With Trump and his inner circle doing everything they possibly can to delegitimize the results of the election, the mainstream media finally admits Trump is attempting a coup!
Unfortunately, the authors of most of these articles fail to acknowledge that the ongoing coup attempt began at least as early as June when the Postal Service was sabotaged. The authors are quite late in pointing the coup out, since the judges Trump packed the courts with in preparation for the coup have backed out, and other key pieces Trump needed to pull off the coup (like sabotaging mail-in voting) have fallen through. Much of the momentum has already worn off and Trump missed the prime window of opportunity to pull the coup off. He and his inner circle of grifters are basically going at this alone.
If the Republican party had actually put their full weight behind carrying out this coup, these news articles would have been too little, too late.
(Also, the authors of the following news articles fail to acknowledge the self-coup Republicans successfully carried out early on in the Trump presidency. Retrospective analyses of the Trump administration need to be stressing this fact at every opportunity. Republicans in all 3 branches of government operated outside of the Constitution for the entire 4 years of the Trump administration, with minimal pushback from the Democrat party or media.)
***
Here are some news articles finally calling the coup out. As a disclaimer, I don't necessarily endorse the analysis in any of these articles. I am merely using them to give examples of how the media has waited 4 years before finally, decisively, and no-holds-barred calling Trump out for his crimes. A multitude of mainstream sources have FINALLY stopped whitewashing the grand crimes of the Republican administration, but they could have been 'telling it like it is' the entire time...
"Trump is attempting a coup in plain sighthttps://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/2020/11/7/21554114/trump-election-2020-voter-fraud-challenge-recount-biden
[...]
The corruption of the GOP will outlive Trump’s presidency
Members of the Trump family are explicitly, repeatedly, trying to make the acceptance of their conspiracies a litmus test for ambitious Republicans. And it is working. To read elected Republicans today — with a few notable exceptions, like Sen. Mitt Romney — is to read a careful, cowardly double-speak. Politician after politician is signaling, as Vice President Mike Pence did, solidarity with the president, while not quite endorsing his conspiracies. Of course every legal vote should be counted. Of course allegations of fraud should be addressed. But that is not what the president is demanding — he is demanding the votes against him be ruled illegal — and they know it."
"A Disturbing Number of Republicans Support Trump’s Coup Attempthttps://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/trump-election-coup-lindsey-graham-ron-desantis-fraud-vote.html
Last week, Axios reported an alarming but vaguely sourced story that “Republicans are talking more” about pressuring Republican state legislators to override the election results in their state and appoint pro-Trump representatives to the Electoral College. The next day, the New York Times identified the specific source of this terrifying idea: Donald Trump himself, who floated it in White House discussions.
[...]
But it’s because his effort is so feeble that the compliance of many Republicans is so striking. While supporting a coup that might come to fruition is tempting, supporting one that is certain to fail is not. Trump’s pathetic campaign to discredit the election is the easiest possible test of his party’s commitment to democracy. Remarkably, a number of prominent Republicans are failing it.
Influential Republican activists like Tom Fitton, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Ken Starr have all demanded state legislators override the election result. Politicians like Florida governor Ron DeSantis and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham have also signed on.
[..]
Trump’s attempted coup is going to fail because he hasn’t gotten the party fully onboard with it. It’s not hard for them to say no: Trump didn’t even begin to organize his scheme until it was too late, he has too many states to flip, and the alternative facing them — a moderate Democrat constrained by a right-wing court and a likely Republican Senate — is hardly scary.
One can only imagine how the party would respond in a slightly different world: a Republican presidency capable of organizing plans in advance, an election coming down to one or two states, a more unconstrained progressive Democratic administration as the alternative.
The popular Republican stance has been to indulge Trump’s lies while dismissing the danger he poses. “To launch a coup you need more than a giant, suppurating grievance and access to Twitter,” Wall Street Journal opinion columnist and former editor Gerard Baker scoffs. “You need a fanatical commitment, a detailed plan, an energy, a sophisticated apparatus of revolution.”
Not exactly. Those are the things one needs to carry out a coup. To merely launch a coup, you only need a party leader who refuses to abide by an election and recruits allies to cancel its result. That isn’t a fright story told by wild-eyed liberals. It’s what’s happening right now."
This article compares Trump's coup with a coup that happened in the city government of Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898. Wilmington had elected a multi-ethnic government, but White Supremacists formed an armed mob to run the "blacks" out of town and kill those who refused. I don't think this is the most helpful comparison, but at least this article calls out Trump's coup.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/what-the-trump-coup-and-wilmington-coup-have-in-common.html
"Trump's coup attempt is very real — luckily there are several gaping holes in the plan.https://www.salon.com/2020/11/10/trumps-coup-attempt-is-very-real--luckily-there-are-several-gaping-holes-in-the-plan_partner/
[...]
Before the election, Trump made his strategy clear. He repeatedly said he thought that the election would be decided by the Supreme Court, and he used this point as a justification for rushing through the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Now, his campaign is launching a series of lawsuits — which many serious legal analysts dismissed as frivolous and baseless — hoping that something will stick and enable him to remain president.
And while it initially seemed other Republicans might not stick by him in this fight, they increasingly fell in line. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham appeared on Fox News to support Trump's refusal to concede. On Monday, Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, both of whom face runoff races against Democrats in early January, wrote a letter demanding their own Republican secretary of state step down, lobbing vague and, again, unsupported allegations of misconduct in the state's election — which Biden appears to have won. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on the chamber's floor, defended Trump's refusal to concede and offered support for the president's effort to pursue lawsuits on Monday."
"The Real Threat of Trump’s Ridiculous Coup Attempt.
Republicans are extending their position that Democrats in power are illegitimate to suggest that Democrats voting shouldn’t count either.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/trump-coup-threat-republican-minority-rule.html
[...]
But more importantly, this is a piece of signaling from the party, which has come to believe that Democrats can never legitimately hold power, that they really mean it, and oh, they will gladly use the collected apparatus of the courts, Big Law, social media, state legislatures, the Justice Department, the media, assorted Trump hacks, the Republican National Committee, and Senate Republicans to make farcical claims about the need to throw out “tens of thousands of illegal ballots,” which, as best as I can tell, are only “illegal” because they have been cast by Democrats."
"Shame the Random, Unknown Government Officials Aiding Trump’s Coup Attempt.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/shame-government-officials-aiding-trump-coup.html
Republicans from Michigan, many of them low-level government officials, have spent the past week flirting with aiding Donald Trump’s coup attempt. On Tuesday, two Republican members of the board that certifies election results from the county that includes Detroit voted against certifying the county’s votes because they favored Joe Biden, leading the group to deadlock. Later that day, they changed their minds and certified the results. Then, after Trump contacted the two Republicans, they changed their minds again and asked to “rescind” their certification votes. It’s as absurd as it is alarming.
There’s also some coup action going on at the state level in Michigan. On Friday, the GOP leaders of the Michigan House and Senate met with Trump in D.C., presumably so the president could ask them to send Trump supporters to the Electoral College. The idea is that they would cast the state’s votes for Trump instead of Joe Biden, who won Michigan about 154,000 votes.
[...]
There has been some public discussion of what should become of the Trump administration’s enablers after Trump leaves office. Many have already been indicted; there may be many more to come. Some will be absorbed into think tanks, Big Law, consulting firms, and various squalid corners of the right-wing media universe. Some, like Stephen Miller, should never live down their crimes against humanity, and should find it difficult to take a spin class or patronize a brasserie in peace.
