This is an extremely significant development. No longer is it just dozens of mainstream media outlets (including non-American media outlets!), but now a sitting politician is acknowledging the coup attempt. And not just any politician, but one of the highest-ranking members of the Democrat party.
This milestone deserves its own post, so I will be posting all subsequent updates regarding the Republican coup attempt on this page. Please see the previous post, where I give an account of the dozens and dozens of mainstream journalists and media outlets who were willing to call the coup attempt out.
House Majority Whip James Clyburn:
"This is an attempt to overthrow our government.
You may not call it a coup, but this is an attempted coup.
Some people say Trump is trying to steal the election.
He is not trying to steal the election.
He is in your face trying to overthrow the will of the people." -James E. Clyburn, December 8, 2020
https://twitter.com/WhipClyburn/status/1336313614249189378
(Click the Twitter link to see the full 9 minute interview. Relevant section starts at 3:55.)
"Now, some people say he is trying to steal the election. He is not trying to steal the election. That denotes some kind of unknown activity when you are stealing. No. That’s not what he’s doing. He is in your face trying to overthrow the will of the people. But right here on your network, I said three years ago that this man did not plan to give up this White House."
If Clyburn can step up and tell us this is a coup attempt, journalists and media outlets no longer have any excuses when they try to gaslight us and tell us this isn't a coup and isn't a big deal. This is a coup.
***
The following are additional news articles related to the still-ongoing coup attempt. Please see my previous post covering dozens of other articles on this subject. (Again, I do not necessarily endorse the analyses in any of these articles. I am posting them to demonstrate the vast number of journalists willing to correctly call this a coup. Years from now, when people try to gaslight us and downplay the coup, we can refer to these articles so we never forget the unshakable fact that the majority of the Republican party endorsed and aided Trump's coup attempt.)
We may have thought the coup is over now that all 50 states have certified their election results showing Biden is the clear winner. We would be mistaken. 126 Republican members of the House and 18 state Attorneys General have openly supported a (failed) last-ditch attempt to get the Supreme Court to carry out the coup and throw out the election results in swing states which voted against Trump.
In the wake of the failed lawsuit, Allen West, chairman of the Texas Republican party suggested pro-Trump states secede. (This is called sedition, by the way).
"Texas GOP chair Allen West issued a statement saying that “perhaps” it’s time for “law-abiding states to bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution.” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had called on the court to overturn the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, four states that were key to Biden’s victory. Attorneys general in 17 states and more than 100 Republican members of Congress backed the lawsuit that was shot down by the Supreme Court that said Texas doesn’t have the right to get involved in elections of other states.
West made his anger clear shortly after the Supreme Court issued its brief order tossing out the lawsuit. The Supreme Court “has decreed that a state can take unconstitutional actions and violate its own election law,” West wrote. “This decision establishes a precedent that says states can violate the US constitution and not be held accountable. This decision will have far-reaching ramifications for the future of our constitutional republic.” West went on to say that the “Texas GOP will always stand for the Constitution and for the rule of law even while others don’t.”"
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/12/texas-gop-chair-allen-west-secession-supreme-court.html
Regarding the failed lawsuit:
December 11:
"Trump’s Republicans are not just attempting a coup — it’s worse than that.
When Texas attorney general Ken Paxton first filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that all the votes of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — 10.4 million votes in total — be thrown out completely, the general media response was to call it a stunt. Paxton is under investigation for an alleged bribery scheme, and observers speculated that, by filing this ridiculous lawsuit, he is trawling for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, whose recent pardon of his crony Michael Flynn has instilled hope among other GOP lowlifes that they can bribe Trump to do the same for them.
Yet even though this suit is widely dismissed as a joke, a slew of other elected Republicans joined the lawsuit on Thursday, lending support to Paxton’s argument that red states should be able to overturn the results of an election that didn’t end well for Republicans. So far, 17 Republican state attorneys general and 106 Republicans in the House of Representatives — more than half the GOP caucus — have signed onto amicus briefs supporting Paxton’s absurd demands that all the votes of the residents of these four states be destroyed. Six states have asked to join Paxton’s lawsuit directly. On Monday, only a couple of House Republicans — mainly Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama — were willing to openly support Trump’s efforts to steal the election. Now it’s the majority of the House GOP caucus.
