Trump's Coup d'état.

[CORed]

Couping?

Anyway, it's called a self-coup; a process in which the duly elected leader of a country dismantles the machinery of democracy in order to remain in power. Trump is trying very openly to have the result of the popular vote overturned, first by the courts - which has some veneer of legitimacy - and second by the intervention of the elected officials responsible for overseeing the democratic process, which has none. Calling it anything other than an attempted self-coup is, at best, difficult to justify, even though it looks like he'll fail.

Dave

Louis Napolean Bonaparte (Napolean III) did this in France. Lost an election,engineered a coup, and then declared himself Emperor. It's pretty clear that Trump is getting nowhere in the courts and is now banking on getting Republican legislators to reverse the popular vote in their state and seat Trump electors. I'm still concerned that there is at least a slim chance that he will pull this off, given the number of Republicans who should be smart enough to know better that seem to be supporting him. He has clearly failed in court, where he needs to present actual evidence, but I'm not sure that the Gish Gallop of wild claims won't be enough to get Republican legislatures to believe him, or pretend to believe him in order to keep him in power.

 

[Emily's Cat]

And you wonder why you get accused of "Whataboutism" all the time.

Hillary conceded on election night...

Meh. I'm just going to continue pointing out the selective interpretations, the blatant hypocrisy, and the willingness to just pretend that one side is all good and the other side is all bad.

Personally, I don't trust either of the parties, I see them engaging in essentially the same strategies but employing different tactics. Mostly, i see the partisan supporters of each party being rabidly devoted and dogmatic about it.

So yeah - you're right. Clinton conceded on election night... after Podesta had told her supporters that they wouldn't do anything until all the votes were counted, and after having been prompted to do so by Obama (I miss him). And then, after having conceded, she jumped on board Stein's challenges to do recounts and challenge the legitimacy of the outcome, to appease her supporters that the Democrats had done everything possible to make sure they actually did lose for really reals.

So tell me, in complete honesty... If Trump had verbally conceded when the race was called... but had then gone ahead and challenged the counts in the key states... would you view him as benignly as you do Clinton? Or would you still insist that he was trying to do a coup and overthrow democracy? Be brutally honest with yourself on this one.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The FBI is of the opinion that one side is way more violent than the other.
Simple word analysis shows that right-wing shows use the term "they hate" way, way more often than center-left wings do.

In short: you have to squint really hard to think that both sides are the same.

 

[Darat]

I guess the school I went to taught a different concept of a coup. It had to have...you know...actual force behind it. Perhaps a theoretical chance of grabbing power. What im seeing here is a whining crybaby launching Twitter complaints and having lawyers throw up ridiculous suits that are summarily tossed into the trash. There are a few knuckle draggers with guns who get quickly stepped on by the actual force of the actual State, but he seems to have no actual muscle behind him. Just a few flaccid legal claims with a big red "Denied" stamped on them.

But oh yeah. This is a for real coup attempt. Not impotent bull **** at all. This President inspires so much hyperbole, while actually being so weak, that it's a little stunning.

Not for me, a coup has always meant an ousting of a government outside the usual arrangements, some are violent, some aren’t that’s why you’ll have one described as a bloodless coup.

Ninja’d by The Atheist

 

[Darat]

The thing is, he is asking to remain in power, not seizing it, bloody or velvety. That's what makes it a cuck d'etat. The bitch has no bite.

No he’s not - he is outright saying he won, there is no “asking”.

 

[cosmicaug]

The thing is, he is asking to remain in power, not seizing it, bloody or velvety. That's what makes it a cuck d'etat. The bitch has no bite.

He has killed 100000 Americans and that has put him only 6000000 votes behind. He's weak. He probably won't succeed.

Do you see a problem with this?

He's an antidemocratic fascist who has killed 100000 Americans and I still have to qualify my statement because high ranking GOP members are taking a wait and see attitude (those who are not actively aiding and abetting this coup attempt).

We have a character who is so spectacularly inept that if submitted to an editor he wouldn't even cut it in a work of fiction. The reason this character can't make his coup attempt work out (and is therefore not president right now) is chance (we can hardly call the fact that his ineptitude has killed a hundred thousand people "luck"). It's not his ineptitude. It's not the design of our laws and institutions. It's not the honor of our (allegedly public servant) politicians. It's not that we do democracy so much better than any other country (this is so very clearly not the case). It's chance.

American exceptionalism is our enemy here. Regardless of the outcome of this theater of the absurd, everything is not OK. This becoming fixed by the mere fact that Joe Biden is president cannot be our default assumption. If anything, our default assumption should be that in no way does Biden's presidency do anything to correct this without engaging in deliberate effort to do so and that the fixing of this may actually be a nearly intractable task.