But the little people, like these Michigan Republicans—the statewide officials and local party hacks who are doing their darnedest to invalidate the votes of the Black Americans who overcame dogged voter suppression efforts to oust Donald Trump—shouldn’t fall through the cracks. They may have had no national profile, but they’ve sure earned one now. ...Let them be harangued as publicly and humiliatingly as possible until they certify the election results, and let their neighbors never forget how they chose to use their stupid turn in the limelight."
"So is President Trump staging a coup, or what?https://www.inquirer.com/columnists/attytood/trump-coup-william-barr-mitch-mcconnell-american-democracy-20201110.html
[...]
But I also think that Trump’s coup maneuvers needed to be taken both literally and seriously — by Team Biden and leading Democrats, and by everyday citizens — and must be forcefully resisted at every possible step. Esper, for his part, told the Military Times that if his replacement is “a real yes man” then “God help us.”"
"Trump, GOP’s ridiculous, flailing coup isn’t a joke. It’s a crime. There must be consequences.
[...]But it’s time now for all the laughter to die in outrage. Because we need to state in the clearest and most unambiguous terms what is happening in America in November 2020: The president of the United States is using the power of his office to try to overturn, by any means necessary, the fair and democratic election that will remove him from office. In a nation that stakes its claim to “exceptionalism” on 44 peaceful transfers of power (despite one that wasn’t) over 231 years, its current leader is attempting a coup.
It’s not a joke. It’s a crime. And there ought to be consequences — for Trump and his enablers, and to ensure this never happens again."
"‘Raise the alarm’: Experts warn of ‘sedition’ and ‘coup’ attempt as Michigan GOP leaders fly to DC to meet with Trump."https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/raise-the-alarm-experts-warn-of-sedition-and-coup-attempt-as-michigan-gop-leaders-fly-to-dc-to-meet-with-trump/
"Trump admits Michigan Republicans met to discuss coup.https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/11/21/michigan-congressmen-100-met-with-trump-to-discuss-doing-a-coup
On Friday, Michigan state Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield agreed to meet at the White House at President Donald Trump's behest, a move that was met with intense backlash.
Since losing the election, Trump has for weeks alleged widespread voter fraud in Michigan, a state he lost to Joe Biden by about 150,000 votes. He has not yet produced any evidence of this alleged fraud, but he and his supporters have pointed to typical and minor discrepancies with the vote tally in Detroit as proof that something must be amiss.
[...]
All available evidence points to Trump losing Michigan by a large margin. There is no evidence of fraud, and even if they don't describe it this way, Shirkey and Chatfield were meeting with Trump to discuss what can only be described as an attempted coup."
A law professor's analysis on the coup. (Although I'm not sure how multiple coup attempts which have been either supported or passively tolerated by the governing political party isn't in itself a Constitutional Crisis, as the author claims.)
"Yes, Trump Is (Still) Engaged in an Attempted Coup.https://verdict.justia.com/2020/11/19/yes-trump-is-still-engaged-in-an-attempted-coup-and-yes-it-might-lead-to-a-constitutional-crisis-and-a-breaking-point
[...]
There are many ways for national leaders to commit coups to try to hold onto power, and we should be clear that Trump has already tried and failed more than once to become a dictatorial strongman. In this column, I will first discuss what a coup is, then explain the ways that Trump has failed in his attempts thus far, and finally warn about how this could still end in a constitutional crisis that Trump creates and exploits to stay in power."
"Update on Trump’s Coup: Do Not Think That This Is Guaranteed to End Well.
What we are witnessing is not a “tantrum.” Donald Trump is not in denial, nor is he going through “a process” to make peace with losing the election. He is trying to do what he has clearly intended to do all along, which is to stay in office no matter what. He would have liked to have won the election fair and square, but he never had any intention not to engage in a coup d’état if necessary.
As frequent readers of Verdict are all too aware, I have been sounding the alarm about Trump’s existential threat to the continuation of American constitutional democracy and the rule of law since even before he was elected.
[...]
The people who mock left-leaning college students as “snowflakes” are suddenly the Kumbaya party, telling everyone not to worry that Trump has thrown the country into a constitutional crisis, because he merely needs to find some inner peace after a huge disappointment. Apparently, for some students to ask for extra time on an exam in response to the shock of yet another Black man being murdered by the police is laughable, but a 74-year-old man putting America’s national security at risk because he cannot yet admit that he lost a not-particularly-close election is simply an understandable response to a profound personal disappointment.
[...]
The Fight to Stop the Coup
Once Republicans start filing back on board Trump’s bandwagon, the current environment of bemused calm by everyone else is going to change. As it stands, people are pointing out that Trump’s legal challenges are all falling flat. Indeed, the only question from many of us is why it is so difficult for courts to sanction Trump’s lawyers for making frivolous arguments. Late-night comedians are having a field day with the amateurish efforts by those lawyers, especially Rudy Giuliani.
But those efforts might not continue to fail. Thus far, they have not found witnesses who are willing to lie under oath. But if (when?) potential perjurers receive corrupt promises of legal immunity, that might soon change. The county-level Republicans who have thus far done their jobs with integrity might soon decide that threats to themselves and their families make it not worth the fight.
And even if Trump cannot prove that there has been election fraud, he has tens of millions of people now believing a fantasy in which he rightly won the vote.
[...]
It is true that the Supreme Court would not be likely to weigh in, so long as the legal fight is over the current flurry of baseless suits from Trump’s lawyers. And those are not adding up to much. But the Court could be called upon to act on Trump’s behalf if the Republicans in key states decide to test the “legislatures-alone theory,” which would supposedly allow the Republican-dominated legislatures in key states simply to ignore their own voters and appoint Trump-committed electors to the Electoral College."
Finally, someone else links the packing of the Supreme Court and the coup:
"The Supreme Court Limbers Up to Aid and Abet Trump’s Coup."https://verdict.justia.com/2020/10/30/the-supreme-court-limbers-up-to-aid-and-abet-trumps-coup
Even non-American media outlets are calling this a coup:
"With Trump’s attempted coup underway, this is one card liberals can use to their advantage.
It is very important to understand that Donald Trump is engaged in an attempted coup, vile and brazen even for him."
[The second half of this article uses the US coup attempt to talk about how the UK Labour party should move to the right for some reason.]
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/us-election-results-trump-biden-mail-ballot-b1614164.html
***
Many other articles are more cautious and instead call it "sedition". This is incorrect, since sedition means conspiring to rebel against or otherwise subvert the authority of the government. Trump is the President. Republicans control the Senate and Supreme Court. Republicans control key parts of the state governments in battleground states like Georgia and Pennsylvania. They are the government. When a country's leader and governing political party undermine elections and transitions of power, that is called a coup.
Other articles take a very narrow position and are only willing to call out the attempts at election fraud. When a few rouge individuals do it, that is "mere" election fraud. When the President, in coordination with his political party in both the federal government and state governments, conspires to commit widespread election fraud to change the result of an election and prevent a transfer of power, that is a coup.
However, at least these articles are finally pointing the coup and other crimes out. That is better than some articles, which are trying to gaslight us into believing we haven't even been in a "Constitutional Crisis" for the past 5 years!! I predicted this sort of gaslighting would happen, but I didn't think it would happen while Trump was still in office and actively disputing the election and peddling conspiracies!
Any news outlets and journalists which are attempting to tell us a coup is not occurring are aiding and abetting Trump's coup attempt. We must never forget that. They (which includes liberal-leaning outlets) already helped put Trump in office by legitimizing his candidacy in 2016, since he was given 24/7 free air time and far more coverage than any other candidate.