[...]And while Republicans in the Senate have not formally signed onto this assault on the concept of democracy, many have done so informally.
[...]As Amber Phillips of the Washington Post notes, “Paxton is literally arguing that the Supreme Court overturn an election because states counted their votes.”
It only makes sense if you assume, say, that the entire state of Michigan’s votes are inherently tainted because Detroit’s voters were included in the total. There is no non-racist way to assume that.
It’s tempting to write off this entire situation as another Trump-flavored clown show. The fact that Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who never turns down an opportunity to make a fool of himself, has offered to argue the case in front of the Supreme Court is just further proof. (Free drinks to the justice who asks Cruz if Trump was right to accuse his father of murdering JFK.)"
The Supreme Court rejected the Texas lawsuit, because it had no standing.
That didn't stop 126 Republicans in the House (and counting?) of supporting this last ditch coup attempt. Their names are published in the following article. Please familiarize yourself.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/skbaer/list-republican-house-members-overturn-election
As I keep saying, even when Biden takes control of the presidency, we are still going to have to deal with the fallout of the (successful) Republican self-coup in the Judicial and Legislative branches of government. There are currently 197 Republicans in the House. 64% of them openly supported Trump's coup by voicing support for the Texas lawsuit to throw out all votes in swing states that Trump lost.
Among them are House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (who was one of the first people to follow Trump's lead and call the Mueller report a "coup attempt" years ago--of course, we see now that Trump and him were attempting to control the narrative to distract from the Republican self-coup that was unfolding and ultimately succeeded), Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, and many of the other usual suspects.
December 10 [note, this article is old, the number of has risen to 126]:
"106 House Republicans Back Trump’s Bid to Overthrow the Government. Nothing to see here, just an attempted coup by the president and half of all Republicans in the House.
[...]So we don’t actually have to worry about him successfully overthrowing the results of the election, but what we should probably be concerned with are the dozens of Republicans happily, publicly trying to help him execute his coup.
On Thursday, a whopping 106 House Republicans signed their names to an amicus brief sent to the Supreme Court in support of a lawsuit by Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. Paxton, who is reportedly under investigation by the FBI for bribery and abuse of office—allegations he of course denies—falsely claims in his suit that Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin violated the Constitution by counting invalid votes, and has asked the court to force all four states to throw out every vote cast and, while they’re at it, appoint electors who support Trump.
[...]This followed Wednesday’s equally insane decision by 17 Republican attorneys general to file their own brief in support of Paxton’s suit. While the Supreme Court is not going to actually grant these people their wish, if it did it would, as Slate put it yesterday, “commit the single biggest act of vote nullification in American history, voiding millions of ballots to hand Trump an unearned second term.”"
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/12/donald-trump-house-gop-coup
"GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy Signs On To Election Coup Lawsuit
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) became one of the latest House Republicans Friday to sign on to a lawsuit to invalidate the election results, marking a new low point of depravity for the GOP leader and the Republican conference.
[...]McCarthy had initially resisted signing on to the petition, which is being led by Republican Study Committee chairman Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
Johnson sent an email to every Republican in the House warning them that Trump would be “anxiously awaiting the final list” of signatories. And when No. 2 House Republican Steve Scalise, the minority whip from Louisiana, signed, McCarthy apparently made the decision to follow suit, not to be outflanked on his right by one of the only Republicans who could beat McCarthy in a race to be Speaker.
With both men signed on, House Republicans are being led by two men who support overthrowing the will of the people in service to Trump — or lack the courage to stand up to the president or his supporters."
Democrats may control the House of Representatives since their party has over 50% of its members. However, Republicans continue to operate outside of the Constitution in the House and are awaiting the day when they can retake the majority of its membership.
Beyond the coup's support among Republicans in the federal government, 17 state Attorneys General filed a brief with the Supreme Court showing support for this coup attempt.
December 9:
"Despite dozens of judges and courts rejecting challenges to the election, Republican attorneys general in 17 states on Wednesday backed President Trump in his increasingly desperate and audacious legal campaign to reverse the results.
The show of support, in a brief filed with the Supreme Court, represented the latest attempt by Trump loyalists to use the power of public office to come to his aid as he continues to deny the reality of his loss with baseless claims of voter fraud."
