Name: Column: Trump’s upcoming coup: A formal invitation from a cowardly president who knows he might lose
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Column: Trump’s upcoming coup: A formal invitation from a cowardly president who knows he might lose

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AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneSep 25, 2020 at 5:00 amThis will be remembered as the week President Donald Trump formally announced his plans to stage a coup.Coups, as a general rule, don’t receive much advance publicity. But Trump needs attention the way normal humans need oxygen, so he went ahead and let the American people know what’s coming after the Nov. 3 election.AdvertisementAsked Wednesday if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the leader of our soon-to-be-former democracy said: “We’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”Half of that is true. Trump has been complaining, endlessly, about the fact that in the face of a wildly contagious virus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans on his watch, voters will be voting by mail in higher-than-ever-before numbers.AdvertisementThe other half, however, is nonsense. The ballots aren’t a disaster. The ballots are controlled by the states, both Democratic- and Republican-led, and there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest voter fraud is even a remotely serious issue in any state in this country.Trump continued: “Get rid of the ballots, you’ll have a very transfer — you’ll have a very peaceful — there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.”You see, it’s simple. There are certain votes the president doesn’t want counted, and as long as we “get rid of” those votes, the transfer of power will be peaceful because he’ll win and we can all rest easy knowing our benevolent orange-hued dictator has his best interests at heart.(Moments after Trump made those statements, the word “democracy” began to fade from every dictionary in the country.)But hold on, you say, aren’t you being a bit extreme calling this a “coup”?Thanks so much for asking! No, I’m not.Along with Trump’s refusal to promise a peaceful transition of power and his obvious desire to “get rid of” ballots — your ballots, the ballots of people exercising their right to vote — the president has done everything he can to preemptively paint the coming election as inherently fraudulent. He has made clear there will be litigation, a suggestion he’ll rely on judges he has placed to help him win.He said Wednesday that a new Supreme Court justice should fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat before the election because “I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling — it’s a scam — the scam will be before the United States Supreme Court.”AdvertisementThere’s no scam. There’s only an election, one this cowardly little president is clearly frightened he’s going to lose.So he’s telegraphing a coup, because he’s too clumsy and erratic to hide anything. He’s making it abundantly clear that a Joe Biden victory in the election cannot and will not be legitimate, and that he, the paper-tiger president of the United States, will do everything in his power to scare voters, sow distrust in the electoral system and angle to disenfranchise as many potential Biden voters as possible.To Trump and his supporters, this is a president showing toughness. To everyone else, it’s a scared little man puffing out his chest to intimidate people and looking like the feckless, aspirational dictator that he is.It’s pathetic, of course, but it also can’t be ignored. Because this particular feckless, aspirational dictator has every member of his political party marching in goose-step behind him, a remarkable feat given none of them have spines. Those Republicans with their limp torsos and occasionally furrowed brows are helping Trump zip a new Supreme Court justice into place weeks before an election, rendering the word “hypocrisy” meaningless and facilitating the president’s ideal outcome of an election decided by “his” judges.So make no mistake, this is a president who knows he’s losing — confident people don’t behave this way. And this is a president who will do everything in his power, up to and including staging a coup, to maintain power and not suffer the disgrace of losing to the man he mocks as Sleepy Joe.By effectively inviting Americans to his coup — Make Coups Great Again! — Trump has one goal: Cast doubt on the results of our election and, ideally, make people believe he’ll win no matter what, thus depressing turnout.AdvertisementSo here’s what Americans who don’t appreciate such behavior from their leaders can do: Be not afraid.Trump could absolutely win this election outright. No question.And he could absolutely leverage his power to disqualify mail-in ballots or halt counting. He could declare victory on election night well before all ballots are counted and then litigate the results all the way to the Supreme Court.But he is counting on you to accept such things as a fait accompli. Don’t. Be not afraid. Vote, encourage others to vote and do everything you can to make sure people understand that this frightened man-child is, almost unbelievably, a real threat to our democracy.Vote. Vote so hard it dents the ballot box.The coup Trump would gladly stage is more complicated a thing to pull off than his simple mind can imagine. But if enough people vote against his undemocratic leadership, it becomes wholly impossible.AdvertisementAnd Trump becomes the very thing he fears most: irrelevant.rhuppke@chicagotribune.com Advertisement

AdvertisementBy Chicago TribuneSep 25, 2020 at 5:00 amThis will be remembered as the week President Donald Trump formally announced his plans to stage a coup.Coups, as a general rule, don’t receive much advance publicity. But Trump needs attention the way normal humans need oxygen, so he went ahead and let the American people know what’s coming after the Nov. 3 election.AdvertisementAsked Wednesday if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the leader of our soon-to-be-former democracy said: “We’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly...

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Rex Huppke writes a humor(ish) column. He is considered (by himself) to be America’s most-beloved columnist, though there is no empirical evidence of that. Before becoming a columnist he spent a decade reporting on social justice issues, from poverty and gang violence to the gay civil rights movement. He previously worked for The Associated Press.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/chinews-ask-rex-huppke-i-just-work-20130507-staff.html#nt=byline

Rex Huppke

The Chicago Tribune is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the 6th highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017.

Column: Trump’s upcoming coup: A formal invitation from a cowardly president who knows he might lose

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