Coup a la Trump?

“The American experiment does not have to work. Empires and nations rise and fall.” Annette Gordon-Reed, New York Review of Books

What does an aspiring strongman need? Collaborators in high places. Dedicated rank & file minions to parrot Dear Leader’s line. Mitch McConnell. Mike Pence. Mike Pompeo. William Barr. Let the record show that these men are collaborators. Traitors to their oath of office and the American people. They are aiding and abetting Donald Trump’s effort to overturn a democratic outcome. It’s happening in plain sight and in corridors of power we can not know about. If you doubt this is their aim, watch the video recording of Pompeo speaking to the media yesterday. With the smirk of a diabolical asshole on his face, Pompeo said the transition to a second Trump administration would be smooth. The sitting Secretary of State flat-out refused to acknowledge the president-elect.  Think about that. None of us have ever seen such outrageous behavior from a Cabinet official. 

Many political analysts and journalists thought it would go down like this: Trump prematurely claiming victory, casting allegations about vote fraud, mounting as many legal challenges as possible, no matter how frivolous, creating chaos and uncertainty in a process that produced its fair outcome, refusing to concede that Biden won the election. If the Democrats rigged the election, they botched the job so badly that they lost seats in the House and failed to flip the Senate. Make no mistake, the election was a referendum on Donald Trump. It wasn’t stolen, Trump lost. The country’s not ready to throw in the towel yet. Too many of us still believe in the American experiment. 

Unfortunately, the finish line still lies ahead and Trump is a master of delay. The longer he fans the flames of doubt, the better for him. He’s got his collaborators and almost all the rank & file of the Republican Party under his thumb. They’re more than willing to go down with Trump, willing to push the limits of the law until they snap the brittle bones of our democracy. This is astounding. I heard Sydney Blumenthal in an interview with Ian Masters, and when the former advisor to Bill and Hillary Clinton warned of the national security secrets Trump will carry out of the White House (no matter how he goes), I stopped what I was doing. I hate to sound paranoid, but this is what life under Trump does to people. We begin to doubt the evidence of our own eyes and ears. We are forced to consider things that have heretofore been unthinkable. But there’s no doubt in my mind that Donald J. Trump would sell America’s secrets to the world for the right price. And with the freight train of litigation that is headed his way when he’s no longer president, plus the millions he owes coming due, Trump will need money, lots of it. 

Over the past two days I’ve listened to or read a number of commentators, legal experts, elected officials, and the majority of them think Trump will back down when this phase of his endgame fails. They believe our systems will hold. I’m not so sure. Who’s going to stop the Trump Gang? The anxiety that drained from me on November 7 has returned. The Trump era will not end until the man is physically out of the White House, stripped of all governing power. 

Pay close attention lovers of liberty, the days ahead will be fraught.