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/us/politics/trump-texas-supreme-court-lawsuit.html
Their names are the following:
Eric C. Schmitt - Missouri (main author of the briefing).
Steve Marshall - Alabama
Leslie Rutledge - Arkansas
Ashley Moody - Florida
Douglas J. Peterson - Nebraska
Wayne Stenehjem - North Dakota
Mike Hunter - Oklahoma
Curtis T. Hill, Jr. - Indiana
Derek Schmidt - Kansas
Jeff Landry - Louisiana
Lynn Fitch - Mississippi
Tim Fox - Montana
Alan Wilson - South Carolina
Jason R. Ravnsborg - South Dakota
Herbert H. Slatery III - Tennessee
Sean D. Reyes - Utah
Patrick Morrisey - West Virginia
Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, filed the original lawsuit. So that makes 18 state Attorneys General who openly support this coup attempt.
December 11:
"Republicans Back Trump’s Coup Attempt, Ask Supreme Court to Overturn 2020 Election.
Even before the 2020 election, President Donald Trump was telegraphing that he could use a legal strategy that would send contentious presidential results to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately for Trump, if the results of his seemingly countless election lawsuits are any indication, the results haven’t been nearly as contentious as he had hoped. But he’s still ready to bet it all on the big one, and he’s not alone. Republicans have lined up behind the president’s attempted coup."
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/republicans-trump-coup-attempt-supreme-court-overturn-2020-election
December 11:
"Editorial: Trump’s court won’t join his coup"
The courts may not have supported the coup, but never forget that Trump and Republicans packed the courts in preparation for this coup attempt. Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court after 60 million Americans had already voted, only a week before the end of the election. What would we have done if she and the rest of the court backed the coup?
December 10:
"Editorial: The enduring cost of Trump’s attempted coup.
[...]The case dismissed in Washington, however, is being succeeded by an even more dubious attempt to bring the high court into the fray. Unlike the Pennsylvania case, which at least was led by a Republican congressman and a losing congressional candidate from that state, the latest complaint comes from Texas, a state whose electoral votes are being awarded to Trump without dispute. But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is reportedly under federal investigation, is asking the court to throw out more than 10 million votes in four other states — Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — based on a collection of false and baseless claims.
It’s outlandish, though not too outlandish to have been joined by 17 other state attorneys general. Likewise, a Washington Post survey of Republican members of Congress found that more than 200 — nearly 9 out of 10 — still haven’t acknowledged Biden’s victory."
December 6:
"Only 27 of 249 Republicans in Congress are willing to admit Joe Biden won the presidential election, a survey found on Saturday.
[...]Most Republicans seem committed to saying nothing: 12 of 52 senators and 15 of 197 representatives have recognised Biden’s win"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/dec/05/house-republicans-trump-election-defeat-joe-biden
***
This article provides a decent summary of some of the major events in the coup attempt. Refer to the full article for more detail. I obviously disagree with much of the author's analysis, however.
December 11:
"Don't look past Trump's coup attempt: This is a dark moment in American history.
[...]There is a man who keeps trying to rob banks. But he cannot write a legible ransom note. When he tries to verbally demand money from the teller, he gets nervous, starts mumbling, is scared and runs away.
The police and other law enforcement agents would pursue such a person with great diligence. If that person was eventually apprehended, he could not claim incompetence as a defense. Attempting to commit a crime is a crime in and of itself.
Donald Trump is a political criminal. He is attempting a
fascist* coup against American democracy and the American people. That Trump and his gang have technically not succeeded in no way means that he and they are innocent of their crimes.Moreover, the fact Trump has publicly announced his plans to stay in power by any means necessary, however stupid, illegal or ineffective his scheme may be, also does not make him innocent of committing major crimes against the democratic order and the rule of law.
There are too many examples to count.
After losing to Joe Biden in the 2020 election by at least 7 million votes, Donald Trump has encouraged the crime of insurrection by his supporters, including armed paramilitaries, to keep him in power.
Trump's agents (most notably, now-pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn) have publicly called for a military coup to keep the Trump regime in power against the will of the American people. Trump has continued to purge senior officials deemed to be "disloyal" from their positions at the highest levels of the national security state. Trump is also placing loyalists in other positions throughout the government in an effort to sabotage the incoming Biden administration."
