I know this question wasn't directed to me, but I think refusing to answer the question, "Will you step down if you lose the election?" remotely resembles a coup. It is very remote, but the connection is there.
I think saying "We won in a landslide." when in fact you did not win in a landslide, remotely resembles a coup. That one is somewhat more remote, but again, the connection is present.
I think inviting the heads of a state legislature to come to the White House, presumably in an effort to convince them to ignore the votes of the state and instead deliver the electoral votes to him, remotely resembles a coup. In fact, the connection isn't all that remote for that one. That one pretty much resembles an attempted coup. (I'm using the word "coup" to mean any illegal usurpation of power, not necessarily an armed uprising.)
It won't work. He lost. I can't even fathom his intent on most of his actions here, and to make sense of them I have to assert insanity, or genuinely contemplating a coup, or just being a complete and total loser who puts his own feelings ahead of everything else, including the good of the country, and has decided to play some sort of joke on his enemies.
I can't tell, from his actions alone, which of those possibilities is reality. The actions one would take are identical. In particular, just being a total loser playing a joke on his enemies (i.e. on me and maybe 78 million other people), would look exactly like an illegal usurpation of power, so I can't tell the difference.
I genuinely believe that Donald Trump would stage a coup if he thought he could get away with it. That's something I've never said about any other president, and I'm old enough to remember Nixon. I think he has no respect for the law, or for democracy. It's all means to an end for Trump, and the end is not even the sort of America he wants to see. The end that he wants is personal aggrandizement.
Well put.
