For some, Trump is finally showing his true authoritarian colors.
Washington, United States:
Is President Donald Trump’s unprecedented assault on US election results an ongoing coup – or just a political spectacle?
In this golden age of conspiracy theories, few can agree.
On the surface, Trump is exercising his right to complain that the tally showing Democrat Joe Biden such a close solid victory was wrong. “Rigged election! he tweeted in his last broadcast on Thursday.
But the president doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Many U.S. elections have been as close as its November 3 defeat – or closer – and no incumbent has ever claimed that their victory was stolen or refused to concede. The US elections just don’t have those kinds of problems.
More than a week after polling day, not a single credible and meaningful evidence of fraud has been provided.
So what is really going on?
For some, Trump is finally showing his true authoritarian colors.
He is a president who openly admires President Vladimir Putin, the king of democratic institutions distorted to gain power. Now the theory goes, he is following suit.
But what if Trump is more of a creepy showman than the Machiavellian brain?
If the embarrassing failures of his team in the courtroom and a bizarre press conference by his fixer Rudy Giuliani at a Philadelphia garden center called the Four Seasons Total Landscaping is anything to say, this may be the most logical answer. .
The theory of the coup
Yet when Trump sacked his relatively independent Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, and then several other senior officials, blood pressure levels soared among those already on edge.
“In the last 24 hours, the Secretary of Defense (SecDef), Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (USD-P) and Under Secretary of Defense for Intell (OUSD-I) have been sacked … Why? tweeted Alexander Vindman, a retired military officer turned White House staff member who was fired after testifying against Trump when he was impeached in 2019.
The wake-up call was also sounded when Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr authorized federal prosecutors to join Trump’s quest for electoral irregularities.
Justice Department electoral crimes chief Richard Pilger resigned in protest.
Barr “allows the department to be armed in an attempt to overturn the results of this election,” former senior Pentagon attorney Ryan Goodman and Andrew Weissmann, who were on the team of special advocates investigating, wrote in the Washington Post. on Trump’s ties to Russia.
In the most extreme scenario, some warn of a coup within the electoral college.
It is the essentially symbolic body made up of representatives sent from each state to elect presidents on the basis of popular vote.
What if Republican state legislatures managed to send out hand-picked voters who would skip the vote and choose Trump instead?
The doomsday scenario is widely discussed in the media but seems far-fetched in real life.
“For starters, even talking about it would spark massive unrest and put lawmakers under unprecedented pressure,” wrote Richard Hasen, a professor of law at the University of California.
But given the high stakes, nerves are shaken.
And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s odd comment on Tuesday that the government is gearing up for “Trump’s second term” didn’t help.
Circuses and careers
The alternate theory is that Trump is just Trump – the perpetual performer who can’t stand being out of the limelight and won’t leave the stage until after performing the show of his life.
Even though he came in second, Trump got over 72 million votes and this huge fan base is known to be loyal.
According to a Politico / Morning Consult poll, 70% of Republicans do not think the election was free and fair – a testament to Trump’s persuasive power.
So it would make sense for a man whose brand relies heavily on macho concepts of “fighting” and “winning” to go down the way his followers expect him to.
Beyond setting up a political circus, Trump may have more personal goals: his financial and professional future.
At 74, energetic and in possession of a massive database of voter information, Trump clearly has options beyond keeping a presidential library discreet.
One clue is his frantic pleas for money.
Read the fine print in mass emails from Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” and it becomes evident that donations will not be used solely to fight the “Left MOB”.
Much is devoted to paying down Trump’s 2020 campaign debt and more goes to a newly formed Political Action Committee or PAC that will help him support chosen candidates in the future or even launch a possible new one. presidential candidacy in 2024.
Whether or not Trump continues with electoral politics, he is generally expected to get into broadcasting, with a mission to punish Fox News for what he sees as insufficient loyalty.
Fox “forgot what made them succeed, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose,” he said Thursday in a flurry of tweets attacking Rupert Murdoch’s network and reinforcing the theory conspiracy by peddling the right-wing Newsmax and OANN channels.
Could Trump’s post-election chaos actually be the pilot episode of the former reality TV star’s next series?
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