***
How the coup attempt has been unfolding
Although the courts, military, and large portions of Republican Congress members don't seem willing to push the coup forward, Trump's inner circle of grifters keep moving ahead. The following is just a few tidbits of what has been unfolding:
On the morning of November 5, Trump Tweets "STOP THE COUNT!"
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324353932022480896
On the evening of November 5, Philadelphia police foiled a far-right terrorist plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center where votes were being counted.
https://6abc.com/amp/pennsylvania-convention-center-attack-plot-pa-election-2020/7689932/
"Police said the men, who did not have valid Pennsylvania firearms licenses, would be charged with firearms offenses. They were set to be arraigned. It was not immediately clear if they had retained lawyers who could comment on their behalf.
The men may also face election law violations, according to officials.
[...]
Krasner said there were some QAnon stickers on the car and that a hat with a QAnon logo was visible inside the vehicle. QAnon is a conspiracy theory that posits President Donald Trump is leading a secret war against a group of political and Hollywood elites who worship Satan and abuse and murder children."
"‘Backbone of the #MAGA Movement’: Armed Man Busted Near Philly Vote Center Is ‘Vets for Trump’ Founder"https://www.thedailybeast.com/armed-man-busted-near-philly-vote-center-site-is-joshua-macias-vets-for-trump-founder
November 6:
"Evacuations were underway in Philadelphia on Friday afternoon after bomb threats were called into an area close to the Convention Center where ballot counting is taking place.
[...]
A tip came in that an individual or a group was travelling to the city from Virginia in a Hummer with the intention of attacking the election location.
A man was taken into custody and a weapon recovered. It is unclear whether the two incidents are connected."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/philadelphia-bomb-threat-us-election-pennsylvania-vote-count-b1649814.html
November 6: "Fmr. CIA director is worried Trump will fuel the anger of his base and encourage them to take matters into their own hands."
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/fmr-cia-director-is-worried-trump-will-fuel-the-anger-of-his-base-and-encourage-them-to-take-matters-into-their-own-hands-95481925899
Evening of November 5: "Citing zero evidence, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls on Attorney General Bill Barr to send federal agents to arrest election workers in Pennsylvania." (Gingrich is one of the masterminds who led to politics becoming as polarized and tribalistic as it currently is).
https://www.businessinsider.com/newt-gingrich-asks-attorney-general-bill-barr-arrest-poll-workers-2020-11
https://www.thedailybeast.com/newt-gingrich-calls-on-attorney-general-bill-barr-to-arrest-poll-workers
November 6, Trump claims all votes which gave Biden an advantage were illegal:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1324613181466173440
The Trump administration has filed dozens of lawsuits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Only about two of these have been ruled in favor of Trump's lawyers.
https://time.com/5908505/trump-lawsuits-biden-wins/
On November 10, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "joked" that the coup was still in progress, saying there would be a "smooth transition to a second Trump administration".
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/pompeo-trump-run-2024-election-inauguration-b1720645.html
On November 13, Trump supporters chanted "four more years" at a speech Vice President Pence was giving. Pence responded by saying "that's the plan."
https://www.businessinsider.com/pence-trump-to-be-in-place-for-4-more-years-2020-11
Video of Sidney Powell, a Trump campaign lawyer, posted on the official Republican Party Twitter account on November 19:
"We will not be intimidated...We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom."—Sidney Powellhttps://twitter.com/gop/status/1329490975266398210?s=21
Despite being promoted on the Republican party's official Twitter and listed by Trump as one of his campaign's legal team, just 3 days later Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani released a statement distancing the Trump campaign from her. This news article quotes a campaign official as saying, “She was too crazy even for the president.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/22/giuliani-releases-statement-distancing-trump-campaign-lawyer-sidney-powell/
Trump supporters in Georgia are mad the Republican party is not supporting Trump's coup, and allegedly pledge to boycott the Georgia Senate election, just to spite the Republican party so they will lose control of the Senate..?
https://www.newsweek.com/georgia-trump-supporters-destroy-gop-boycott-senate-runoffs-1549245
If you've ever looked at the places where Trump supporters hang out, they frequently encourage each other to lie to pollsters and the media so they underestimate the number of Trump supporters. I think it is more likely that this "boycott" is actually a psyop to (1) make Democrats overconfident so they don't work as hard to win, (2) make the non-Trumpists in the Republican party scared and make concessions to the Trumpists, and (3) give an excuse to claim the result of the Senate runoff election isn't valid since it was boycotted.
These are the types of people who still think Hillary Clinton is engaged in some global conspiracy 4 years after she lost the election. These people think the Democrat party elite literally eat babies (look it up). They aren't going to sit this critical Senate runoff election out and risk Democrats gaining control of the Senate.
On the other hand, maybe it is not a psyop. Maybe they really are going all-in to force their party to follow through with the coup? Afterall, Trump appealed to many voters who knew he was a "chaos candidate" and wanted him to tear down the old order of politics; why would they care if the Republican party gets obliterated when Trump is gone?
"Attorney L. Lin Wood, who has been filing lawsuits for President Donald Trump challenging the election results, called on Republicans to withhold their votes for two GOP senators in an upcoming runoff election that will decide which party holds the majority of the Senate, Mediaite reports.https://www.newsmax.com/politics/georgia-election-loeffler-perdue/2020/11/23/id/998342/
In a series of weekend tweets, Wood asked Georgians not to vote for Republican Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue unless they help overturn the election results in the state."
(Regardless of what is going on within the Republican party, every single person who is sick of Trump and the Republicans who aided and abetted all his crimes need to support the Democrat candidates in the Georgia Senate runoff election, which ends on January 5, 2021. Georgia citizens can still register until December 7, which includes anyone turning 18 by January 5. If both Democrat candidates win the Senate election in Georgia, the Senate will be split 50-50, with the Vice President casting a tiebreaker vote. If not, the Republicans, under the iron fist of Mitch McConnell, will very likely continue to keep our nation in a state of Constitutional Crisis for as long as possible.)
November 19: it was announced top Michigan state lawmakers would meet with Trump to discuss the results of the election.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-invites-michigan-gop-white-house-6ab95edd3373ecc9607381175d6f3328
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/11/michigan-trump-steal/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/michigan-gop-lawmakers-heckled-arrival-white-house-meeting-n1248396
On November 19, Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed there were 300,000 illegitimate votes in Wayne County, Michigan, where Detroit is located.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/19/rudy-giuliani-targets-wayne-county-raising-claims-judge-found-not-credible/6341765002/
Michigan citizens have been fighting back, filing a lawsuit against the Trump campaign for their attempted voter suppression:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/20/michigan-black-voters-lawsuit-438935
***
I'm putting this in a separate section because it is one of the highest profile crimes going on to support Trump's coup at the moment:
November 16:
"Georgia’s secretary of state says fellow Republicans are pressuring him to find ways to exclude legal ballots.https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/brad-raffensperger-georgia-vote/2020/11/16/6b6cb2f4-283e-11eb-8fa2-06e7cbb145c0_story.html
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that he has come under increasing pressure in recent days from fellow Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who he said questioned the validity of legally cast absentee ballots, in an effort to reverse President Trump’s narrow loss in the state.
[...]
Raffensperger said he was stunned that Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to toss legally cast ballots. Absent court intervention, Raffensperger doesn’t have the power to do what Graham suggested because counties administer elections in Georgia.
“It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” Raffensperger said."
