I continue to be torn about how to cover the Trump coup attempt. On the one hand it’s ridiculous, and more and more it looks like he’s just doing it to squeeze more money out of his sheep. The Supreme Court was never going to take over the election process and declare Trump the winner just on his say-so that Biden’s votes are fraudulent. And though he’ll undoubtedly keep the charade going at least through January 6, Congress is not going to refuse to count Biden’s 306 electoral votes. I can’t even guess where the scam goes after that, but I’m sure he’ll think of something.
On the other hand, some people do believe his nonsense, and they’re starting to get violent. And while elected Republicans probably don’t believe it, 18 state attorneys general and 126 members of Congress were willing to back his claims to the Supreme Court, even though the proposed remedy amounted to the end American democracy. That all seems pretty serious, even if the claims themselves shouldn’t be taken seriously at all.
So I think I have to cover it, even though I want to stop paying attention to the has-been in the White House.
Anyway, I refuse to let it stop me from doing the thinking I want to be doing. So the first featured post this week is “Opening Thoughts About the Trump Voter”. As you know, I found it deeply disturbing that 74 million voters wanted to re-elect Trump, and I’m struggling to imagine a path that reintegrates them into the world the rest of us live in — the one with a pandemic and climate change and systemic racism. The book Democracy and Truth has given me a hint on how to proceed. This whole line of thought needs a lot more research, but I thought I’d tell you where I’m going. Let’s say that gets out by 10 EST.
“This Week in the Trump Coup” will be the second featured post. It’s basically a bunch of notes of the kind that usually show up in the weekly summary, but I’ve moved them into their own post so that they don’t take over the summary. Let’s say that gets done by noon. The summary then follows at around 1.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
FWIW, this was my feeble attempt to address it. https://www.rogerogreen.com/2020/12/14/sedition-and-other-high-crimes/
And I didn’t even mention the secessionists, or Flynn, or the TX AG angling for a pardon, or the pillow guy telling the DC crowd FOX is in on the fix because they called AZ for Biden so early. GOOD LUCK! https://blog.timesunion.com/hoffmanfiles/a-coup-waged-by-cuckoos/46464/
I can’t recall where I read this take I believe to be essentially correct: Trump’s post-election objective is not to win back the presidency, but to keep control over the GOP. To this end he uses the nominal support of his Big Lie as both a proof of loyalty and a branding iron and most of the establishment Republicans choose to submit for fear of being primaried. I hope this will effectively ruin the chances of the Republican Party to win any meaningful electoral victories, but I fear the result will be opposite – a party and an electorate united more than ever in its denial of objective reality, stopping at nothing it its quest for power.
I haven’t done enough background reading to make this case very well, but I keep being reminded of Stalin solidifying power by wiping out the original Bolsheviks, who were loyal to an ideology rather than to Stalin’s personality cult.
A very similar thing happened after WWII in Poland (where I’m from) – the Kremlin installed a “workers and peasants” party, which as soon as it felt confident got busy purging, arresting and executing prewar communist and socialist activists because they clung to some silly democratic illusions.