Ya, we will always have the occasional right wing nut job, usually with a gun as nutjobs are wont to have. They have seen their numbers now and aren't whispering in the shadows anymore. That is Trump's primary legacy: the deplorable know they are Legion.

But there are not enough to back a coup, and the few that would will piss their pants in cold fear when they are not outgunning the opposition. The sky is not falling. Thermal promises.

Whatever it takes to make this succeed, it is not going to be his militia blackshirts. They are certainly not the factor that makes the difference between this coup succeeding or failing.

There are, however, enough of them for a hundred Dylann Roofs & a dozen Timothy McVeighs. Maybe that doesn't seem like much to you but it does to me. Also, if we find ourselves faced with that, I could easily imagine federal responses that make another (presumably smarter) Trump more likely rather than less likely.

 

[Thermal]

Not for me, a coup has always meant an ousting of a government outside the usual arrangements, some are violent, some aren’t that’s why you’ll have one described as a bloodless coup.

Ninja’d by The Atheist

Yes, I know, a coup need not have blood in the streets. But it would need something besides tweets and rejected filings and people laughing at weak attempts to coerce. Whining is not a coup. Stamping your feet is not a coup.

 

[timhau]

So tell me, in complete honesty... If Trump had verbally conceded when the race was called... but had then gone ahead and challenged the counts in the key states... would you view him as benignly as you do Clinton? Or would you still insist that he was trying to do a coup and overthrow democracy? Be brutally honest with yourself on this one.

Yeah, if the Trump campaign, after a concession speech, had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a recount request made by someone else in a single state then yes, I would not call that a coup attempt.

Next attempt of silly bothsidesism, please? I think you get three, just like in pole vault.

 

[Darat]

The Left’s Miraculous Change of Heart on Accepting Election Results
Democrats were completely against questioning results when they assumed Clinton would win


How the Electoral College Could -- But Won't -- Stop Trump from Becoming President (with Lesson Plan)

Apart from the whataboutism (which I suspect we will learn is totally dishonest from January).

Can you link to Clinton’s tweets or similar where she claimed she had won and the results were faked and it was a conspiracy of the software and hardware manufacturers, the Democrats and that person who looked suspicious outside that Backendofnowhere polling station.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I guess the school I went to taught a different concept of a coup. It had to have...you know...actual force behind it. Perhaps a theoretical chance of grabbing power. What im seeing here is a whining crybaby launching Twitter complaints and having lawyers throw up ridiculous suits that are summarily tossed into the trash. There are a few knuckle draggers with guns who get quickly stepped on by the actual force of the actual State, but he seems to have no actual muscle behind him. Just a few flaccid legal claims with a big red "Denied" stamped on them.

But oh yeah. This is a for real coup attempt. Not impotent bull **** at all. This President inspires so much hyperbole, while actually being so weak, that it's a little stunning.

I suppose a violent coup is the most common image to spring to mind, but the concept of a soft coup is well established.

Trump is quite clearly attempting a coup. How far he will go, whether he is willing to explicitly wield widespread violence beyond the sporadic attacks we have already seen from his supporters, remains to be determined.

Trump is asserting as fact that he won the election and should remain in power. He is making moves to attempt to subvert the normal process of power transition in such a way that results in him remaining in power. He is building popular support among his base and watching in approval as the most violent elements mobilize to key points throughout the country. His lackeys have already taken minor action to deprive Biden's transition team of recognition he lawfully is awarded.

Our system of government, for all its rules and processes, relies, at the most fundamental levels, on a certain degree of good faith from those wielding power. For all the checks and balances and norms and processes and blah blah blah, at the root of it all is the idea that the powerful will behave accordingly. The constitution isn't immune to deliberate bad faith cheating, and it never could be.

Baselessly claiming votes are fraudulent and having the process thrown to the a partisan legislature that overturns a legitimate election result is a soft coup no matter how you slice it. Beating on the system with baseless claims of fraud until the issue eventually ends up in a friendly venue that overturns the election is a soft coup.

Trump is attempting it right now. It may not be a successful coup, and it may not go much further depending on how willing others in power are to go along with it, but let's not mistake that an attempt is being made.

 

[d4m10n]

Reuters' article is the same, reporting without much opinion.

Which bits did the Reuters folks get wrong?

 

[Thermal]

I suppose a violent coup is the most common image to spring to mind, but the concept of a soft coup is well established.

Trump is quite clearly attempting a coup. How far he will go, whether he is willing to explicitly wield widespread violence beyond the sporadic attacks we have already seen from his supporters, remains to be determined.

