Look. I am fully aware of how real and scary the threats to our democracy are. The Turtle, Dis-Barr—ed, the SCOTUS threats, these are really serious. And a coup is closer to possible than ever in U S history.
But Trump is NOT LEADING IT!
Trump is not capable of leading anything. He hasn’t got any sort of vision or plan. He just blurts out crap he hears on demented winger sources. And then, 10:00 later, he blurts out something else. He can’t keep his message straight for an hour, let alone long enough to plan and lead the sort of massive insurrection it would take to break down our electoral process.
Let’s think for a moment about what it would take to lead a coup. One would need The full bodied support of …
- The military
- The legal system
- The press
- The national security and intelligence community
- The FBI
- The financial powers that be
Now let’s see. Whom has this moron pissed off? Yep … everyone on the list. Oh, he has supporters in all of those realms, but far from enough to get anything radical done. I mean, apart from Faux Not-news, watched by a very limited audience, what press can he control?
And think about the leadership required to spearhead a coup. Ever watch Seven Days in May? Burt Lancaster’s cold-hearted psychopath in that movie was the sort of guy needed to run a coup. Trump hasn’t got enough patience to pay attention through a W H briefing.
Again, I am not wishing away the dangers we face. They are real and terrifying. There are people working to reduce our democracy to the point where a R W coup can work. They are scarily close to doing that.
But Trump will not lead it. He is the definition of a useful idiot who has permitted the nasties in the smoke-filled rooms to bring our democracy into doubt. And those same people know what a moron Trump is. Do you think his tax issues were news to anyone in the financial world?
We have to be clear about what he has done and the nature of his stranglehold on aspects of power. His base either idolizes him or, understanding what he is, has chosen this moment to declare implacable ideological war against everything progressive. So the Winger powers that be tolerate him while loathing and disrespecting him behind the scenes. Like Putin, they will use him as long as they can and then toss him out.
But they will NOT follow him into a civil war they know he is incapable of winning. And unlike the jackass, they get where the political tides are flowing. They know that right now they are holding a very limited hand. So they will take the judgeships they can get and hope to hang onto some Senate seats and when he loses let him twist in the wind.
Other than the things he can do with an executive flourish—and he has repeatedly learned how limited those powers are—the resident has very little actual power. ( I know—he has nevertheless done enormous damage!) He isn’t leading anywhere, and no one is really following him. He is not leading a coup.
So let’s stop panicking and focus on doing what we have to do to vote him out.
If we beat him … he will go!