Trump’s coup attempt – VG

Everything Donald Trump has done in recent weeks points in the same direction. He has fired top politically appointed officials in the US Department of Defense and put in people who do what he says. He has fired the man who was in charge of conducting the presidential elections. And now he’s trying to get party colleagues in the states where Joe Biden won to refrain from sending out voters who will approve Biden as the new president.

Yesterday, Friday night, Michigan Republican elected officials were invited to the White House. The goal was obvious: Donald Trump should convince them to ignore the fact that Biden won at Michigan. It is the Michigan state assembly, where Republicans have a majority, which elects the voters there. In principle, therefore, they can review the verdict of the voters. The mere fact that senior officials in Trump’s party have agreed to meet with him in this situation is troubling.

Majority in Congress

In Wayne County, Michigan, an area that includes the city of Detroit, two Republicans who will help pass the outcome of this week’s election tried to deny Biden victory. After stormy hours of angry voters, they turned around and accepted the result, which in this area gave a large majority to Biden. Then Trump called his fellow party members, who turned around and still did not accept the election result. But the deadline had expired. Everything, therefore, indicates that your last configuration does not matter.

Trump is now pressuring his party colleagues in Pennsylvania and Georgia. Also in these two states, Biden won the elections, while Republicans have a majority in state assemblies elected by the people. Either these assemblies instead send someone to nominate Trump, or they send no one at all, the result may be that Biden does not get the 270 electoral votes required by the Constitution for him to be appointed as the new president.

In that case, the matter goes to Congress. Here, each of the 50 states in the United States will have one vote. The majority of each state group in Congress decides which candidate will get the vote for their state. Republicans have a majority in 26 of them and will therefore decide who becomes the next president.

No clear prescription

Already during the election campaign, Trump described this as an opportunity to continue if Biden won, or in Trump’s words, if Biden managed to “steal the election.” After the Trump people have so far been rejected in court with all their false and undocumented allegations of voter fraud, this is how Trump now sees it as one last chance to stay.

The founders of the United States did not take into account that at some point there could be a president who refused to surrender after losing an election. There is no clear recipe for how the United States should deal with the situation the country is in now. Everyone has taken for granted that whoever loses the election will step aside and let go of the winner.

So far, Donald Trump has shown no signs of leaving the White House. He holds his own party with an iron fist. His fellow party members know that Trump is the second in American history to have received the second highest number of votes. Only Joe Biden has gotten more. Republicans also know that they depend on Trump’s core of voters. Dating Trump means dating large groups of voters.

Gasoline on fire

This is a large part of the reason so few Republican politicians have stood up to Trump. Some have actively supported him, while many with their passivity have made sure to unleash it. It is always the helpers who make dictatorships possible. There has been an abundance of supporters in the Republican Party.

Some of the top Republicans have completely stoked the fire, broadcasting completely undocumented allegations of voter fraud. In this way, they have contributed to generating mistrust and doubts about the election. They have incited extremist Trump supporters and inflamed the masses, in a situation where lies and conspiracy theories already abound. It could be dangerous.

So far, there is no indication that Trump is successful in his attempts to influence Republican politicians in the states. So far no one has announced that they will refrain from sending voters that reflect the election results in their state. But the mere fact that Trump is trying to follow this path is shocking.

A dangerous recipe

Democracies can regress and become authoritarian regimes. This has happened before, in other places, on other occasions. It often happens through the law in the first place. Authoritarian leaders take advantage of loopholes in legislation. They twist the rules and traditions in their own direction, to justify their own abuse of power. This is what we see now in the United States. Although Trump is unsuccessful, he has created a dangerous recipe for others of the same caliber to come after him.

So, of course, we think America will never go that way. Not the United States, which has taught the rest of the world about democracy, which has a constitution and a declaration of independence that have formed the model for democracies around the world. After all, the United States still has strong, independent institutions that want to protect democracy. Still, it is depressing to see how key politicians on Trump’s side are playing with fire.

Military coup?

Trump is still the commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest military power, he is the commander-in-chief of the army. What if Trump gives orders to generals that they understand will lead to disaster? If so, if they refuse to follow their commander-in-chief, Trump, what happens? A military coup? Generals who intervene and save democracy so that the legally elected president takes office?

Joe Biden will assume the presidency on January 20. Anything else is impossible to imagine. But American democracy is severely weakened. It will take time to rebuild trust. If possible.