Trump’s next coup attempt has begun

Tweet describing some of the plan high-level Republicans 

were circulating before the 1/6 coup attempt

Republican attacks on democracy are not close to over. They are expanding and building the infrastructure to put the ex-president back in power in 2024. The Atlantic writes in a long, discouraging Dec. 6, 2021 article:

January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election.

Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect.

The prospect of this democratic collapse is not remote. People with the motive to make it happen are manufacturing the means. Given the opportunity, they will act. They are acting already.

Who or what will safeguard our constitutional order is not apparent today. It is not even apparent who will try. Democrats, big and small D, are not behaving as if they believe the threat is real. Some of them, including President Joe Biden, have taken passing rhetorical notice, but their attention wanders. They are making a grievous mistake.

“The democratic emergency is already here,” Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine, told me in late October. Hasen prides himself on a judicious temperament. Only a year ago he was cautioning me against hyperbole. Now he speaks matter-of-factly about the death of our body politic. “We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024,” he said, “but urgent action is not happening.”

For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party’s national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.

By way of foundation for all the rest, Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.

As we near the anniversary of January 6, investigators are still unearthing the roots of the insurrection that sacked the Capitol and sent members of Congress fleeing for their lives. What we know already, and could not have known then, is that the chaos wrought on that day was integral to a coherent plan. In retrospect, the insurrection takes on the aspect of rehearsal.

Even in defeat, Trump has gained strength for a second attempt to seize office, should he need to, after the polls close on November 5, 2024. It may appear otherwise—after all, he no longer commands the executive branch, which he tried and mostly failed to enlist in his first coup attempt. Yet the balance of power is shifting his way in arenas that matter more.  

Trump is successfully shaping the narrative of the insurrection in the only political ecosystem that matters to him. The immediate shock of the event, which briefly led some senior Republicans to break with him, has given way to a near-unanimous embrace.  

Trump has reconquered his party by setting its base on fire. Tens of millions of Americans perceive their world through black clouds of his smoke. His deepest source of strength is the bitter grievance of Republican voters that they lost the White House, and are losing their country, to alien forces with no legitimate claim to power. This is not some transient or loosely committed population. Trump has built the first American mass political movement in the past century that is ready to fight by any means necessary, including bloodshed, for its cause.  

“It’s the community’s support that is creating a mantle of legitimacy—a mandate, if you would, that justifies the violence” of a smaller, more committed group, Pape said. “I’m very concerned it could happen again, because what we’re seeing in our surveys … is 21 million people in the United States who are essentially a mass of kindling or a mass of dry wood that, if married to a spark, could in fact ignite.”

Democracy will be on trial in 2024. A strong and clear-eyed president, faced with such a test, would devote his presidency to meeting it. Biden knows better than I do what it looks like when a president fully marshals his power and resources to face a challenge. It doesn’t look like this.

The midterms, marked by gerrymandering, will more than likely tighten the GOP’s grip on the legislatures in swing states. The Supreme Court may be ready to give those legislatures near-absolute control over the choice of presidential electors. And if Republicans take back the House and Senate, as oddsmakers seem to believe they will, the GOP will be firmly in charge of counting the electoral votes.

Against Biden or another Democratic nominee, Donald Trump may be capable of winning a fair election in 2024. He does not intend to take that chance.

The article goes on at length about deceived believers, increased openness about willingness to resort to violence to get justice and defend democracy as they see those things. The delusions and false beliefs come this authoritarian political movement come out loud and clear. The article discusses other deeply troubling aspects of this toxic, anti-democratic pro-Trump movement.  

Questions: How many Americans believe this narrative? Does Biden or the Democratic Party? How can one apportion blame for this, assuming one sees any blame to apportion, e.g., ~55% Trump, ~45% the Republican Party leadership and its rank and file supporters? 

Nov. 6, 2020 Stop the Steal protest in Detroit --

the rage and hate is palpable, and so is the delusion

Time Person of the Year - Elon Musk?

 

Elon Musk named Time magazine's 2021 Person of the Year

https://www.today.com/news/time-2021-person-year-elon-musk-t242943

EGADS! Seriously?

Time's Person of the Year, 1927-Present

https://public.opendatasoft.com/explore/dataset/times-person-of-the-year/table/?sort=year

Elon Musk? Don't say it is so!!