With this story, the mainstream media has affirmatively stated Lindsey Graham has committed election fraud. Finally, telling it as it is and pointing out the criminals with no "maybes" or "possibly-s"!
"Lindsey Graham’s Alleged Attempt to Toss Georgia Ballots Is Felony Election Fraud. If he weren’t a senator, Graham might be facing years in prison, according to legal experts in Georgia.https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/11/lindsey-graham-brad-raffensperger-georgia-election-fraud.html
Since narrowly losing Georgia to Joe Biden, President Donald Trump has promoted baseless claims of voter fraud in a desperate effort to overturn the results of the election. So far, however, the only individual credibly accused of a fraudulent effort to steal the election is South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. On Monday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger—who, like Graham, is a Republican—told the Washington Post that Graham asked him if he could throw out all mail ballots from counties with a high rate of signature mismatch. Raffensperger later clarified that he believed Graham wanted his office to throw out valid, legally cast ballots. The senator has contested this account.
Graham’s alleged request is unseemly and corrupt. But is it criminal? In short, yes, according to multiple Georgia election law experts. If Raffensperger’s account is true, there is virtually no doubt that Graham committed a crime under Georgia law.
[...]
Republicans are not always so lenient toward those accused of election-related crimes. In 2012, a GOP district attorney charged Olivia Pearson, a Black woman, with voter fraud after she helped someone use a voting machine. She was acquitted after two trials, avoiding a five-year prison sentence. In October, she was arrested again for trying to help someone else cast their vote. State officials have also launched an ongoing investigation into voter fraud with the intention of prosecuting individuals who made mistakes that did not affect the outcome of any election. Graham’s phone call with Raffensperger might seem like a relatively minor offense. But if he weren’t a white Republican senator, he may well be facing years in prison."
From the beginning of the Trump presidency, many have speculated that Graham's strange change of heart--going from saying Trump would destroy the Republican party and that the party would deserve it, to licking Trump's boots at every turn--was from blackmail or something personally damaging. Afterall, how do you explain why someone who once said Joe Biden is "as good a man as God ever created" and the Republican party will get destroyed, and deserve it, for supporting Trump, is now helping Trump commit fraud in some state he has nothing to do with? If Graham simply stood up and said "No" to whoever is pressuring him, surely the fallout would be no where near as bad as literally helping to destroy our nation?
Of course, Republicans have been pressuring Raffensperger long before Graham got involved:
"Raffensperger, a Republican, declined an offer in January to serve as an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Georgia, according to emails reviewed by ProPublica. He later rejected GOP requests to support Trump publicly, he and his staff said in interviews. Raffensperger said he believed that, because he was overseeing the election, it would be a conflict of interest for him to take sides. Around the country, most secretaries of state remain officially neutral in elections.https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-campaign-officials-started-pressuring-georgias-secretary-of-state-long-before-the-election
The attacks on his job performance are “clear retaliation,” Raffensperger said. “They thought Georgia was a layup shot Republican win. It is not the job of the secretary of state’s office to deliver a win — it is the sole responsibility of the Georgia Republican Party to get out the vote and get its voters to the polls. That is not the job of the secretary of state’s office.”"
Georgia has been an epicenter of election fraud. In 2018, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp was running for governor. Kemp's office oversaw voter registration, and cancelled the registration of 340,000 citizens. I don't think I need to explain how it is a conflict of interest for someone to control the voter rolls in an election they are running in! (Spoiler alert, Kemp won, but his challenger, Stacey Abrams, was instrumental in turning Georgia blue in the 2020 election.)
Going back to Lindsey Graham, he has openly said voters need to be disenfranchised in order for the Republican party to continue to win:
"In a Monday night appearance on Fox News, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said the quiet part out loud—twice.https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/10/lindsey-graham-admits-making-voting-more-accessible-renders-gop-victories-impossible
First, he attempted to delegitimize the results of the 2020 election, accusing the Democratic Party of cheating to win—by making voting more accessible through mail-in ballots—and second, he admitted that improving the quality of democracy in the United States would render future GOP victories all but impossible.
"Republicans win because of our ideas and we lose elections because [Democrats] cheat," Graham told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
[...]
Later in his remarks, Graham claimed that "if we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country.""
***
While Graham and other Republicans have been pursuing the coup through government institutions, others have been advocating for more direct and violent means.
Trump's former top advisor Steve Bannon was banned from Twitter after advocating government officials be beheaded and their heads placed on pikes, as well as hinting at civil war. (Remember this any time Bannon or people like him try to call Muslims or "non-whites" barbaric...)
Perhaps Bannon is just trying to save himself from obscurity by catching headlines, but recall he used to be Trump's former top advisor. In fact, in the first days of the Trump presidency, Bannon's influence was so strong that people used to call him "President Bannon". The man who used to write Trump's policies is now advocating for the barbaric execution of government officials who would rather do their jobs and remain loyal to America than "get in line" and support anti-American behaviors of a wannabe mafia boss.
"Twitter banned an account used by former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray on his podcast Thursday.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/twitter-bans-a-bannon-account-after-he-says-behead-fauci-and-wray/ar-BB1aKsH4
[...]
As of Thursday evening, Bannon's account was still active on Facebook, where the video calling for Fauci and Wray to be executed had been viewed nearly 200,000 times in ten hours. Late Thursday, Facebook said it had removed videos of Bannon's remarks for violating its policy on violence and incitement.
[...]
On the Bannon podcast, the right-wing provocateur said a second Trump term "kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci.
"Now I actually want to go a step farther but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man. I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I'd put the heads on pikes, right. I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: 'You either get with the program or you're gone -- time to stop playing games.' Blow it all up, put (Trump campaign adviser, former acting Director of National Intelligence and ex-U.S. Ambassador to Germany) Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI. That'll light them up, right."
[...]
Co-host Jack Maxey said, "You know what Steve? Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors."
Bannon replied, "That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war."
Perhaps echoing Bannon's calls to violence, Giuliani said someone needs to cut the head of the Democrat party. This metaphor probably wouldn't be cause for concern if it were not for all the other blatant and thinly-shrouded calls for violence that Republicans have made over the past few years...
https://www.businessinsider.com/rudy-giuliani-fox-news-cut-head-off-democrats-trump-biden-2020-11
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1329615303169466370
Even a former CIA Director has warned this sort of rhetoric will lead to violence perpetrated by riled-up Trump supporters. So we should not take this lightly.
Indeed, Trump's constant flirting with far-right groups already facilitated a foiled terrorist plot to kill the Michigan governor a month ago!!!
***
Trump's last attempt to carry out the coup without beginning a military-backed coup (they won't support him) or starting a literal civil war is to convince state governments to disregard Biden's popular vote victory and appoint pro-Trump electoral college voters anyway. This is explained briefly in the following article. Although the outcome of the election is clear, the electoral college does not officially confirm the new president until mid-December.
"The Trump Campaign Is Reportedly Plotting an Election Coup to “Bypass” a Biden Win"https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/09/trump-campaign-election-coup-bypass-biden-win
***
I doubt Trump will actually try to start a civil war to stay in power, but far-right violence is only going to increase in the days leading up to the change of administrations. About 50% of Republicans believe Trump's alternative facts that he actually won the election! Seriously. Even if Trump leaves quietly, many of those people own guns and are not going to simply accept the change of administrations.
This isn't the biggest problem, however. The thing is, although Trump may not have enough internal support within his party for them to fully back his coup attempt, you better believe they are going to analyze this as a dry run and fine-tune things for the day when their party gets a competent and mentally-stable version of Trump...
