But Trump & his crew plotted just that.
AsI reflected on events in real time, I couldn’t help but think that a coup has been set in motion by the current president and his cronies. I certainly didn’t have that possibility on my 2020 Election bingo card.
I expected the toddler in chief to refuse to concede. I expected the GOP to continue its standard operating procedure of falling in line with their leader and refusing to congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their White House win. I expected the administration to use its last 70-some days to tear apart whatever they could about fairness and democracy.
But I confess, I didn’t expect a full-out coup attempt.
Just connect the dots from the last few days, and it’s clear that #45 and his administration aren’t just being petulant toddlers by not conceding. A series of actions have specifically been taken that can reasonably be interpreted as setting a coup in motion to prevent Biden and Harris from becoming president and vice-president — one that the president’s pitchfork-and-torch-carrying supporters are sure to get behind. Here are the facts to date:
- DT fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, which led to a top Pentagon official to resign in protest. Now we have an acting secretary of Defense that the president most likely thinks he can control in a way he could not control Esper. Esper infamously disagreed with #45 on using the military to control protests across the country earlier this year. Reports are continuing to come in that a purge is underway at the Department of Defense, with the administration putting DT loyalists in top positions.
- #45 fired three agency leaders, including the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the agency that oversees the national nuclear stockpile.
- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has announced that there will be a smooth transition of power … to a second DT administration.
- U.S. Attorney Bill Barr has declared that the Department of Justice will launch investigations into election fraud, even though respected experts all agree this past presidential election was conducted with transparency and integrity, with no evidence of fraud. Barr’s announcement prompted the protest resignation of the DOJ’s elections crimes chief.
- The GSA appointee in charge of implementing the transfer of power after an election refuses to initiate that transfer, thereby disrupting the smooth and peaceful transfer of power, a transition that has been pro forma in every other election, including #45’s. The effect of this is to delay the hiring/screening of personnel who need to be ready to hit the ground running on January 20, 2021, thereby delaying the ability of a Biden administration to do work that is necessary before the inauguration.
- It looks like the head of the CIA is not safe.
- #45 has announced he will hold rallies to continue the baseless claims of fraud in the election, while ignoring that the political contributor he appointed to head the U.S. Postal Service ordered massive slowdowns in the months preceding the election with the apparent motive of keeping mail-in ballots from arriving in time to be counted.
- Congressional staffers who helped in trying to discredit the Russia investigation into #45’s 2016 election are being promoted; those who didn’t are being fired.
- The White House is currently vetting candidates for positions in a second DT administration.
- As president-elect, Biden should be receiving the president’s daily intelligence brief. The administration is refusing to provide those to Biden.
- The president has announced a march on November 19 in Washington, D.C., claiming it to be a protest “to demand transparency an protect election integrity” … except that every legitimate election expert has said it was transparent and done with integrity. This is clearly an opportunity to gin up his MAGA base whose support he will want and need to continue on his path to wrongfully block the Biden from becoming president.
- One of the country’s largest law firms, Jones Day, is leading the effort to have tens of thousands of ballots tossed out in an attempt to give #45 the win.
- And let’s not forget that #45 has pardoned the worst of the worst, including Roger Stone — who was found guilty of obstructing the investigation into Russian interference on his behalf in the 2016 election; it wouldn’t be a stretch to ponder whether Stone is advising the current president on how to prevent a lawful transfer of power.
- Plus, #45 has built several walls around the White House, and there is real fear that the unidentified stormtroopers he brought to Washington to during the Black Lives Matter rallies were a precursor to using them to prevent being escorted from the White House.
Think I’m getting ahead of myself? Think an unlawful coup can’t happen in America? It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in political science to connect all these, and other, dots. Surely, there will be more firings and other actions to come that will set as many roadblocks in Biden’s path as possible.
It is clear that the putsch has been set in motion. Now, we have to figure out how to prevent it from succeeding.