OK, so - what would YOUR choice have been?

Fauci? Pelosi? Why an American? How about Angela Merkel? She was legendary in her time as Chancellor for Germany and for the EU. A nice honor for her on her parting politics?

My idea? There is precedence for my choice:

2014

Person of the Year

The Ebola Fighters

So why not the Health Care Workers of the World for 2021? THAT would have been my choice.

The kinds of things the 1/6 insurrectionist conspirators did

The ex-president's former chief of staff has stopped cooperating with the Democratic House investigation of the 1/6 coup attempt about who was involved and what they did. Nearly all congressional Republicans refuse to talk about it. The New York Times lists some of the reasons the Democrats are citing in their contempt of Congress charge against Meadows. Emails and text messages that Meadows had turned over and the House wanted to ask him about includes the following matters:

• A Nov. 7 email that discussed an attempt to arrange with state legislators to appoint slates of pro-Trump electors instead of the Biden electors chosen by the voters. Mr. Meadows’s text messages also showed him asking members of Congress how to put Mr. Trump in contact with state legislators.

• Text messages Mr. Meadows exchanged with an unidentified senator in which he recounted Mr. Trump's view on Vice President Mike Pence’s ability to reject electors from certain states. Mr. Trump “thinks the legislators have the power, but the VP has power too,” Mr. Meadows wrote.

• A Jan. 5 email in which Mr. Meadows said the National Guard would be present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to “protect pro Trump people.”

• Emails from Mr. Meadows to Justice Department officials on Dec. 29, Dec. 30 and Jan. 1 in which he encouraged investigations of voter fraud, including allegations already rejected by federal investigators and courts

• Text messages Mr. Meadows exchanged with members of Congress as violence engulfed the Capitol on Jan. 6 in which lawmakers encouraged him to persuade Mr. Trump to discourage the attack, as well as a text message sent to one of the president’s family members in which Mr. Meadows said he was “pushing hard” for Mr. Trump to “condemn this.”

• Text messages reflecting Mr. Meadows’s private skepticism about some of the wild public statements about allegations of widespread election fraud and compromised voting machines that were put forth by Sidney Powell, a lawyer working with Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer.

Some of those things are truly damning for people who argue the 1/6 coup attempt was no big deal and not anything to be concerned about. It was a huge, deeply concerning event. It also shows the ex-president knew full well that he was fomenting lies about the 2020 election being stolen. The mendacity of the GOP on this matter is blatant. The lies should be shocking, but the the morally rotten ex-president and morally rotted Republican Party have normalized blatant partisan mendacity. These days, most everyone either expects blatant lies or they believe Republican mendacity does not exist, but Democrats lie all the time.

The NYT also pointed out that the Democrats cited Meadows’s new book “The Chief’s Chief” as evidence that his refusal to testify to Congress was untenable. His voluntary public statements in the book and social media show his willingness to talk about these issues. The 51 page House report[1] comments: “Mr. Meadows has shown his willingness to talk about issues related to the Select Committee’s investigation across a variety of media platforms — anywhere, it seems, except to the Select Committee.” 

Whether the House contempt charge allegation will amount to anything of significance for Meadows is an open question. The Biden administration has unilaterally abandoned the rule of law for Republican political criminals. That, coupled with the glacial pace of how House Democrats are proceeding, indicates that Meadows will probably face no significant legal repercussions. Once the Dems lose the House to the Repubs after the 2022 elections, Republicans in control will drop the 1/6 investigation. They will then rewrite history and simply state that the 1/6 coup attempt as just a teapot tempest of no significance.

 

Question: It is reasonable to think the Biden administration has unilaterally abandoned the rule of law for Republican political criminals? 

Footnote: 

1. The House resolution includes this: 

An individual who fails or refuses to comply with a House subpoena may be cited for contempt of Congress. Pursuant to 2 U.S.C. § 192, the willful refusal to comply with a congressional subpoena is punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 and imprisonment for up to 1 year. .... proving criminal intent in this context is no more than showing a ‘‘deliberate’’ ‘‘refusal to answer pertinent questions’’; it does not require a showing of ‘‘moral turpitude.’’ .... A committee may vote to seek a contempt citation against a recalcitrant witness. This action is then reported to the House. If a resolution to that end is adopted by the House, the matter is referred to a U.S. Attorney, who has a duty to refer the matter to a grand jury for an indictment.