(Some in the mainstream media are already recognizing this as well!)
Republicans had everything they needed to pull off the coup if they genuinely desired to:
• A packed Supreme Court and lower courts (with a crony confirmed to the Supreme Court after 60 million Americans had already voted, 8 days before the end of the election!). Recall that the Supreme Court was already used to give George W. Bush the presidency in 2000 (if all votes were counted he would have lost!)
• An Attorney General willing to cover-up all the administration's crimes.
• The ability to drop an "October Surprise" on the Democrats to tip the tide of public opinion at the last moment. (Attorney General Barr was tasked with trumping up such a Surprise with his "investigate the investigators" witch hunt, but, unlike Comey in the 2016 election, he did not drop an October Surprise).
• A Senate which will prevent the removal of the President, no matter the evidence of his crimes.
• A Senate which will allow any unqualified crony they want into the courts and Executive branch agency positions.
• A sabotaged Postal Service which could have resulted in an electoral vote tie or Trump victory if Trump had his way and prevented mail-in votes from being counted!!!
• In the event of an electoral college tie, each state delegation in the House of Representatives would cast a vote for President. Since there are more "red" states, Trump would have won the tie.
• They control enough state legislatures to bypass the election results and directly appoint electors. (This is still a threat, and they are continuing to keep this option on the table).
• Extremely successful propaganda on news media and social media to sway public opinion. (Fox News was started by Republicans on the belief that a strong right-wing media could have swayed public opinion enough that Nixon wouldn't have had to resign. They've been so successful that Trump was able to commit treason with Russia and his approval rate hasn't dropped. They've been so successful at Big Lie tactics that they've literally convinced people to believe "alternative facts" and countless other Orwellian attitudes!!!)
• Hundreds of thousands, and potentially millions, of zealously dedicated armed followers ready to "stand by" and start a civil war if Trump gave the signal.
The only thing Republicans didn't have this time was the military, although we may imagine enough Generals, officers, and enlisted troops would support a mentally-competent Republican leader in this situation in the future to cause serious chaos.
***
If the Biden administration does not carry out a Crimes Commission to hold every last person in the Trump administration accountable for their crimes, everything the Trump administration did will have been legalized. Republicans will commit more self-coups whenever they control the Presidency and Senate, and will organize more coup attempts to seize the Presidency.
This is the pivotal political moment of our lifetime. Comparable to the chance to rid ourselves of the political tyranny and corruption of the British during the Revolution, the chance to rid ourselves of racist tyranny and corruption during Reconstruction, and the chance to rid ourselves of both political and racist corruption during the Civil Rights Movement and Counterculture. Reconstruction utterly failed and it took an entire lifetime to get a second chance with the Civil Rights Movement. Rooting out political corruption during the 1960s-70s failed (see the section in my article outlining the unbroken legacy of corruption from Nixon to the present).
Today, we are presented with a second chance to root out this corruption and cut out the cancerous tumor that is destroying America. We may not get a third chance.
*****
_________
Update 11/30: more articles. Every time someone in the media publishes an article trying to gaslight us into believing this wasn't a big deal or never happened, they are actively helping Trump control the narrative and paving the way for Republicans to try coups again in the future. For the past 5 years Trump has been able to control the narrative and push the Overton Window to such a degree that political views which were once considered mentally-unstable fringe views are now mainstream right-wing positions among elected Republican politicians. Month after month Republicans have shocked us by committing acts of corruption so unthinkable that not even the most "outrageous" liberal predictions of 2016 have come close to the reality that has unfolded in the years which followed. Trump has achieved all of this by turning to extreme hyperbole and incessantly pushing his rhetoric until even liberal-leaning media outlets were using his talking points.
We need to acknowledge the insanity that has been happening and not fear that we're being hyperbolic when we point out the plain facts of the nation's most corrupt, criminal, and treasonous administration. Anyone who doesn't is merely helping Trump do damage control. Trump's spokespeople literally coined the term "alternative facts"!!! They've pushed us so far into an alternate reality that even countless liberal-leaning people are afraid to admit real facts, since saying the plain truth has nearly been pushed outside of the Overton Window... Insanity.
November 25:
"Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt: ‘We’ve entered the corrupt pardon phase of the Trump coup’"https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/steve-schmidt-we-ve-entered-the-corrupt-pardon-phase-of-the-trump-coup-96633925837
Remember that the Lincoln Project is made up of mainstream pre-Trump Republicans, many of whom worked for George Bush, Rudy Giuliani (before he became a Trumpist), the Republican party during the Clinton impeachment, John McCain, etc. So now both mainstream non-Trump conservatives and liberals are calling Trump's actions a coup attempt. At this point, anyone who tells us Trump is not attempting a coup is gaslighting us and actively aiding and abetting his coup attempt. I cannot stress this enough. Look up who the founders of the Lincoln Project are. They are not "progressive" liberals and they are not even conservative Democrats. They are rank and file pre-Trump Republicans.
November 29, the mainstream media says exactly what I have said already:
"Donald Trump's coup was still ongoing when the takes preaching the value of forgiveness and letting bygones be bygones started to come out.https://www.salon.com/2020/11/29/forget-about-moving-on-from-trump--the-nation-cant-heal-without-accountability/
...
Unfortunately, Biden is living up to every stereotype of the quisling Democrat and taking this advice seriously. Reports suggest that in the interest of national "unity," Biden is discouraging the idea of prosecuting Trump.
...
This pattern — Republicans screw everything up and are allowed to get away with it in the name of "unity," and take that as permission to go even further the next time — has been playing out since Richard Nixon first snagged his post-Watergate pardon.
...
But can a wound really heal when one party is busy applying bandages, while the other lurks in waiting, ready to stab the victim again? Of course not. And that's the problem we're facing. The "unity" isn't unity at all. It's a fake unity in which one side — the side that did not cause the damage wrought by Trump or Bush or Reagan or Nixon — does all the work, while the other side keeps looking for new opportunities to cause trouble. If anything, conservatives grows ever bolder in their corruption, realizing they will never face consequences for their actions, and in fact can count on the left to clean up all their messes for them."
(If Biden does not pursue a Crimes Commission to root out all the corruption in our government, he will be legalizing all Trump's crimes and thus complicit in the self-coup Republicans have successfully carried out over the past 4 years.)
November 18:
"Trump’s coup might not work. But he may pave the way for the next failed candidate.https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-coup-might-not-work-but-he-may-pave-the-way-for-the-next-failed-candidate/2020/11/18/418ca536-29d6-11eb-92b7-6ef17b3fe3b4_story.html
[...]
Having lost the election, and a string of attempts to challenge vote counts, he demanded on Wednesday that state officials simply refuse to certify the results. The end game, according to Trump campaign legal adviser Jenna Ellis, is to enable Republican state lawmakers in a swing state such as Michigan to award their state’s electoral college delegates to Mr. Trump despite President-elect Joe Biden’s unassailable vote margins.
The Post’s Robert Costa reports that Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, is also talking up what would amount to a coup. He knows that his desultory lawsuits will not succeed, but calculates that if enough states are prevented from certifying their votes by legal deadlines, the election could be thrown into Congress, which might hand the presidency to Mr. Trump — again, against the will of the voters.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump demonstrated Tuesday that he will retaliate against those who fail to read from his corrupt script by firing Christopher Krebs, the Department of Homeland Security election security boss who publicly refuted the president’s unfounded allegations that voting systems were manipulated.
[...]