Trump is asserting as fact that he won the election and should remain as power. He is making moves to attempt to subvert the normal process of power transition in such a way that results in him remaining in power. He is building popular support among his base and watching in approval as the most violent elements mobilize to key points throughout the country.

Our system of government, for all its rules and processes, relies, at the most fundamental levels, on a certain degree of good faith from those wielding power. For all the checks and balances and norms and processes and blah blah blah, at the root of it all is the idea that the powerful will behave accordingly. The constitution isn't immune to deliberate bad faith cheating, and it never could be.

Baselessly claiming votes are fraudulent and having the process thrown to the a partisan legislature that overturns a legitimate election result is a soft coup no matter how you slice it. Beating on the system with baseless claims of fraud until the issue eventually ends up in a friendly venue that overturns the election is a soft coup.

Trump is attempting it right now. It may not be a successful coup, and it may not go much further depending on how willing others in power are to go along with it, but let's not mistake that an attempt is being made.

I declare myself Owner of the ISF. Hey, gots myself a coup d'forum. Yes, you can describe it that way and I guess be technically correct. Yet in the sky-is-not-falling world, it's just stupid.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Meh. I'm just going to continue pointing out the selective interpretations, the blatant hypocrisy, and the willingness to just pretend that one side is all good and the other side is all bad.

The Clinton campaign did not file a single lawsuit in an attempt to disenfranchise a single voter. The two sides are extremely different.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I declare myself Owner of the ISF. Hey, gots myself a coup d'forum. Yes, you can describe it that way and I guess be technically correct. Yet in the sky-is-not-falling world, it's just stupid.

So what, it's not a coup until hindsight after it is successful?

Major "Pay no attention to these armies massing at the border" vibes here.

A coup is a complicated, multi element task. Trump just can't mash the coup button and be done, he has to maneuver politically into the right position. It's not panic mongering to point out, in no uncertain terms, that Trump is taking actions that have no other real purpose but to effectuate a coup. It's an attempted coup. It may yet still fail, and it may fail without any violent criminal activity, but a coup attempt nonetheless.


in your example, if it were clear that you were exploring options to try to buy the domain and collaborating with the mods and admins to effectuate a takeover, I would call that a coup attempt, even if you hadn't yet pulled the trigger or if people caught wise and outmaneuvered you. Trump is taking clear action to move closer to this goal, it's not just empty pronunciations.

 

[Emily's Cat]

The FBI is of the opinion that one side is way more violent than the other.
Simple word analysis shows that right-wing shows use the term "they hate" way, way more often than center-left wings do.

In short: you have to squint really hard to think that both sides are the same.

Hmm.

Republicans = [-3, -4, -1, 6]
Democrats = [1, 2, 3, -8]

Me: They both suck, because Net = -2 for each.

You: Republicans are -4 on c, Democrats are 3. You have to squint really hard to think both sides are the same.

 

[Meadmaker]

Ya, we will always have the occasional right wing nut job, usually with a gun as nutjobs are wont to have. They have seen their numbers now and aren't whispering in the shadows anymore. That is Trump's primary legacy: the deplorable know they are Legion.

But there are not enough to back a coup, and the few that would will piss their pants in cold fear when they are not outgunning the opposition. The sky is not falling. Thermal promises.

I tend to think along the same line, mostly. i don't take Trump's machinations very seriously now, and I am fully confident that come noon on January 20, Joe Biden will become President after a peaceful transition of power.

Still, it's disturbing that we can even think about the possibility. I don't like to think about the next steps in the drama.

 

[Emily's Cat]

He has killed 100000 Americans

You should bring him up on murder charges.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I tend to think along the same line, mostly. i don't take Trump's machinations very seriously now, and I am fully confident that come noon on January 20, Joe Biden will become President after a peaceful transition of power.

Still, it's disturbing that we can even think about the possibility. I don't like to think about the next steps in the drama.

How do you define a peaceful transition of power?

I suspect that Trump's coup will fail, and that he will likely find that not enough people in the right positions of power are willing to enter his conspiracy.


That said, seems like a pretty good chance that there will be acts of significant violence taken by his supporters out of frustration. Some governor or other official in one of these key states could be assassinated, or a mass shooting of some anti-Trump demonstration. Would that disqualify a "peaceful transition" to your eye, or is it only acts of state violence we're talking about?

 

[thaiboxerken]

It appears Trump knows he's out so he's burning it all down. He just had Mnuchin take actions to cause the next Great Depression.

 

[eerok]

It appears Trump knows he's out so he's burning it all down. He just had Mnuchin take actions to cause the next Great Depression.

Yeah, this is what a mentally ill person in power looks like.