It depends… doesn’t it?

 

The human concepts of “right and wrong” are normally decided/dictated by laws, whether by

-civil/criminal laws

-biblical (holy books) laws

-ethical (innate/understood/societal) laws

-natural laws

-“school of hard knocks” (street) laws

-etc.

with each of these categories also having “degrees of severity” of right and wrong.  For example, criminally speaking, there is a difference between contemplating murder, attempting murder, and actually murdering.

But let’s take something not so dramatic; say the ethical law of lying, as in “little white lies.” Are such innocuous lies always “categorically wrong” no matter what, or can they be a “necessary wrong” but for the right reason (motive)?  Little white lies might be civilly/criminally wrong if said under oath, but not ethically wrong if said in everyday conversation.  “No, those pants don’t make you look fat.”  I once asked my husband if he ever lies to me.  He said, “Only if I have to.” 😉 So yes, like much of life, the concepts of right and wrong, legal (laws) or otherwise, can get kinda complicated.

While there are many overlapping areas from one kind of right and wrong law to another, a common theme run through all such laws; the driving force of determining what’s right from what’s wrong.  For this OP, let’s just concentrate on the ethical laws category; whether something is ethically right or wrong. 

I grant you, the ethics category is in itself a further complicated can-of-worms in that it can also, for example, be societally based, as in one society’s folkways and mores being different from another society’s.  It can be a societal ethical jungle out there. 😊 

Ethics is not so easily defined because it’s also a dynamic thing that can change/morph/bend with time and place of origin.  What’s not societally/socially ethical today may be socially ethical in some distant future society.  Therefore, ethical notions are not as eternally cut-and-dried as some of us would like to think.  (I told you it was complicated.)

With that general thinking as our limited template here, let’s think about someone "doing the wrong thing for the right reason."  How about:

-Desperate little boy steals food to stay alive.  Stealing is ethically wrong BUT survival is ethically right.

-Politician takes money from and makes false promises to a nefarious wealthy donor in order to build a community center in a poor neighborhood so the kids have somewhere to go after school.  Accepting bribery is ethically wrong, lying about your intensions is ethically wrong, BUT building a new community center is ethically right.  Kinda like Robinhood Syndrome: robbing from the rich to give to the poor.  Or, “the ends justifying the means.”

Your Task: Give examples of doing an ethically wrong thing for an ethically right reason.  Or is that not even possible, as some might believe?  Think about it.

Thanks for posting and recommending.

The Republican war on elections continue; Warnings continue to fail

Republican representative Madison Cawthorn, holding a shotgun he was asked to sign, says the Second Amendment is not for hunting or target shooting but rather for fighting tyranny. He advises the crowd to begin stockpiling ammunition for what he says is likely American-versus-American “bloodshed” over unfavorable election results. 

He repeats his claims that the American election system is “rigged” and that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump, who, he says, is still America’s legitimate president .... He says rioters arrested in the fatal attack on Congress on Jan. 6 are “political prisoners,” and discusses plans to “try and bust them out.” He tells the crowd “we are actively working on” plans for another similar protest in Washington. “When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes your duty,” he says. -- Sept. 2021

“No one can convince me that Georgia’s a blue state.” Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) is most likely going to be the GOP nominee for Georgia secretary of state, and if he wins the office he will be in charge of regulating and certifying the 2024 election. In a Sept. 28 appearance on the Real America’s Voice network, host John Fredericks asked him, “Do you think Trump won Georgia?” Hice responded, “Yeah, I mean, obviously the audit is going to show that.” He went on to say, “I don’t believe, not for one moment, that Georgia is blue, but for election irregularities and fraudulent activity.” 

“When do we get to use the guns?” At an October stop in Idaho on Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA tour, an audience member cut to the chase in a Q&A session: “When do we get to use the guns? . . . How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” Kirk responded, “I’m going to denounce that,” adding, “You’re playing into all their plans.” -- Washington Post, Dec. 12, 2021

At this point, posts like this warning about danger to democracy and elections are not going to change anyone’s mind. Most Republicans firmly believe the 2020 election was stolen. They are hell bent on putting radical conspiracy theorists in control of election administration and conduct. They are going to end free and fair elections in the name of protecting free and fair elections. 