Mr. Trump’s coup might not work this time. But he, Mr. Graham, Mr. McConnell and far too many others may be softening the ground for the next failed candidate who has no scruples about torching American democracy."
November 21:
"The Danger (and Ineptitude) of Trump’s Failed Coup.https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-danger-and-ineptitude-of-trump-e2-80-99s-failed-coup/ar-BB1beweq
[...]
Some may have dismissed this as mere hyperventilated campaign rhetoric. But in the days that followed the election, Trump fulfilled the stark prophecies. He has seized whatever powers he still has in his grasp to rattle the system and to take vengeance against his successor by leaving him with a ruin.
Trump has attempted to retain power much as he wielded it throughout his term: with a comic ineptitude of his means that made it difficult to absorb the seriousness of his ends. If you had predicted four years ago that Trump would finish his term by proposing to cancel the election and reinstall himself in a second term, you’d have been brushed off as a hysteric. And yet here he is attempting to do just that and recruiting Republican allies to his mad scheme. The certainty of his failure does not make the damage caused by the coup effort disappear. It simply makes it harder to see clearly.
[...]
To lead his attempted coup, Trump has turned once again to Rudy Giuliani. Just weeks before, Giuliani — who is the subject of a criminal investigation for his efforts to shake down Ukraine while working for Trump and who was colluding publicly with a man identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Russian spy — had produced what he called “evidence” of a global criminal plot by Joe Biden and his family.
[...]
The purpose of this spectacle was not so much to lay out a legal claim as to create a political pretext for Trump’s allies to cancel the election results. A senior Trump-campaign official explained to Reuters that its strategy was “to cast enough doubt on vote counting in big Democratic cities that Republican lawmakers will have little choice but to intercede,” lest they face “backlash” from voters in Republican districts.
Under this plan, Republicans would use their control of legislatures in key states, heavily gerrymandered to a level that renders them almost impervious to voter backlash, to refuse to certify election results and then appoint Trump delegates to the Electoral College. The scheme would amount to nothing short of a coup. Indeed, Trump’s supporters barely disguised their aims. “The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states, should be overturned, and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump,” urged Powell on Fox Business. Here was the president’s lawyer openly calling to “overturn” a federal election.
This idea has drawn public encouragement from an influential array of conservative media personalities (Tom Fitton, Kenneth Starr, Mark Levin) and mainstream Republican politicians (Lindsey Graham and Ron DeSantis). A handful of prominent Republicans has denounced Trump’s attempted coup. The majority has followed a calculus explained crassly by one senior Republican official to the Washington Post: “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change.”
Even celebrities are saying it:
"Whoopi Goldberg calls Trump a wannabe dictator and berates him for ‘attempted coup’https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/see-it-whoopi-goldberg-calls-trump-a-wannabe-dictator-and-berates-him-for-e2-80-98attempted-coup-e2-80-99/ar-BB1bi6Nm
[...]
“This is an attempted coup,” she said on “The View,” where she’s a co-host. “This is what dictators do when they want to take a country away from its people.”"
November 30:
"A member of the Proud Boys threatened an armed revolt during a "Stop the Steal" rally in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday as President Donald Trump continues to push unverified claims of widespread voter fraud in an attempt to reverse his election defeat.
[...]
Speaking at the rally in Phoenix, Arizona—taking place outside of where Rudy Giuliani was meeting with GOP lawmakers to cast doubt on Trump's loss in the state—one member told the crowd, "It is the moment that we've got to fight back."https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-member-threatens-armed-revolt-outside-giuliani-meeting-not-going-stand-back-stand-1551261
"At the moment, we're free. But the moment they start trying to take our Constitution is the moment the Second Amendment kicks in," he said. "It's the moment where we've got to start telling them, we're not taking it anymore.
"We're not going to 'stand back and stand by' anymore. We're standing up and going after you if you come after us," the man added."
Recall that at the presidential debate on September 29, instead of condemning White Supremacists, Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by." Now more and more are itching for an armed uprising, whether Trump gives the signal or not...
Already the media is publishing retrospective looks at the Trump coup attempt. But, again, the danger isn't over until January 20th. Neither Trump nor his supporters have stepped down from their efforts. The electoral college hasn't officially met yet, and far-right militias are itching for an insurrection...
"Trump's coup failed – but US democracy has been given a scarehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/25/trumps-coup-failed-but-us-democracy-has-been-given-a-scare
The president pulled every lever to stay in power. It didn’t work, but how would the US handle a closer election?
[...]
Trump made no secret of his gameplan even before the election, and it has come into sharper focus with every madcap day since: cast doubt on the reliability of postal ballots, claim victory on election night before most of them were counted, and then sow enough confusion with allegations, justice department investigations and street mayhem with far-right militias to delay certification of the results.
Such a delay would create an opportunity for Republican-run state legislatures to step in and select their own electors to send to the electoral college, which formally decides who becomes president. That would produce a constitutional crisis that would ultimately be settled by the supreme court, which has a 6-3 Republican majority and has become increasingly politicised.For the plan to work it required political fealty to trump actual votes but, at several crucial decision points, that did not happen.
The key ingredient for a classic coup – a politically motivated military – was absent from the start, though not for want of Trump’s efforts. He tried to bring active duty troops on to the streets to quell the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer, but the defence secretary, Mark Esper, refused to cooperate.
After Esper was fired in the wake of the election, and Trump loyalists were installed in senior decision-making positions, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, used a planned public appearance at the dedication of an army museum to send a pointed message.
[...]
The next lever of power that Trump tried to yank was the justice department and the FBI. The attorney general, William Barr, authorised US attorneys to conduct investigations into alleged voter fraud if there are “clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities”.
The opening of such investigations would have supercharged conspiracy theories and given more cover for state-level Republicans to delay certification of the votes. But justice department prosecutors rebelled. The official in charge of investigating electoral crimes, Richard Pilger, resigned and others made their objections public.
[...]
The next line of defence was state-level Republican officials involved in the machinery of certifying results. They came under intense pressure, including in a couple of cases a direct call from the president. In some cases, notably in Michigan, they buckled, but in most states they held firm, as in the case of the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, who confirmed Biden’s slim majority of victory and consequently became a pariah in his own party.
[...]
It is possible more competent plotters could have done more damage. Trump appears to have left it until after the election to assemble a legal team, and ultimately handed control to his fiercely loyal, but erratic and hapless personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Ultimately Biden’s margin of victory (over 6 million nationwide and tens of thousands in most of the battlegrounds) was so clear, and evidence of fraud so slight, that even with better lawyers, the legal channel would have been near impossible.
But the 2020 experience has raised concerns about how US democracy would weather a closer election, and a more disciplined group determined to wield the power of the state to steal it. The militias, who were not coordinated enough to emerge as the intimidatory force Trump hoped for, could be stronger on the next occasion.
“President Trump’s rhetoric appealing to these groups has been dangerous from day one of his campaign, giving these groups tacit support for their illegal activities. And the lacklustre law enforcement response to public violence committed by these groups has exacerbated that problem,” said Michael German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice and who as an FBI special agent was tasked with infiltrating extremist groups. “Their ability to organise and recruit and test tactics and networks has been strengthened. So once there is an effort to police them, they will be much more difficult a problem.”"
The article above mentions one of the key ingredients Trump did not have was support from the military. The danger of Trumpists who have been elevated to high-ranking military positions is not going to go away any time soon, and many are concerned:
"Retired Navy Admiral Michael Mullen—who was appointed as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by former President George W. Bush—said he is "very concerned" about things "Trump loyalists" in the Pentagon could do during the transition from President Donald Trump to President-elect Joe Biden.https://www.newsweek.com/retired-admiral-says-hes-very-concerned-about-trump-loyalists-pentagon-during-biden-transition-1551018
...