* As I have explained before, Trump is not a fascist and calling him one is counterproductive to left-wing anti-Trump and anti-racist rhetoric.
"America's democracy is a house built on top of a sinkhole. Donald Trump, his successors and followers and their movement will continue to burrow beneath it, trying to make the whole structure collapse. On top of that rubble they hope to build not a shining city on a hill but an ugly monument to white supremacy, Christian fascism and kleptocratic depravity."
The author goes on and on about how great US democracy is (despite empowering Trump and the Republican party--and, you know, democratically upholding slavery and Jim Crow for centuries, etc.). Yet the author also says democracy is a sinkhole that is going to continue to erode (a position which I agree with). False Leftists don't seem to realize they often engage in cognitive dissonance and doublethink as much as rightists.
Why oh why should we be content to continue to keep our nation on top of a sinkhole that could completely collapse at any moment? A sinkhole which could, in the author's words, give way to white supremacy at any moment? (It's already been giving way to white supremacy for the entire Trump presidency, and our government has officially endorsed white supremacy from the beginning all the way to the Civil Rights era...)
How about we move our nation and government to a more firm foundation that can actually ensure liberty and justice for all? This is the hubris of Western Civilization's fetishism for the so-called "Enlightenment era" principles of government. False Leftists would rather keep us on top of a "sacred" sinkhole instead of formulating a better attempt at a system of government... Tyranny of the majority never has been, and never will be, a satisfactory system of government.
***
December 8:
"Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers ask how many times Trump has to lose before he quits his 'coup attempt'
Despite "Typhoid Rudy" Giuliani's "serious illness, the president has vowed to continue the fight against democracy," Stephen Colbert said on Monday's Late Show. In "yet another huge blow to the president's coup attempt," he added, Georgia just "re-certified its presidential election results, once again finding Joe Biden as the winner following three counts of ballots. Well, like the saying goes, third time's the same as the first and the second time, only much more humiliating. But don't feel left out, Mr. President. Biden may have won the Peach State, but you got impeached, and that will never go away."
[...]"Trump actually called up the governor of Georgia and asked him to overturn the election results — also known as coup calling, because if you're not calling this an attempted coup, then what are you calling it?" Meyers asked. "Just because it's a dumb, lazy coup that won't work doesn't mean it isn't still an attempted coup." That's also true for Trump's many legal losses, he added. "I mean, how many times does Biden have to win these states to prove to people that it's real?""
December 10:
"I realize I’m just a simple newspaper columnist, but it seems having a lame-duck U.S. president openly advocating a coup is a really bad and insane thing, yet the people who most loudly call themselves patriots don’t appear to give a whit.
[...]On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Roy Blunt and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, during a meeting of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, all voted against a standard and symbolic resolution that would have affirmed Biden as president-elect.
Sen. Ted Cruz threw up his hand this week and offered to argue a ludicrous Pennsylvania election case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court, of course, rejected the case, because it was patently absurd.
Cruz is smart and had to know that would happen. Why does he, and others such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, debase himself over and over again at the altar of a man so clearly destined to be condemned by history?
The time for lame excuses (“We just need to give Trump room to work through this loss”) and tacit approval of frivolous lawsuits (“The president has every right to pursue all legal avenues”) is over.
[...]We don’t stop this craziness from happening again by downplaying or excusing it all."
December 11:
"Arizona Republican Party asking if followers are willing to die for Trump, openly beefing with GOP governor.
PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey spent much of Donald Trump’s presidency trying not to provoke a confrontation with the president or his fervent defenders. He almost made it through.
But when state law required Ducey to certify Arizona’s presidential election results and sign off on Trump’s defeat last week, four years of loyalty wasn’t enough to protect him from the president. “Republicans will long remember!” Trump tweeted in anger at the governor.
Since then, the episode has spiraled into a public and politically damaging dispute between Ducey and influential Trump loyalists in his own party. Those who believe Trump’s unproven claims of fraud and support his effort to undermine the will of voters say Ducey betrayed his party and are asking on Twitter whether supporters are willing to die for the president. His defenders have dismissed the critics as “nuts.”"