The latest news sounds pretty much like the other posts here that try to warn us that we are on the verge of losing our democracy. More warnings just won't make any difference. At this point it seems more likely than not that 2020 was the last relatively free and fair national election we will see for quite some time, maybe decades, maybe as long as America stays a single country. My guess now is that in addition to the voter disenfranchisement of gerrymandering, there is about a 65% chance that the 2022 election will be demonstrably rigged and tip races to Republicans, including by outright nullification of inconvenient elections where necessary. 

Being able to prove this assumes that in states where republicans are in control, they allow analysis of the elections and the data. They will fight it tooth and claw and the Republican Supreme Court probably will mostly or completely protect that secrecy (~75% chance) in the lawsuits filed after the 2022 elections.

Futile as it may be, another New York Times article, In Bid for Control of Elections, Trump Loyalists Face Few Obstacles, sounds the warning one more time:

A movement animated by Donald J. Trump’s 2020 election lies is turning its attention to 2022 and beyond.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. — When thousands of Trump supporters gathered in Washington on Jan. 6 for the Stop the Steal rally that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol, one of them was a pastor and substitute teacher from Elizabethtown, Pa., named Stephen Lindemuth. 

Mr. Lindemuth had traveled with a religious group from Elizabethtown to join in protesting the certification of Joseph R. Biden’s victory. In a Facebook post three days later, he complained that “Media coverage has focused solely on the negative aspect of the day’s events,” and said he had been in Washington simply “standing for the truth to be heard.”

Shortly after, he declared his candidacy for judge of elections, a local Pennsylvania office that administers polling on Election Day, in the local jurisdiction of Mount Joy Township.

Mr. Lindemuth’s victory in November in this conservative rural community is a milestone of sorts in American politics: the arrival of the first class of political activists who, galvanized by Donald J. Trump’s false claim of a stolen election in 2020, have begun seeking offices supervising the election systems that they believe robbed Mr. Trump of a second term. According to a May Reuters/Ipsos poll, more than 60 percent of Republicans now believe the 2020 election was stolen.

This belief has informed a wave of mobilization at both grass-roots and elite levels in the party with an eye to future elections. In races for state and county-level offices with direct oversight of elections, Republican candidates coming out of the Stop the Steal movement are running competitive campaigns, in which they enjoy a first-mover advantage in electoral contests that few partisans from either party thought much about before last November.

“This is a five-alarm fire,” said Jocelyn Benson, the Democratic secretary of state in Michigan, who presided over her state’s Trump-contested election in 2020 and may face a Trump-backed challenger next year. “If people in general, leaders and citizens, aren’t taking this as the most important issue of our time and acting accordingly, then we may not be able to ensure democracy prevails again in ’24.”

There's a bit of understatement in that. No one may be able to ensure that democracy prevails again in ’22. The Republican stolen election alt-reality leads people to say things like they were merely “standing for the truth to be heard” while screaming for blood at the Republican’s 1/6 coup attempt. 

One person, just one rotten person, was mostly single-handedly dragged what was left of the already rotting Republican Party into the abyss of a corrupt, incompetent American Christian fascism based on colossal lies, irrational distrust and seething bigotry and hate. 

No one who laments the loss of our democracy can say that we have not been warned. Heck, George Washington warned of exactly this thing way back in 1796.[1] Lamentations and regrets will be too little, too late.

Questions: Was all that personal commentary over the top nonsense? Was it just irrational, alt-reality partisan alarmism? Most Republicans unshakably believe that.

Footnote: 

1. Good old George wrote this in 1796 about the danger to democracy that radical political factions or parties pose:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Fear in the Republican Party

In public comments the Washington Post has collected and printed, some Republican politicians say they keep quiet or vote to protect the ex-president out of fear for themselves or their families. The WaPo writes in an article entitled, The role of violent threats in Trump’s GOP reign, according to Republicans:

It’s a must-read, but a tough read. That’s because it describes an exceedingly ugly situation: one in which lawmakers are disregarding private principle in their votes and often doing so out of literal fear. [Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI):]

On the House floor [on Jan. 6], moments before the vote, Meijer approached a member who appeared on the verge of a breakdown. He asked his new colleague if he was okay. The member responded that he was not; that no matter his belief in the legitimacy of the election, he could no longer vote to certify the results, because he feared for his family’s safety. “Remember, this wasn’t a hypothetical. You were casting that vote after seeing with your own two eyes what some of these people are capable of,” Meijer says. “If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?”

