Perhaps it’s because the world finds Donald Trump’s continued claims he won the election by “a lot” to be so incredulous, the United States has such a powerful system of constitutionally based laws, that few are describing what seems to be going on as an attempted coup d'état. According to Wikipedia, a coup d'état typically is “an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a political faction… usually through violent means.” But that phrase is increasingly finding it way into the international press… and even here in the United States.
We haven’t seen the normal accompanying violence, despite plenty very clear threats that there will be from Trump-supporting extremists including private militia, but it is clear that so many of Trump’s constituents have no intention of letting Joe Biden become President on January 21st. To other Trump supporters, even if Biden is sworn in formally, they will not recognize the results unless and until Donald Trump concedes and withdraws his claim of a fraudulent and rigged election. No one is expecting Trump to make that statement… now or ever.
The lack of immediate violence is not an essential part of the definition of a coup. It’s simply an extra-legal attempt to seize power. Despite 30 lawsuits filed by the Trump organization, his supporters and various facets of the Republican Party, there has not been a single successful judicial ruling according any path to reverse the election. Trump’s pleas to GOP state legislators, in states he lost, to usurp what he has labeled, without a shred of evidence, widespread election fraud, to simply replace the “elected” members of the state’s Electoral College with their GOP designees, have uniformly fallen on deaf ears.
Trump has even summoned Michigan GOP election representatives to the White House to pressure them not to certify the election results. They simply responded that they would fulfill their legal obligations. And did. Some of the states he or folks like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have pushed to dump opposing ballots, or substitute GOP Electors, actually have statutes that require Electors to be selected only by voters. But a vast horde of Trump supporters – some telling the BBC that “Trump clearly knows something that we do not” – are completely convinced that the Democrats stole the election. That the Dems lost seats in the House would suggest what a bad job they did in that “theft”… goes without comment.
Still, the efforts to disqualify opposing votes, nullify state election results by reason of some nefarious deep state conspiracy theory or fraudulent balloting – all without evidence – continue. As mainstream law firms cease representing Trump’s position, as Rudy Giuliani (now leading the litigation effort) – with hair dye dripping down his face (pictured above) – continues to argue before judges that the fraud is so obvious that Biden’s election victories obvious must be nullified. Unsuccessfully. That the same ballots that supported Biden are often the same ballots that elected GOP Senators and Representatives seems to be lost in translation.
Triggering a statutorily permitted – loser pays – recount in two Wisconsin urban and highly Democratic counties where Trump was trounced by Joe Biden, most of the Trump/GOP appointed recount “observers” clearly intended a more active and disruptive role: “Election officials in Wisconsin’s largest county accused observers for President Donald Trump on Saturday [11/21] of seeking to obstruct a recount of the presidential results, in some instances by objecting to every ballot tabulators pulled to count.
“Trump requested the recount in Milwaukee and Dane counties, both heavily liberal, in hopes of undoing Democrat Joe Biden's victory by about 20,600 votes. With no precedent for a recount reversing such a large margin, Trump's strategy is widely seen as aimed at an eventual court challenge, part of a push in key states to undo his election loss.
“A steady stream of Republican complaints in Milwaukee was putting the recount far behind schedule, county clerk George Christenson said. He said many Trump observers were breaking rules by constantly interrupting vote counters with questions and comments… ‘That’s unacceptable,’ he said. He said some of the Trump observers ‘clearly don't know what they are doing.’
“Tim Posnanski, a county election commissioner, told his fellow commissioners there appeared to be two Trump representatives at some tables where tabulators were counting ballots, violating rules that call for one observer from each campaign per table. Posnanski said some Trump representatives seemed to be posing as independents.
“At one recount table, a Trump observer objected to every ballot that tabulators pulled from a bag simply because they were folded, election officials told the panel… Posnanski called it ‘prima facie evidence of bad faith by the Trump campaign.’ He added later: ‘I want to know what is going on and why there continues to be obstruction.’
“Joe Voiland, a lawyer speaking to commission members on behalf of the Trump campaign, denied his side was acting in bad faith… ‘I want to get to the point of dialing everything down … and not yelling at each other,’ Voiland said.
“At least one Trump observer was escorted out of the building by sheriff’s deputies Saturday after pushing an election official who had lifted her coat from an observer chair. Another Trump observer was removed Friday [11/20] for not wearing a face mask properly as required.” Associated Press, November 22nd.
Meanwhile, Trump is hardly a functional President at any level. Even as Americans are contracting COVID-19 in record numbers, pushing the death toll to accelerating heights, until November 23rd,Trump refused to allow the incoming administration to access GSA transition funds and government personnel to prepare to deal with this escalating crisis and set the needed deployment of imminently available vaccines. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Americans will die by reason of this delay. No one is sure how much actual cooperation the Biden administration will be allowed during this process.
Other than his usual “fake news” tweets – even Fox News is rebelling – Trump has all but disappeared from governance. “President Trump has refused to concede and taken ever more brazen steps, legally and politically, to reverse his election defeat. Yet he’s shown little sign of performing the job he’s trying so hard to keep. On Saturday [11/21], Trump left the virtual G-20 summit to play golf as other leaders, including those of Germany, France, South Korea and Italy, discussed by video a global response to the worsening pandemic.” Los Angeles Times, November 22nd.
The United States seems more like a banana republic with an ousted dictator literally trying to bury a clear vote of the people. And in those countries, when they really do allow a change at the top, the deposed autocrat is often charged with treason or simply escapes to live in a friendly power. Trump’s position is so completely unsustainable that, so far at least, the actual government is not taking his efforts seriously, the courts are uniformly resisting his attempt to usurp election results, we do not have to move our legal inquiry further. But if indeed, genuine shooting (armed insurrection) starts…
I’m Peter Dekom, and lest we believe that Joe Biden has a clear mandate to change the course of American policy, remember that seventy-three million Americans voted for Donald Trump, albeit over five and a half million fewer than voted for Biden.
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