"I think I'm actually very concerned about the Trump loyalists who have now gone to work in the Pentagon," Mullen warned during an interview with NBC News' Meet the Press. "I mean, recently, Secretary [of Defense Mark] Esper was fired, and a host of other people left the building. And there are some real Trump loyalists there now in charge and it's pretty difficult to think that over the course of 50 or 60 days you can do something constructive, but you can do something that's really destructive,""
November 30: Adding to Bannon and Giuliani's previous calls for non-Trump supporters to murdered, one of the lawyers on Trump's campaign team called for the summary execution of former Director of the Cybersecurity Chris Krebs. Krebs obtained this position in 2017, under Trump, and was fired on November 12, 2020 for stating that the election was secure and debunking Trump's conspiracy theories regarding the election.
"Trump Lawyer: DHS Whistleblower Should Be Executed.https://thebulwark.com/trump-lawyer-dhs-whistleblower-should-be-executed/
During Newsmax call-in Joe diGenova said Chris Krebs should be put to death.
[...]
DiGenova, appearing on the Howie Carr show, which simulcasts on Newsmax, took aim at Krebs as an aside during a wheels-off segment full of false claims about how the United States election had been rigged.
“Anybody who thinks the election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.
This is not just a random Parler troll trying to get attention. This is an attorney speaking on behalf of the President of the United States’ re-election campaign. And while it may read like a macabre joke, the direct nature of diGenova’s comments make it impossible to interpret as anything other than a real wish/threat against a public servant for offering truthful testimony."
On November 26, Trump said he'll leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for Biden. This has been the first time Trump publicly hinted that he will accept the results of the election. However, the very next day, Trump continued his rants about how the election was fraudulent. It looks like the coup attempt won't be called off any time soon.
"the 2020 Election was a total scam, we won by a lot (and will hopefully turn over the fraudulent result)"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1332337895584264197
"Biden can only enter the White House as President if he can prove that his ridiculous “80,000,000 votes” were not fraudulently or illegally obtained. When you see what happened in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia & Milwaukee, massive voter fraud, he’s got a big unsolvable problem!"https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1332352538855747584
According to Marc Elias, who is on Biden's legal team, Trump has so far had 39 losses in court and only 1 ruling in his favor (he used to have 2, but 1 got overturned).
November 29:
"Mr Trump claimed, without providing any evidence, that some states allowed voters to turn in ballots after Election Day; that vote-counting machines were rigged to favour Mr Biden; and even that the FBI, the Justice Department and the federal court system were complicit in an attempt to cover up election fraud."https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-interview-fox-bartiromo-election-fraud-b1763535.html
"“My mind will not change in six months,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo by telephone on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” “There was tremendous cheating here.”https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/my-mind-will-not-change-in-six-months-in-first-post-election-tv-interview-trump-renews-baseless-claims-of-voter-fraud/2020/11/29/5068b4e4-3261-11eb-b59c-adb7153d10c2_story.html
...
In the Sunday interview, Trump said he is “going to use 125 percent of my energy” to continue to contest the results through the courts and signaled that he would be open to having a special counsel investigate the election. Any such appointment would be made by Attorney General William P. Barr."
(Translation: Trump is mad the FBI, Justice Department, and federal courts are not backing him in his coup attempt.)
This situation is not normal and not to be taken lightly. Trump isn't merely being a "sore loser" like this is some amateur league sports game. This is the kind of behavior that occurs in coup attempts. Trump isn't a baby whining and crying. He is a senile old man who is attempting a coup in the nation in control of the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal. Any media outlet or journalist who isn't treating this situation with the gravity that it deserves is actively aiding and abetting Trump's coup attempt via gaslighting us.
***
November 26:
"Trump: Georgia Sec. of State Raffensperger is an 'enemy of the people'"https://news.yahoo.com/trump-georgia-sec-state-raffensperger-235627574.html
Raffensperger said he and his family voted for Trump and now they are shocked he is turning on them. While I am glad Raffensperger is not helping Trump commit a coup, he has reaped what he sowed by voting for someone who was known to be a selfish wannabe mob boss at the time of the election.
_________
Update 12/7
Every day, things reach a new level of unthinkable. This will be the "new normal" until we can admit this was a 100% real coup attempt (and not just hyperbolic rhetoric) and until we rid our nation of this unspeakable corruption by pursuing criminal charges against every. single. person. involved.
Former Trump National Security Advisor, General Michael Flynn, was pardoned on November 25, 2020 by Trump. Flynn was convicted for lying to the FBI about his collusion with Russian government officials. Despite pleading guilty for his crimes, Trump pardoned him in the final days of his presidency. Now, less than 1 week after he was pardoned, he is calling for Trump to impose martial law and hold "new" elections.
"It Seems Bad That the Guy the President Just Pardoned Is Calling for Him to Execute a Military Coup.https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a34846863/michael-flynn-trump-military-coup-suspend-constitution/
Many of the high clergy in the Church of the Savvy have been calmly explaining for weeks that although Donald Trump's brazen and pathetic post-election behavior is corrosive to democracy, it does not technically count as a coup attempt. The president's myriad lawsuits attempting to throw out the results of democratic elections have not worked, these folks explain, therefore they were never going to work (Logic), and concern about them working—on the basis that no Law or Norm has much mattered for four years—was hysteria. This is too stupid to be a coup! It's just a grift, because these things are mutually exclusive. And besides, a coup involves using the military or the security apparatus to seize power. He's just getting laughed out of court.
Welp, now his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, a man the president pardoned just last week for "any and all possible offenses" related to the Mueller probe, has endorsed a call for the president to "temporarily suspend the Constitution," "declare limited martial law," have "the military oversee a national re-vote," and "silence the destructive media." Wow! Sounds a bit like a coup. Maybe the best part is the idea that you can have "limited" martial law, or that suspending the Constitution would just be "temporary," or that the only organization that could oversee a legitimate election—read: one where Donald Trump wins—is the military."
"The appeal—made by the Ohio non-profit We The People Convention in a Washington Times advert Tuesday—urged the president to declare "limited martial law" in order to hold a new election.https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynn-call-martial-law-comes-amid-violent-threats-trump-election-defeat-1551769
The advert cited President Abraham Lincoln's suspension of Habeas Corpus during the Civil War as precedent, adding: "Then, as now, a President with courage and determination was needed to preserve the Union."
WTPC claimed the "threat to our United States by the international and domestic socialist/communist left is much more serious than anything Lincoln or our nation has faced in its history—including the civil war.""
Trump's former campaign team lawyer Sidney Powell went further and retweeted something saying Trump needed to suspend the election and "set up military tribunals".
Lin Wood, another crazy pro-Trump attorney who is closely associated with Powell and Flynn, retweeted the same nonsense and said "Our country is headed to civil war."
https://twitter.com/LLinWood/status/1333788036815937537
These aren't random nobodies. These are people who compose Trump's inner circle. A former military General who was NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR while being a foreign agent for fucks sake.
Even ultra-corrupt Attorney General Barr, who specifically applied for his job to help Trump cover up his crimes, and who started multiple witch hunts, just admitted there was no fraud in the election. The posts by Flynn and others might be their last ditch attempt to carry out the coup and counteract Barr's statement. Turning on their own, professional election rigger and convicted criminal Roger Stone, and others, called Barr part of the "deep state."