At one point, Meijer described to me the psychological forces at work in his party, the reasons so many Republicans have refused to confront the tragedy of January 6 and the nature of the ongoing threat. Some people are motivated by raw power, he said. Others have acted out of partisan spite, or ignorance, or warped perceptions of truth and lies. But the chief explanation, he said, is fear. People are afraid for their safety. They are afraid for their careers. Above all, they are afraid of fighting a losing battle in an empty foxhole.

[Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio)]: 

[Gonzalez] made clear that the strain had only grown worse since his impeachment vote, after which he was deluged with threats and feared for the safety of his wife and children.

Mr. Gonzalez said that quality-of-life issues had been paramount in his decision. He recounted an “eye-opening” moment this year: when he and his family were greeted at the Cleveland airport by two uniformed police officers, part of extra security precautions taken after the impeachment vote.

“That’s one of those moments where you say, ‘Is this really what I want for my family when they travel, to have my wife and kids escorted through the airport?’” he said.

[Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.):]

“If you look at the vote to impeach, for example, there were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives,” she told CNN in May. “And that tells you something about where we are as a country, that members of Congress aren’t able to cast votes, or feel that they can’t, because of their own security.”

Republican majority leader of the Pennsylvania state Senate, Kim Ward, was perhaps the bluntest of all:

Asked if she would have signed it [a letter urging the state’s congressional delegation to reject President Biden’s win], she indicated that the Republican base expected party leaders to back up Mr. Trump’s claims — or to face its wrath.

“If I would say to you, ‘I don’t want to do it,’” she said about signing the letter, “I’d get my house bombed tonight.”

Anonymous GOP members

A week after the Capitol riot, anonymous GOP lawmakers pointed to the threat of violence impacting both impeachment votes and decisions about whether to remain in Congress at all, according to The Hill’s Juliegrace Brufke:

“Yea — I think a lot of people are making political decisions here,” one member said when asked if threats of violence affected how members of the conference will vote. 

 

A second GOP lawmaker said they believe the threats could lead to an influx in retirement announcements, with some weighing whether remaining in Congress is worth the risk.

 “Without a doubt [it’s a factor]. Watch for a large number of members to resign early or not run again after this term,” the member said.

‘Trump’s made them think this is the Alamo’

One anonymous GOP member of Congress told Politico that those who voted against rejecting the election results in Congress were soon confronted by reality — and the threat of violence that accompanied it.

“Both parties have extremists,” the lawmaker said. “There’s a difference in our crazy people and their crazy people. Our crazy people have an excessive amount of arms. They have gun safes. They have grenades. They believe in the Second Amendment. They come here and Trump’s made them think this is the Alamo.”

The Trump allies’ own version of this

While these lawmakers have described specific instances in which lawmakers might well have voted or acted out of fear of violence, some Republican allies of Trump have also pointed in this general direction, albeit more gently. They’ve effectively argued that voting to impeach Trump would lead to more violence — suggesting it was a reason not to impeach.

During the impeachment debate, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said: “I really do believe that you pushing this is going to further divide our country, further the unrest, and possibly incite more violence.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) echoed the point, saying, that supporting Trump’s impeachment “under these circumstances will do great damage to the institutions of government and could invite further violence at a time the president is calling for calm.”

Questions:

1. Did republicans who voted to protect the ex-president out of fear just delusional or misinformed because there is no reason to fear because rank and file Republicans, who are merely peaceful, respectful law-abiding citizens that would never resort to violence against sitting politicians?

2. Are the ex-president’s allies, who routinely spew vicious, intentionally divisive dark free speech, right to argue that no one should vote to impeach him because it would lead to further division, unrest and/or violence? If so, should Democratic politicians, leaders and propagandists do the same to keep their party and politicians towing the line?