A very incompetent coup: the constitution and the courts are withstanding Trump’s cynical attempt to undermine democracy
Would the “Trump Coup”™ be less or more appalling if it weren’t pursued so incompetently?
It’s barely two weeks since Donald Trump lost the U.S. presidential election in terms of both the popular vote and the electoral college. His instinct since then has been to ignore both and to litigate the matter in the courts; a plan that amounts to a coup, certainly, but perhaps in name only. It would, after all, be within the letter of the law and, dare one say, entirely constitutional.
As the monstrous logic runs, delaying the certification of the state results would lead to stalemate in the electoral college which meets on 14th December. If Trump could somehow jam-up the system and ensure the matters are instead pushed to the Congress in January, then the presidency would come down to a vote in the House of Representatives. That might sound like an automatic Biden win given the Democrat’s control of the House, but the rules are different in this situation. The vote would be by state affiliation, with all of the representatives from each state wielding one bloc vote, meaning that Trump could probably emerge as the winner. The Senate would then pick the Vice-President, leading to a second Trump/Pence term.
It is certainly a plan but, thus far, one that has proved entirely unworkable. Even if there had been a case to prosecute around voter fraud (and let’s be clear: there hasn’t), Trump’s team, led by the never-reliable Rudy Giuliani, has barely been able to organize a muck raking contest in a landscaper’s forecourt. The Constitution is holding, courts are dismissing Trump’s appeals, and Joe Biden is still on course to become the 46th president on 20th January. As a consequence, the politics around Trump’s yet-to-be-made concession have turned from the matter of the transition to the unenviable position in which the Republican Party now finds itself.
Few will have wished for Trump’s precipitous decline more than those members of the Republican Senate who have been in thrall to his psycho-phantasmagoric populism for the past four years. The American people were meant to have rejected Trump’s brand of “crazy”, yet seventy odd million voters reached a different conclusion. Over the weekend, Washington D.C. saw the “Million MAGA March” in which a few thousand of Trump’s most die-hard supporters arrived in the capital to express their impotent rage.
And therein lies the Republican dilemma. Some see the big Trump vote as evidence of the abiding appeal of their message; that Trumpism contained some powerful truths that will serve them well in the future. Others instead look to the Washington streets and see a small but energised base who are increasingly out of tune with the changing demographics of the nation. Both are, in part, correct in their analysis, but the problem for Republicans is that they now need time to re-evaluate their party’s brand. Instead, they go into 2021 with Donald Trump as the dominant force in their politics.
Senator Marco Rubio admitted last week (through clenched teeth, given his presidential aspirations), Trump will “probably be the nominee” in 2024, yet it’s unlikely, come January, that Melania will repeat the words of Grover Cleveland’s wife who instructed staff to leave things as they are because they’d be back in four years. Trump will certainly feel that business isn’t concluded but Rubio’s prediction is rooted in the politics of 2021 rather than four years hence. The Senate has yet to be decided, with the two seats in Georgia going to a run-off in January. Logic dictates they’ll probably go to the Republicans. Enthusiasm for Biden looks increasingly like it was a vote against Trump, as evidenced by the inability of Democrats to make much impact down the ticket.
Yet there is some cause for Democratic hope. They’ve done well getting both races to a run-off, in no small measure down to the efforts of Stacey Abrams, who turned her failed attempt to become state governor in 2018 into a grassroots movement to change the colour of the traditionally red state. Biden’s win also gives Democrats momentum and with the effective media machine of The Lincoln Project lending their weight, perhaps there’s still a chance for Democrats to take the upper chamber thanks to Vice President Harris’s deciding vote.
Georgia, then, will probably be settled by whichever side can motivate its base and, for that, the Republicans need Trump. Trump, in turn, needs Republicans. So long as he remains politically active, he might be able to fend off some of the legal and fiscal challenges awaiting him once he loses the protection of the presidency. There’s already talk of Trump moving into TV, launching (or buying) his own “news” channel which will promote the QAnon conspiracies much enjoyed by his base.
If he does, then the dilemma for Republicans becomes acute. For the moment they can dismiss the President’s behaviour and assert his right to prosecute fraud if he sees it. It’s a useful delusion that helps them maintain party unity going into the Georgia races in January. Beyond that, however, they run crashing into a political reality in which Trump retains ownership of the Republican brand, leaving many Republicans to realise how their political survival is tied to the soon-to-be-former president.
Make no mistake: Donald Trump will leave the White House in January, but he won’t go far away.