"Barr told the AP that U.S. attorneys and FBI agents have been working to follow up specific complaints and information they’ve received, but “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”"https://apnews.com/article/barr-no-widespread-election-fraud-b1f1488796c9a98c4b1a9061a6c7f49d
December 2: further fractures between Trump and the Justice Department.
"The official serving as President Donald Trump’s eyes and ears at the Justice Department has been banned from the building after trying to pressure staffers to give up sensitive information about election fraud and other matters she could relay to the White House, three people familiar with the matter tell The Associated Press.https://apnews.com/article/heidi-stirrup-banned-justice-department-7624560e990ec55383a2a3e421c3a52e
Heidi Stirrup, an ally of top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, was quietly installed at the Justice Department as a White House liaison a few months ago. She was told within the last two weeks to vacate the building after top Justice officials learned of her efforts to collect insider information about ongoing cases and the department’s work on election fraud, the people said.
Stirrup is accused of approaching staffers in the department demanding they give her information about investigations, including election fraud matters, the people said.
[...]
The Trump administration has been working to have liaisons report directly to the White House instead of the agencies where they work. Across the administration, there have been concerns that the liaisons were undercutting the work not just of career professionals but also of Trump’s own political appointees.
Shortly after the election, the presidential personnel office had also instructed the liaisons to fire any political appointees who were looking for jobs while Trump refused to accept the election results. Trump’s term ends at noon on Jan. 20. Several thousand political appointees across the government will see their jobs end by that date.
The White House personnel office has been headed by former Trump personal assistant John McEntee, who has renewed Trump’s push to rid the administration of those deemed “disloyal” to the president."
The President is attempting to undermine the function of federal agencies and, even though the agencies are packed with ultra-corrupt Trump-appointees who have done his every bidding for 4 years, they are no longer giving him their full backing. That's what happens in failed coups when the coup leader loses internal support among his faction.
December 1:
"Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling: "Mr. President ... stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed. And it's not right.""https://twitter.com/MaddowBlog/status/1333963974539436032
"Gabriel Sterling is a Republican who oversaw the implementation of the state’s new voting system. During a routine news conference at the state Capitol to provide an update on the recount of the presidential race requested by Trump, Sterling admonished the president and Georgia’s two U.S. senators, who are both locked in tight runoff races against Democrats and have called on GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to resign over claims that he mishandled the election.https://www.al.com/news/2020/12/this-has-to-stop-georgia-election-official-gabriel-sterling-says-of-threats.html
“Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions,” Sterling said, visibly angry. “This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you’re going to take a position of leadership, show some.”"
"Gabriel Sterling, one of Georgia's top elections officials, fiercely rebuked President Trump and Georgia's senators Tuesday in response to threats and intimidation targeting the state's elections workers, and he appealed to the president to accept his electoral loss in the state and "stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence.""https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/georgia-elections-official-rebukes-trump-after-threats-to-workers/ar-BB1bxaDF
"A high-profile QAnon influencer orchestrated a Twitter campaign targeting a 20-year-old contractor for Dominion Voting Systems, which led to death threats against him and his family, and a noose being placed outside his home in Georgia.https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgzgqa/qanon-left-a-noose-outside-a-20-year-old-election-workers-home
The incident was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Gabriel Sterling, voting systems manager for Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, during an impassioned press conference on Tuesday night. ...
He called on President Donald Trump and on high-profile Republicans to come out strongly to condemn the conspiracy theories.
But just hours later, Trump, rather than condemning the death threats, responded by doubling down on baseless claims that the election had been “rigged” — again without providing any evidence."
December 4:
"President Donald Trump's nominee to become a senior Pentagon official spread debunked conspiracies on Twitter that called Trump's election loss to Joe Biden a "coup" attempt and shared tweets that suggest Trump should declare martial law.https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/politics/trump-nominee-pentagon-martial-law/index.html
Scott O'Grady, a former fighter pilot and Trump loyalist, repeatedly retweeted tweets that falsely stated Trump won the election in "landslide fashion" and that millions of votes were stolen from the President.
On November 25, O'Grady retweeted a tweet that said, "Trump won & Biden & his Comrades will now attempt a coup," next to a photoshopped image of Biden beside Xi Jinping, the President of China.
On December 2, he retweeted an account that shared an article that said former national security adviser Michael Flynn had shared a petition that called for martial law. He then retweeted the same account which suggested that Trump should declare martial law.
"I don't know who needs to hear this," the account said, "But calling for martial law is not a bad idea when there is an attempted coup against the president and this country happening right now."
December 5:
"Trump demands names of the congressional Republicans who said they recognize Biden as winner"https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/528899-trump-demands-names-of-the-congressional-republicans-who-said-they
December 5:
"Donald Trump has told crowds in Georgia, without evidence, he has "never lost an election" and that he'd be a "very gracious loser", in his first political rally since losing the presidential election.https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-06/donald-trump-holds-rally-in-georgia-first-since-us-election/12954882
Amid chants of "stop the steal", "four more years" and "we love you" from maskless supporters in the town of Valdosta, Mr Trump began his speech repeating falsehoods about voter fraud.
"You know we won Georgia, just so you understand," Mr Trump told rallygoers."
December 7:
"Tuesday’s ‘Safe Harbor’ Deadline Should End Trump’s Failed Coup.https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/safe-harbor-deadline-trump.html
From a political perspective, Donald Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 presidential election will probably never die. But the extremely slim viability of his legal challenges to Joe Biden’s win, which descended into farce some time ago, will all but vanish on December 8, when the “Safe Harbor” deadline for certification of state results should cut off any further efforts to steal the election.
This deadline, created by the notoriously confusing Electoral Vote Act of 1877 (itself a reaction to the contested Hayes-Tilden election of 1876), essentially prohibits any challenge in Congress to state electors certified by that date, set at six days before the Electoral College virtually “meets” to cast votes for the next president. While it has never been fully tested, a state certification of results and electors existing at the time of this deadline should also be very difficult to question in state or federal courts.
Presently, 47 states plus the District of Columbia have already certified their results and their electors (all but Hawaii, Missouri, and New Jersey, none of whose results are in any doubt at all).
[...]
Speaking of absurd efforts by Pennsylvania Republicans, the most ludicrous thing we saw last week that did not directly involve Rudy Giuliani was a letter signed by 60 Republican legislators asking Congress to challenge the Keystone State’s Biden electors, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
Just hours after GOP leadership in the state House indicated they would not move to upend Pennsylvania’s election results in Harrisburg, Speaker Bryan Cutler and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff joined more than 60 Republican colleagues Friday in calling on members of Congress to do it instead.
After Republican legislative leaders conceded they had no power to appoint Trump electors as the president’s campaign has been demanding in all the states with relatively close results, Giuliani attacked them on Twitter, and Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis called them “liars,” “cowards,” and “traitors.” They then produced the letter fecklessly asking Congress to do what they admitted they could not do: steal Pennsylvania’s state-certified 20 electors from Biden. As I explained last week, even if there were some sort of unanimous revanchist uprising among Republican members of Congress in January aimed at “choosing” Trump electors in states he lost, it’s not clear there would be any available to choose after state certification of results. And in any event, it would require a vote by both the Democratic-controlled House along with the Senate to overturn the results, which of course is not happening."
December 7:
"Trump doubles down on false claim he ‘won two’ elections and calls US ‘third world country’https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-election-2020/trump-election-lost-medal-of-freedom-b1767600.html
‘So I’m 2 and 0, and that’s pretty good too, but we’ll see how that turns out’"
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