THE COUP D'ÉTAT IS UNDERWAY

What we have suspected and feared for a long time is actually coming to pass. The convincing evidence came yesterday in President Trump's news conference. This is a attempt at an overthrow of our democratic republican government and it is being carried out by the leader of that very republic and his army of enablers. For those of us who want to preserve our historic government, this is a break the glass and pull the fire alarm moment, and if you do not think so, I urge you to read Barton Gellman's new article in The Atlantic, "The Election that could Break America." Find it here .

The evidence of this attempted coup is now unmistakable. Trump has repeatedly and publicly rejected the idea he would concede his office to anyone. He, and his number two acolyte, the Attorney General Bill Barr, have repeatedly denounced and rejected the validity of mail-in ballots. The Republican Party has employed over one thousand lawyers who have descended on "battleground states" to disqualify mail-in votes (which would be overwhelmingly for Democrats). They have already had some successes, as in Pennsylvania where they brought a successful suit in the state supreme court to throw out all mail-in ballots that were not mailed in two envelopes (the ballot inside an envelope that is inside another envelope). In the election of 2016, this would have disqualified 100,000 (mostly Democrat) votes. Trump carried PA by 42,000 votes.

According to the people who have studied what is going on in these shenanigans, the plan of Trump and the Trumpistas is simple and clear. Most Republicans will vote in person on Election Day, Nov. 3. Trump will be ahead in the count that day. They will declare Trump the winner and challenge the validity of mail-in ballots on whatever ground they can find. This will throw the final vote count into chaos under lawsuit after lawsuit (this is where the 1,000 lawyers come in). Remember, Trump's whole M.O. is to create chaos. The outcome of the election, they hope, will be impossible to determine officially. 

Under the terms of the U.S. Constitution, the people do not elect the president, the states do. It designates the state legislature as the decider on the state's votes. What the Trump train will do is to create enough confusion and uncertainty in the outcome of the popular vote on Nov. 3 that the state legislature will have to decide on that state's electors to the Electoral College. Most of the state legislature in the "battleground states" are controlled by Republicans. The Republican majority could vote through a slate of pro-Trump electors for the state. The Electoral College will vote on December 14. It elects the president. Under this scenario, Trump would be officially reelected. As Trump said yesterday, if we throw out the mail-in votes, there will be no need for him to concede anything. The plan of this attempted overthrow is plain for all to see. Trump is working to remain in office by overthrowing the election and he will do this by invalidating the mail-in votes and throwing the decisions to the Republican-controlled state legislatures. This would be a  coup d'état, that is, an overthrow of the majority-rule democratic republican government we have developed in this country for the past two and a half centuries. Majority government would be replaced by minority rule, under an authoritarian president.

Just because this coup has started does not necessarily mean it will succeed. History is littered with coups that failed. However, it is also filled with coups that succeeded. What will happen now in the U.S. is very much up in the air. It will depend on certain factors such as the will of the majority of the people to retain our democratic republic. On a practical level, it probably depends most on the members of the Republican Party, particularly on the party office-holders and leaders. If they remain in lock-step, as they did in the impeachment vote in the House and Senate, Trump will come much closer to success. All of our institutions will be put to the test, probably most notably the courts. That is why the Republicans are frantic now to place a new justice on the Supreme Court, as Trump said yesterday. They are rushing through confirmation of a new young, right-wing justice in order to have a solid lock on the court which may very well end up deciding the election, as the court did in the Election of 2000 when the conservative majority handed the win to the man who lost the popular vote. So, there is an open question as to whether the institutions will hold and defend the democratic republic, or will enable this coup. I expect we will also see violence in the streets. In fact, it may well by part of the plan. The Republican Attorney General of Kentucky, a protégé of Senator McConnell, just yesterday announced a settlement in the Breonna Taylor case that was guaranteed to create street demonstrations/violence that Republicans could then use as an excuse for energize its base for "law and order." The armed forces sent in to keep "peace" could also be used to overthrow the popular vote.

Back to the big picture. We are witnessing a great clash between two historic forces, the proponents of the Great Democratic Revolution, and the reactionaries opposing the GDR. For simplicity, let's call them the Revolutionaries and the Reactionaries. The GDR, that started in earnest in the 1960s brought dramatic and sweeping reforms in favor of equality and inclusion of elements historically ignored or marginalized particularly blacks, women, the old, the poor, and homosexuals. Cumulatively, this was nothing less than a great democratic revolution. However, the elements that felt most threatened by this revolution arose in a counter-revolution to stop and turn back this hated course of change. They were working class white men, white southerners, white evangelical Christians, and big business. When Trump came along in 2016, he unified and energized this Reactionary coalition. He made a deal with them. He would champion their cause of the destruction of democratic reform if they would support his autocratic power. The deal was solidified. It remains so. The problem is that this anti-democratic alliance is not a majority of the people. It is a minority regime and can only sustain its power by destroying the majority institutions. That is what is happening now in the coup under way. It is an attempt of a minority to seize power from the majority. In other words, it is an attempt of the old white male power structure to overturn the GDR and this is being championed by a man who wants to be all-powerful.

The Eighteenth Century philosophers, who were the intellectual fathers of modern democracy, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, knew that democracy had an achilles heal. If the people have the right to determine their government by majority vote, they could vote to overthrow democracy. The philosophers could not find a solution to this problem. I do not think that is our problem today. The majority of the American people do not want to end our democratic republic. The question is what they will do to defend this fragile government that is now under attack by the very officers whom they entrusted to protect and defend the government. The philosophers thought this problem would be solved by majority vote and this would have to be protected by the will of the people. That is the issue today. 

I will return soon with some reflections on historical examples of counter-revolutions and coups.