December 10:
"Every Republican in Congress May Have to Vote on Trump’s Coup
[...]The president also has enlisted Vice-President Pence to reach out to governors and other party leaders in key states to see what else can be done to help the president. A person familiar with the calls said Pence has not exerted pressure on lawmakers to take specific actions and sees them as “checking in.”
Earlier, Trump was trying to talk Republican legislators in several states, namely Michigan and Pennsylvania, into just disregarding the popular vote and appointing electors pledged to him, but he found no takers. Once the doomed Texas petition asking the Supreme Court to overturn the results fails — which it will — Team Trump will be nearly out of options. But the one remaining option will put Republican members of Congress in the spotlight with nowhere to hide.
Alabama representative Mo Brooks is planning to take advantage of an obscure provision of the Electoral Count Act of 1877 law to mount a final challenge to Biden’s win, as I noted last week:
To make a very long and tedious story short, the last step in any presidential election is the certification of electoral votes by the newly elected Congress in early January. This is normally a rubber-stamp of the results everyone knows on or shortly after Election Night. But the above-mentioned Electoral Count Act provides a way to “pause” the certification if one House and one Senate member protest the award of electors in one or more states. In that event, the two chambers separate and hold a two-hour debate before voting on the electoral votes for disputed states. Only if both Houses disapprove the initial results are they changed.
So far Brooks hasn’t publicly identified a senator who is willing to help him trigger this last resort, but there are plenty of likely suspects, ... The ostensible strategy for the caper isn’t entirely clear: Normally you’d challenge electors in states with multiple, disputed slates that have been sent to Congress (that’s what led to the adoption of the Electoral Count Act, which followed the disputed 1876 presidential election). With all 50 states having already certified electors and the “safe harbor deadline” for replacing them in Congress having already passed, that doesn’t seem to be an option."
More of the talking heads on TV are joining in. December 9:
"Tapper Goes Off on ‘Clownish’ GOP Coup Attempt: ‘It Is Absolutely Disgraceful’"
Old article (November 10):
"Trump Attempting a Coup With Republican Support Doesn't Have to Work to be Dangerous."
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/trump-attempting-coup-republican-support-dangerous
*****
December 11:
"Democrat asks Pelosi to refuse to seat lawmakers supporting Trump's election challenges
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) is asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to refuse to seat members of the next Congress who back President Trump’s effort to challenge the election.
[...]“Stated simply, the men and women who would act to tear the United States Government apart cannot serve as Members of the Congress,” Pascrell said in a statement posted to Twitter.
“These lawsuits seeking to obliterate public confidence in our democratic system by invalidating the clear results of the 2020 presidential election undoubtedly attack the text and the spirit of the Constitution, which each Member swears to support and defend,” he added.
Today I’m calling on House leaders to refuse to seat any Members trying to overturn the election and make donald trump an unelected dictator.
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) December 11, 2020Pascrell argues that the 14th Amendment prohibits members of Congress from rebelling agains the U.S., and “trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that.”
[...]The text of the 14th Amendment expressly forbids Members of Congress from engaging in rebellion against the United States. Trying to overturn a democratic election and install a dictator seems like a pretty clear example of that.
— Bill Pascrell, Jr. (@BillPascrell) December 11, 2020Pelosi’s office didn’t comment on Pascrell’s request, but in a Dear Colleague letter sent Friday evening, Pelosi said the Republicans are “subverting the Constitution by their reckless and fruitless assault on our democracy which threatens to seriously erode public trust in our most sacred democratic institutions, and to set back our progress on the urgent challenges ahead.”"
Pelosi had to be dragged into supporting impeachment and has been continuously unwilling to play hardball against all the criminal activities of Trump and Republicans (i.e. she has been enabling them), so it is unlikely she will actually do this.
Pascrell had previously joined Eric Swalwell in calling for a Crimes Commission to take place to root out all the criminal activity and corruption that occured during the Trump administration. Americans must do everything we possibly can to ensure the Crimes Commission actually gets carried out, or else our nation will never heal.
***
The chickens are coming home to roost as more and more far-right Trumpist voters are trying to tear down the "establishment" Republicans who aided and abetted Trump for his entire 4 years, but are not willing to carry out his coup.
