The Problem With This Election, or When Is a Coup a Coup and When Is It Not?

Headline: "MP claims "judicial coup" overturned Kenya election result; A Kenyan MP has filed a petition calling for the removal of Chief Justice David Maraga" (source)

By Thomas Neuburger

The problem with this election is that it brings to a head the general problem of dealing with Movement Republicans — those whom Paul Krugman in 2003 correctly called "a revolutionary power" — that like all revolutionary powers "does not accept the legitimacy of our current political system" and therefore has no intention of operating within the rules that govern the rest of us. 

They don't want to "work within" the system to reform it, because they don't believe the system should exist. They want to strip it to its bones and rebuild it.

A Revolutionary Power

This perfectly explains Republican Party behavior, from Nixon to Reagan to Bush to Bush-Cheney to McConnell. Nixon's re-election committee believed that the "other side" was so dangerous that anything that prevented a Democratic Party win would be justified — even murder, though I can't now find the John Mitchell quote, spoken under oath, that admits it.

Nixon and Reagan both treated with the enemies of their country — negotiated against their government's peace efforts during wartime — to extend the killing of American soldiers (Nixon) or extend the foreign captivity of American citizens (Reagan) for personal and partisan gain. 

Bush senior was Reagan's point man in Republican pre-election negotiations with the Iranian government to extend the captivity of their hostages, he carried the campaign's promises, made sure the hostages weren't released until after Carter was out of office, then swore an oath he had no intention of upholding — to defend the Constitution.

Cheney attempted, the entire time he was in office, to convert the presidency from an office checked by the other three branches to a "unitary executive" capable of acting close to king-like. He too swore to uphold the Constitution, yet worked his entire professional life to overturn it. His president, Bush junior, instituted the largest mass surveillance regime in American history, a regime that's still with us, and likely killed for good the 14th Amendment in the process.

McConnell's sins you likely know already, the latest being his help in putting Amy Coney Barrett onto the Supreme Court. 

Note this though: His sin is not in supporting Trump's nomination this late in Trump's term of office — Trump had that right just as Obama had the right to nominate Merrick Garland up to the day he left the White House (Ruth Bader Ginsberg publicly concurred). McConnell's sin is in helping put a culturally radical Movement Republican onto the Court, someone who, like the rest of her kind, will work like the devil to turn the country into a place no one but she can live in, then force the rest of the country to live in it anyway.

This is the revolutionary force that confronts us in this election, and the particular problem with this election isn't that they'll be returned to power, but that Trump, their bumbling president, will be retained through anti-constitutional means, the way George W. Bush was "elected" through anti-constitutional means. The Founders in 1789 had no idea that the Supreme Court could select a president; they didn't even countenance the thought that the Supreme Court could invalidate the law (that came in 1805 in a coup of its own by Supreme Court justice John Marshall). 

Republicans staged a coup once, a real one, and got away with it. I think a great many of them would gladly do it again.

"Fraud" versus Fraud and the Response to Each

What would happen if the electorate chooses Joe Biden? The radical Republican Party would scream "fraud" with every breath to invalidate that choice, then act as if Democratic fraud actually occurred, with all that this implies.

Yet Republicans are committing fraud as we speak. Among other acts, they are using their judicial operatives in the courts, Movement Republicans loyalists, to uphold challenges to Democratic Party voters.

If the unlikely occurs and the election turns on a case in the U.S. Supreme Court — as it did in 2000 — and the Court installs Trump as the winner with a ruling as specious as the 2000 ruling was, Republicans will have done in fact what they falsely accuse Democrats of doing in their dreams — they will have stolen the presidency, twice.

In addition, if Biden wins, it's pretty certain that many MAGA hat Trump supporters will take to the streets, that calls for "resistance" will be many, and the mantra "not my government" will be heard from a great many lips. From the Trump-supporter point of view, a Biden win will look like a coup that literally invalidates the authority of his government and justifies revolt.

But what if Trump wins because the Supreme Court installed him, despite the polling, the invalidation of ballots, the false claims of fraud, and the open and outright corruption of Republican judges? 

In this case, it will not simply appear to be a coup — it will be one in fact. 

How Should Anti-Trump Voters React to a Coup?

If this should occur, how should those who witness it respond? What should the people do if the Court, for a second time, steals the presidency? 

The fact is, they should react exactly as MAGA supporters are going to react if Biden were elected. The pro-Trump side will think it sees a coup, but they will be wrong. If the Court hands the election to Trump in an outright theft, Biden supporters will know they've seen a coup, and they will be right.

And that's the problem with this election. It could all come down to dueling charges of theft, one of them imagined and one of them very real. Will the nation, in rejecting the behavior of the "fake coup" side, reject their only valid response if a real one occurs?