There is still more information that renders ridiculous the whole Trump team’s insistence that the 2020 election was effectively stolen, that there was massive voter fraud, was absurd and unfounded. And Donald Trump, obviously the main guy arguing relentlessly that the election results allegedly amounted to stealing,
We know that Trump was told by a number of people on his own team that there was no substance to allegations of massive voter fraud. He was told that much by his Attorney General William Barr, as well as Jared Kushner, among others.
One of the most visible members of the Trump White House and his re-election team, Rudy Giuliani, was wondering around the White House on election night completely inebriated. Trump Campaign Senior Advisor confirmed this, as did a number of other Republicans, specifically Trump people.
Yet, despite Giuliani being inebriated, he managed to get to President Trump and suggested that he declare the election null and void and stop the count, effectively declaring himself the winner. Again, despite no proof of their claims, and Barr himself called these allegations “bullshit.” Yes, that was a quote by him, that was exactly how he described it.
So Trump certainly cannot claim not to have known that the results were legitimate, even though he lost soundly. Remember, he lost by over seven million votes in the popular vote, and lost the Electoral College results by exactly the margin that he won in 2016, which he claimed he won in a historic landslide. Anyway, why would this be so difficult to believe? Trump never cracked above 49 percent approval rating at the highest points. And more often than not, his approval ratings were, in fact, considerably lower than that, usually either in the low 40’s or high 30’s.
Was it possible than that an incumbent president with those kinds of numbers could lose the election? Hell, in our two party system, it was probable. Moreover, that is exactly what happened.
Trump lost the 2020 election, and convincingly, at that. Members of the Trump team refuted the claims that the election was stolen. Trump’s own lawyers – we’re talking Rudy Giuliani here – refused to argue for massive voter fraud when they had their day in court. After all, it’s one thing to shoot your mouth off about massive voter fraud before television cameras, particularly to fire up your notoriously unhinged base of support. But it is quite another to do so when you are under oath, and held accountable for your claims.
So that means that Trump’s urging all of his supporters to Washington on January 6th, claiming that it was necessary to “stop the steal,” and then going ahead and urging his crowd to “be strong” and show no weakness, because nothing short of that would be enough to “take back” the country was, indeed, a coup attempt.
Listen, we never had anyone like Trump in the White House before. But we have had incumbents who lost their bid for another term. George H.W. Bush lost in 1992. Jimmy Carter lost in 1980. Gerald Ford lost in 1976. So in the past forty years, we have had three other incumbents other than Trump lose elections. Historically, we have seen more than that if we go farther back in history, to boot. Yet, not one of them attempted anything like what Trump tried to do on January 6th.
Yes, Trump knew what he was doing. He was presented with plenty of sober people – allies close to him – who made it clear that there was no real case to be made that he lost the election only because of massive voter fraud. So that is why I strongly believe that nobody knows that Trump lost the election as much as Trump himself.
And yet, he tried to rally his supporters to interrupt the peaceful transition of power based on fair election results. Yes, that is an attempted coup, and nothing short of that. If something like that were to have happened in countries that the United States found hostile, like with Saddam Hussein in Iraq, for example, or with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, we would overwhelmingly dismiss the claims of the incumbent as the wishful thinking, and subsequent actions based on that wishful thinking, of a desperate man trying to cling to power. The only difference is that it did not happen in those undemocratic countries, but it happened in the United States, which still has a democracy in place, and which indeed revealed that Trump lost the election.
Trump himself refused to accept it and tried to change it. He has also claimed once that his supporters might insist that he serve a third term and, in fact, showed interest in being “president for life.” Yes, he has dictatorial tendencies, and yes, he acted out on them on January 6, 2021, in hopes of staying in power.
Does that constitute an actual coup attempt?
Yes it does.
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