December 12:
"MAGA Protesters Chant ‘Destroy the GOP’ at Pro-Trump Rally
A motley crew of pro-Trump figures was in attendance, including conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump’
[...]In his speech, Flynn tried desperately to keep hope alive that the president would somehow manage to overturn the democratically chosen President-elect Biden, despite the fact that thus far every one of his attempts has been thwarted. The speech was Flynn’s first public remarks since Trump pardoned him in late November.
[...]He continued, “The courts aren’t going to decide who the next president of the United States is going to be. We the people decide.”
[...]Even minor MAGA celebrity Mike Lindell, AKA the My Pillow guy, tried to inject hope into the crowd. “Last night, about two in the morning, I got a text from [Trump lawyer] Sidney Powell’s team, and the Texas lawsuit [rejected by the Supreme Court] had nothing to do with what she’s been working hard on,” he said. “And she filed her lawsuits with the Supreme Court for Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona… I have seen it, the fraud is 100 percent, and Donald Trump will be our president for four more years!”
"After Supreme Court dismisses Texas case, Trump says his efforts to challenge election results are ‘not over’.
[...]In a Fox News interview that aired Sunday morning, Trump repeated his false claims of election fraud and said his legal team will continue to pursue challenges, despite the Supreme Court’s recent dismissal of a long-shot bid to overturn the results in four states Biden won.
[...]A CBS News poll released Sunday shows that 62 percent of registered voters believe that the election is over and that it is time to move on. But, notably, 75 percent of Republicans said that they believe the election is not over and that it should still be contested. Just 18 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2020 said they consider Biden the legitimate winner.
Attorney General William P. Barr, who was appointed by Trump, said earlier this month that he has “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” undercutting Trump’s claims of widespread and significant voting irregularities."
I see a lot of liberal people celebrating this chaos among Republicans, but this isn't good news.
The astroturfed Tea Party movement swept through the Republican party from 2009-2014. In essence, it emboldened Republican voters to move farther to the right and they were successful at replacing "moderate" Republicans with far-right Tea Partiers (like Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz). The Tea Party movement paved the way for Republican voters to move even further to the right, allowing for the rise of the Alt-Right. Now, with Trump's open support of white supremacy and other extreme right-wing views (which received no pushback from "mainstream" Republicans), the Overton Window has been pushed so that the Alt-Right is mainstream conservatism.
Alt-Right and Trumpist voters are extremely dedicated and zealous to their "cause" and so-called principles. Like the Tea Partiers, Trumpist Republicans will challenge non-Trumpist Republicans in the primaries and unseat them. If the "mainstream" wing of the Republican Party doesn't push back strongly against Trumpist voters, then Trumpist Republicans could very well become the vocal policy-setting wing of the party, just as the Tea Partiers were only a few years ago.
Again, this is bad news for leftists and sane people. After the Republican party absorbed Tea Party attitudes, they went to never-before-seen lengths to create government dysfunction and have driven partisanship to the highest levels in American history. Now that the party has moved even more dramatically to the right, the Alt-Right and Trumpist Republicans make people like George W. Bush look like liberals in comparison. (Indeed, the psychological trauma from Trump has been so extreme that one can easily find plenty of examples of Democrat voters longing for the "good ol' days" of the "sane" Republicanism of war criminal George W. Bush...)
Trump supporters may try to cause chaos for the Republican party leading up to the Georgia Senate election, but this is only to give them leverage over the party. Trump will leave, but all these millions of fervent Trump voters will remain. They will still be here during the next election, and the one after that, and the one after that. They will run for office and show up to vote. They will not allow Democrats or "mainstream" Republicans to rule unopposed.
The Republican party is very unlikely to reject such a reliable voting bloc, especially due to the fact that Democrats have a growing demographic advantage as the Baby Boomer generation dies off. So brace yourself for the likelihood the Republican party fully embraces Trumpism sooner or later.
In 2016 many people had the fantasy that Trump's chaotic character would end up destroying the Republican party. It didn't. Instead, his chaos and unapologetic corruption allowed the Republican party to successfully commit a self-coup and operate outside of the Constitution for 4 entire years in all 3 branches of government. The internal disputes among right wing voters at the moment won't destroy the Republican party either. When the dust settles, we will likely have to deal with a much stronger and exponentially more dangerous enemy instead.
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