our eyes and talk of another tantrum. How he cannot accept defeat and we rest easy knowing he has less than two months in office.
We are wrong to think this way.
Donald Trump is attempting a coup and millions of people support it, including those in political office.
I know we, as Americans, think of Coups as messy, violent military actions in awful countries in other parts of the world. We see them in our movies and television shows. A rogue general attacking the Capitol as a political statement.
We are naïve.
Coups don’t have to be giant military actions to succeed.
You just need someone with the desire to retain or obtain power and enablers that help.
Think about what Donald Trump is doing. He is saying loudly that the American election system is so massively corrupt, that one party can successfully alter millions of votes in key states and get away with it. That bipartisan election officials and judges will go along with it and cover it up in plain sight. Donald Trump is saying that we can never have another election again. And his supporters are buying it. Which would be sad and scary enough but this stretched beyond just his supporters. His millions and millions of supporters. This charade has encompassed leaders in Congress, the ones with the power to actually do something legally to change the election.
Donald Trump has lost 40 court cases trying to overturn results in one or more states. He has lost to republican appointed judges, democrat appointed judges. He has been ridiculed in their rulings, he has been mocked for the insanity, he has been turned away over and over again. His lawyers have stood in court and said they have no evidence of fraud. When it counts, when they will have consequences for lying, his lawyers admit they have no case.
Yet that has not stopped Trump from continuing his lie. That has not stopped the President of the United States for screaming that the American election system does not work.
And he is saying it with no proof.
And no, a USPS truck driver claiming his truck of ballots marked for Donald Trump was stolen is not evidence. How does he know they are Trump ballots? Where is the police report for a stolen post office truck? Where is any proof whatsoever aside from one person’s claim?
And this is what Donald Trump wants.
He wants us arguing over random claims of fraud with no evidence. He wants us to have to explain why we don’t believe the words of someone who clearly does not like democrats as she lies and says she saw dead people voting.
Create Chaos.
That is all he does.
And America be damned.
Donald Trump is attempting a coup. It is ugly, messy, and juvenile but is that any different from the past four years?
You may roll your eyes, you may say it will be over soon and a new President will be sworn in, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t happening. You may say trump is just doing this because he can’t admit defeat and he wants to be able to say he never lost.
Make no mistake, if Trump were to find a way to overturn the results he would absolutely do it. He would absolutely overturn the will of the country and stay in power. And then where would we be? With an impeached, beaten man in charge of the United States of America with no one able to stand in his way.
We cannot roll our eyes at that.
Donald Trump is attempting a coup. And we need to acknowledge that. Now.
Even if he fails and Joe Biden is sworn in, this moment will last a long time after Trump is gone. It will darken the stain he has already left on our country’s history.
We need to understand this.
