Donald Trump attempted to subvert the 2020 election to retain power. It was a failed coup d'état.
Republicans see it differently. They don't think they are supporting a modern-day Benedict Arnold. They think Trump is being picked on for nothing.
This week Special Counsel Jack Smith outlined Trump's crimes in his revised indictment. Trump arranged for fake electors to sign false affidavits of election. He pressured Pence to use those ballots to justify discarding legitimate votes for Biden. He summoned a crowd to the Capitol. He watched a demonstration turn violent against members of Congress. He watched the violence on Fox News and did nothing. Told that Pence was in danger from the rioters, Trump told the aide, "So what?"
So how do Republicans of good character continue to support Trump? These are people who earnestly say the Pledge of Allegiance. These are generally law-abiding people. So how is what Trump did acceptable?
They don't think Trump did anything wrong. They think he was just asking questions. They think he didn't do anything different from what Democrats did in questioning the 2000 vote in Florida or the 2004 vote in Ohio. He just filed and lost some 60 lawsuits, but the court results mean nothing. The courts didn't prove the election was fair, only that the Trump campaign did not provide evidence of fraud. Lack of evidence doesn't prove the election was legitimate.
What about the calls to Georgia's Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp and Arizona's Doug Ducey, urging them to reverse the vote in those states. Were those okay? Yes. He was just asking questions. Besides, these Republicans were in on the steal.
What about Trump's Attorney General Bill Barr, who told Trump that Biden won the election? Same thing; he's a backstabber.
What about the people he summoned to the January 6 rally and then sent to the Capitol to intimidate Pence? Was that okay? Yes. Trump was just exercising his right to freedom of speech. The people who rioted were on their own. Trump used the word "peacefully" once in telling them to go to the Capitol, which absolves him of liability.
Should Trump have tried to stop rioters during the hours they were attacking the Capitol? He had no obligation to do that. Trump realized those patriots felt strongly about the election. Besides, Democratic politicians in Seattle and Portland didn't stop violence in George Floyd protests, so it is a double standard to say Trump should have done more.
What about Trump's plan to substitute fake electors and void the election? The electors thought they maybe won their states, or should have won them, so they signed that they were "duly elected" with a clear conscience. They were just giving Pence an option.
Bottom line: Trump did nothing wrong. If it had really been a coup d'état, it would have worked. Rioters would have been armed.The Secret Service would have succeeded in getting Pence in the car and away from the Capitol so that the elderly Senator Charles Grassley (R -IA, who would preside over the Senate at that point instead of Pence) could have thrown the election to Trump. As JD Vance said in the VP debate, on January 20 Biden took office, so what's all the fuss?
Republicans think the prosecution of Trump is a slap in the face of those who believe Trump should have won the election, and maybe did. "Illegals" may have voted. Black-majority counties in swing states -- Detroit's Wayne County and Atlanta's Fulton County -- may have had shenanigans. That happens in places like that. Maybe there is no proof, but there is no way in heck that a feeble old man like Biden could have legitimately received seven million more votes than a great president like Trump.
Trump did nothing wrong.
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"Trump did nothing wrong" may capture the MAGA base, but there's much room between that and "attempted coup d'etat". Including for Republicans who do not think Trump is fit for office.
ReplyDeleteIf Pence had folded, absent military backup (as in a conventional coup attempt) it would all have ended at the Supreme Court. Had Trump tried to override SCOTUS, then we're couping.
Now they are doing everything they can in swing states to gum up the election results with cheating the new norm for republicans. They are a diseased political party now. Their only path to survival is complete humiliation in the upcoming election, I’m hoping. Their disease is making the United States also weakened and possibly dying.
ReplyDeleteTrump lies a lot – 30,573 times during his term in office. When he says he won the 2020 election, Republicans believe it because they want to, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. The question is, why?
ReplyDeleteThe most likely reason is the one they elected him for in the first place: his blatant racism. The closest thing he had to any political experience was being the biggest blowhard in the Birther Movement but to Republicans, that qualified him for our nation’s highest office. The MAGA movement is just an extension of that. They love him for his promise to deport 20 million or so people of color, hopefully before they eat all our pets.
For Trump’s True Believers, the lack of evidence for their allegations of election fraud just confirms how widespread it was. That conspiracy theory mentality has become one of the key features of the GOP cult. They’re eating Trump’s BS instead of drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, but in its own way it’s just as toxic.
Peter points out a key problem with Don Old:
ReplyDelete"Should Trump have tried to stop rioters during the hours they were attacking the Capitol? He had no obligation to do that ... "
Don Old's only in service to himself. His oath to support the Constitution is meaningless.
A good person, when faced with a choice, thinks of others. Not Don Old.
Also consider while you were scrambling for a COVID test kit Don Old was backchanneling them to Russia's President, telling him that he doesn't care if people find out.
This behavior is why so many people dislike lying Don the Con.
His supporters' excuse of this behavior is why so many people dislike them.
The purpose the election procedures on the state level is to come to a decision about which candidates won and lost. Time is built in for appeals of those decisions to court. Once the deadline for filing an appeal has passed and the state-certified results are transmitted to Congress, the process is over. There is certainty. What Trump has done is create an environment where that certainty can be pushed aside and a process substituted that provides for a different result, based on anecdotal evidence and an ex post facto rewriting of election procedures. To succeed in doing that would absolutely be a coup, even without the riot at the Capitol. The Supreme Court decided in the 2000 election that the need for finality was more important than the need for 100% accuracy, handing the White House to Bush even though later recounts showed that Gore won Florida.
ReplyDeleteOn the matter of the riot, Trump's insistence that using the word "peaceful" once during a speech is his get-out-of-jail-free card is vintage Trump. Always build some deniability into every situation. Sure, my contractor had to sue me for payment and he had to go out of business, but I did pay him for some of his work. Yes, I suggested to Zelensky that he investigate the Bidens while we were talking about U.S. aid to Ukraine, but later I sent the aid so in fact it was a "perfect phone call." What I love about Jack Smith's superceding indictment and his discussion of the non-immune aspects of the election/coup case is that it gets to the heart of what Trump was doing and makes those qualifiers and excuses look irrelevant and ridiculous. I hope a jury (if it ever gets that far) will agree.
No question I could be wrong about what would have happened. SCOTUS begs off because a "political question"? Nonetheless, even if that shamefully occurred I'm not sure it constitutes a "coup". Always back to definitions, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOK, if we want to get technical, Trump’s was an attempted self-coup, also called an autocoup or coup from the top: A form of coup d'état in which a nation's head, having come to power through legal means, stays in power through illegal means.
ReplyDeleteTrump’s coup attempt was both violent and illegal. But don’t bother trying to convince those who dismiss it regardless of all the evidence. They prefer their ‘alternative facts.’ Why? Because they’re nuts.
Peter: have you done any posts on FEMA spending in Southern Oregon?
ReplyDeleteWith the politicalization of hurricane disaster relief by republicans I can't help but wonder if Southern Oregon will be harmed by their asinine behavior.