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I don't think it was particularly close a year ago.

If I got the picture correct, the Trump plan was to establish control over the streets by:
A1) get a pro-Trump rally going
A2) get Antifa out in force to protest said rally
A3) get the National Guard out to control Antifa
while at the same time:
B1) get Mike Pence to use his ceremonial role to declare certain state delegations invalid
B2) get those states to instead send a delegation appointed by the state government
B3) get appointed president by the modified electoral convention

Essentially only step A1 suceeded, and when step B1 failed, they tried to use A1 to force B1. Which didn't work, and the rally goers had not enough preparation to actually stand a chance to grab control of Congress.

Even if all the pieces had come together it doesn't account for countermoves. What if the Democrat controlled Senate assembled their delegates from the old electoral convention? And the various right wing militias that was in all likelihood heavily infiltrated by FBI (because they tend to be, also see the reporting in Revolver News), would they have been ordered off the table at some critical junction? What if the appointment of new electors had been tied up in courts?

It is one lazy attempt at a coup.

What is more worrying is the political climate where this coup attempt becomes a possibility. You have at least since Clinton a de-legitimisation of presidents elected by the Democrats, and with Trump that became mutual. You have the ongoing republican electoral cheating since at least Bush, and related to that the by design hackable election system. Also the by now mutual media systems that appeal to their partisans by simplified stories of heroes and villains.

All on top of an economy making larger portions of the population destitute and a few billionaires on the way to becoming trillionaires, a global empire that just lost its longest war, and a pandemic that neither side can manage.

If this continues the risks are obvious that the next attempt will be less lazy. While more likely coming from the Republicans, I would however not rule out that it might come from the Democrats. Remember the Clinton campaigns manouverings to get electors to be faithless?

I recently read about the politics of the Third French Republic, and there is some similarities in the unstable political system. However, it managed to wobble on.

by fjallstrom on Mon Jan 3rd, 2022 at 01:36:49 PM EST

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