What isn’t mentioned are other ways Trump could attempt a coup or election interference that might ignore the constitution
There really aren’t any other ways which don’t fall into either “entirely protected speech” or “instigation of civil war”.
Trump is free to claim his party won the midterms, and even file nuisance suits in the courts. And we shouldn’t assume he wouldn’t try to just declare who won or try and interfere with the formation of the much-bluer 120th Congress. But all permutations are either things he’s as free as anyone to do, things that likely won’t work, or things that would start a civil war.
Trump literally instigated an insurrection … I don’t know why “starting a civil war” doesn’t seem like a straightforwardly likely path for him … in particular I think that will be most likely at the end of his term, just like last time. The question is whether his coup will be successful this time, even though it failed last time. He has been more careful this time to appoint positions with loyalists (think JD Vance rather than Mike Pence), and has been purging the military with this in mind.
We are far from being confident that Trump won’t succeed in another coup attempt.
At least I take comfort knowing that even if he does succeed in a coup, he doesn’t have much life left - it won’t be as bad as when the fascists won in Spain (36 years of fascist rule under Franco), or as bad as Stalin’s rule (29 years).
Trump is 79 years old right now, he is very likely to survive the next 3 years (the rest of his term), but the average life expectancy of men in the US is 76 years, and his life expectancy is probably less than a decade.
This is a cult of personality, I find it unlikely MAGA will have much success post-Trump.
a secession is different than a coup, a coup is successful if there is a transfer of power (or the constitutional transfer of power fails, like when Trump tried to prevent Biden from taking office) … and yes, even if Trump led a coup and was in power for a short time like the short life of the Confederacy, I do think retaining power after his constitutional term would be a “success” in the sense that I mean
and I do think the Confederacy successfully seceded from the Union, even if it didn’t last long
and in a broader sense the Confederacy succeeded in many ways even if we acknowledge they lost the war - after Lincoln’s assassination, the South was met with appeasements and there was a failure to integrate or enforce rule of law in the South … from the perspective of Black lives at the time, I would say the South definitely succeeded in maintaining their power and control, and we see this even in the ways that massacres of tens of thousands of Black folks in the South after the civil war went unpunished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen_massacres
I think it’s a rhetorical distinction, but an important one to be aware of.
It would be terrible for us to waste time arguing over whether or not “Trump can succeed!” when we both agree that any such success is likely to be short lived, lead to immediate violence, and most probably result in a violent removal of his administration from power.
(Not to say that we necessarily agree on those things – just that it’d be a waste of time arguing if we do.)
Agreed on most of that - but I don’t know that violent removal of his administration from power after a successful coup is the most likely outcome - the US military was in the hands of other side in the case of the Confederacy … a successful Trump coup would maybe lead to schisms within the military or between state National Guards and federal forces (maybe), but it’s also possible Trump just takes and holds power and there is no domestic military force that is willing or able to remove him. Maybe California and other states would band together, but I’m not sure they would have the military to fight off the US military if they are loyal to Trump after a coup.
It’s possible Trump’s coup will be more like what happened in Russia, where they find a way to do it without much bloodshed by undermining the democratic institutions of elections, media, etc. so that it all appears to be constitutional and legal, but the government has clearly become autocratic.
There really aren’t any other ways which don’t fall into either “entirely protected speech” or “instigation of civil war”.
Trump is free to claim his party won the midterms, and even file nuisance suits in the courts. And we shouldn’t assume he wouldn’t try to just declare who won or try and interfere with the formation of the much-bluer 120th Congress. But all permutations are either things he’s as free as anyone to do, things that likely won’t work, or things that would start a civil war.
Trump literally instigated an insurrection … I don’t know why “starting a civil war” doesn’t seem like a straightforwardly likely path for him … in particular I think that will be most likely at the end of his term, just like last time. The question is whether his coup will be successful this time, even though it failed last time. He has been more careful this time to appoint positions with loyalists (think JD Vance rather than Mike Pence), and has been purging the military with this in mind.
We are far from being confident that Trump won’t succeed in another coup attempt.
At least I take comfort knowing that even if he does succeed in a coup, he doesn’t have much life left - it won’t be as bad as when the fascists won in Spain (36 years of fascist rule under Franco), or as bad as Stalin’s rule (29 years).
Trump is 79 years old right now, he is very likely to survive the next 3 years (the rest of his term), but the average life expectancy of men in the US is 76 years, and his life expectancy is probably less than a decade.
This is a cult of personality, I find it unlikely MAGA will have much success post-Trump.
This entirely depends on what you mean by “succeed”.
Would you consider the Confederate States of America (nominally founded during and extinguished by the 19th century US civil war) a “success”?
a secession is different than a coup, a coup is successful if there is a transfer of power (or the constitutional transfer of power fails, like when Trump tried to prevent Biden from taking office) … and yes, even if Trump led a coup and was in power for a short time like the short life of the Confederacy, I do think retaining power after his constitutional term would be a “success” in the sense that I mean
and I do think the Confederacy successfully seceded from the Union, even if it didn’t last long
and in a broader sense the Confederacy succeeded in many ways even if we acknowledge they lost the war - after Lincoln’s assassination, the South was met with appeasements and there was a failure to integrate or enforce rule of law in the South … from the perspective of Black lives at the time, I would say the South definitely succeeded in maintaining their power and control, and we see this even in the ways that massacres of tens of thousands of Black folks in the South after the civil war went unpunished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedmen_massacres
I think it’s a rhetorical distinction, but an important one to be aware of.
It would be terrible for us to waste time arguing over whether or not “Trump can succeed!” when we both agree that any such success is likely to be short lived, lead to immediate violence, and most probably result in a violent removal of his administration from power.
(Not to say that we necessarily agree on those things – just that it’d be a waste of time arguing if we do.)
Agreed on most of that - but I don’t know that violent removal of his administration from power after a successful coup is the most likely outcome - the US military was in the hands of other side in the case of the Confederacy … a successful Trump coup would maybe lead to schisms within the military or between state National Guards and federal forces (maybe), but it’s also possible Trump just takes and holds power and there is no domestic military force that is willing or able to remove him. Maybe California and other states would band together, but I’m not sure they would have the military to fight off the US military if they are loyal to Trump after a coup.
It’s possible Trump’s coup will be more like what happened in Russia, where they find a way to do it without much bloodshed by undermining the democratic institutions of elections, media, etc. so that it all appears to be constitutional and legal, but the government has clearly become autocratic.