TRUMP v MCCONNELL CONTINUED AS INCOMPETENT SHAMBOLIC COUP COLLAPSES

 

America, and to its embarrassment, the world, witnessed a half baked coup engineered by a President who couldn’t organize a meeting in the WhiteHouse without half the participants catching Covid let alone a governmental takeover. His pathetic attempt spanned two months following his ignominious defeat in November. He began by riling up his cult with ever expanding conspiracy stories “proving” that he won the Presidential election. Coupled with that simplistic tactic he futilely pressured states to change their outcomes while initiating an unprecedented number of frivolous legal challenges to the election It was to culminate with the physical assault on “The People’s House” to spur the Congressmen to overthrow Biden's democratic victory.  

THE COUP PLAN 

When all the initial moves failed he banked on settling the issue on January 6, 2021, the day that Congress formally accepted the electoral college votes. He would get legislative supporters to challenge the electors with the help of his undyingly loyal Vice President assisting by declaring the Biden electors invalid. His madcap House of Representative organizers, to whom he granted Freedom Awards so they could join Mandela, King, Mother Theresa, Hank Aron and Frank Sinatra, had lined up more than half the House Republicans to decertify. The Senate not so much, the majority of the caucus following the lead of Majority Leader McConnell who had become the chief political stumbling block to Trump’s objective in becoming the Republican Party. McConnell had thumped Trump on two major legislative initiatives recently - Trump’s move to increase the Covid direct payment to $2000 and by overriding his veto on the defense budget. The Senate majority leader had also made it quite clear that he did not want the Senate involved in challenging the electoral college.

Trump’s coup de grace would be his white supremacists. He had spent weeks on social media urging them to attend a protest which he would address in front of the WhiteHouse on the day of the certification of Biden’s electoral victory. The “very stable genius” would incite violence at the Capitol where he instructed his hooligans to go. In his fevered fantasy he believed this show of strength with his ragbag army would seal the deal with the reluctant Congressmen to acknowledge the new leader. Belatedly he saw an opportunity to get involved in the Senate race in Georgia where he had surprisingly lost by eleven thousand seven hundred and seventy nine votes. The expected positive outcome for the Republicans which by his participation he could claim credit for and strengthen his position as the GOP strongman.

THE POLITICS OF POPULISM

Liberal democracy is facing challenges throughout the Western World. The term “populism" has been loosely used to identify this deviation from the form of government that post war triumphed over fascism and communism. In common is the authoritarian notion that only the leader alone can solve the countries problems, and the normal democratic process can be dispensed with. The leader to project such a grandiose persona had to exude charisma and promise to return to a fantasized past. Without going into too much detail populism differs from country to country where it has prevailed. In America Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party and attempted to run it like a mob operation. 

In spite of the fact that populists like dictators only needed to win one election to guarantee a life long tenure The Don lost his follow up election both in the popular vote and the electoral college. The latter was the American Founding Fathers compromise to entice the smaller states to become part of the Federation. However the Founding Fathers embraced many other concepts that would make it harder for a President to subvert the will of “We the People” the very basis of what was to evolve into a modern day Liberal Democracy.

TRUMP ATTEMPTS TO JOIN THE POPULIST CLUB AND SETS HIS PLAN INTO MOTION

However like good old totalitarians Trump saw no reason to accept the will of “We the People” and refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election. He initially mounted a two pronged attack to subvert the outcome. The first was to overwhelm the Judiciary with complaints about the results in the key states that he had lost. He had appointed many of the Judges where his arguments would be presented. It was a tactic that had worked so well when he was just a small time mobster where the entities he bullied faded away at the sheer costs of defending themselves in litigation that would go on forever. In this endeavor there was no such luck and Trump’s non stop sixty attempts to persuade the Judiciary to declare him the winner was a total disaster. To his amazement his appointments to the Bench did not turn out to be a transactional process  - those that had received his backing didn’t deliver. Even the Supreme Court Judges whom he gave White House Covid receptions snubbed him. Recently a Federal Judge reported a few of his lawyers to the Bar Association for using the Courts to make a political point with Trump’s frivolous law suits. 

The other tactic was to lean heavily on the Republican office bearers in the swing states that he had lost also to simply change the result and declare him the winner. He was The Leader and the officials had seen how he had terminated the careers of those that had crossed him just once.

With the failure of these maneuvers which Trump was solely engaged in at the expense of managing a raging epidemic that was closing in killing nearly four hundred thousand Americans Trump launched a final bid to secure the Presidency. Starting on Saturday January 2, 2021 and ending on Wednesday January 6, he would embark on a crusade which if nothing else would smash the Republican Party permanently. All this in the deluded belief that this would gain him the Presidency. 

Georgia suddenly was on Trump’s mind.

His objective in Georgia was belatedly to throw his full weight behind the two Republican Senatorial candidates which would allow him to argue that it was his intervention that retained the Senate for the Republicans. He had neglected this race for months as a result of his feud with the Republican Governor who wouldn’t alter the November outcome in his favor.

Involving himself in the Georgia encounter would be a very smart move as the two Senators had gained nearly a hundred thousand votes more than the Democrats in the November Senate election. He would claim the credit when they won. However, first he would try and pressure, persuade, cajole and ultimately threaten the Republican State Secretary to “recalculate” and find him 11,780 votes. This would declare him the winner which “everyone knew he had won by hundreds of thousands of votes”. Trump’s cajoling and threatening call was witnessed and taped. The Republican Governor, Secretary of State and head of the Electoral Count stood firm against the threats and smears.

Next move was to have a mass rally in Georgia. The need was in North West Georgia which was his territory so as to drive out his base. Once again he devoted his rant to his own victimhood and attacked the local Republican officials. Trump’s interventions proved to be a disaster motivating the African American vote to come out in record numbers and prove Stacey Adams, who he attacked in his rally, correct. The Republicans vote underperformed in spite of his MAGA rally. He had left the local candidates in such a mess caught between supporting his denial that he had lost the election, attacking their local leaders and having them swear loyalty to him. 

The upshot is that a miracle occurred in Georgia within the space of two months with a hundred thousand deficit turned into a forty thousand victory for the Democrats and changing the whole future of the Biden Administration. More significantly in the Republican shambles, McConnell after a fourteen year reign as the anchor of Republican politics was now minority leader.

January 6, 2021 - a day that will go down in infamy in American history

The next day would be Trump’s big day, his most ardent loyalists who had been enjoined, for months to “stand by” and “be wild" would be coming to Washington for the denouement of his coup effort. He and Rudi addressed them at the WhiteHouse all but advocating them to burn the Capitol down. 

Trump must have had some misgivings because he had relied on his obsequious Vice President Mike Pence to assist in the coup declaring certain slates of electors invalid but the earlier indications proved that Pence would just fulfill his ceremonial role as Chairman of the proceedings. Trump in spite of being forewarned in painful detail that this was Pence’s position had hopes that he would repent. (According to WhiteHouse officials Trump spent the rest of the day cursing Pence who had stabbed him in the back. He had resuscitated the nonentity’s career by making him Vice President and he was giving him no loyalty in return). 

Meanwhile back at the Capitol the beginning of a what was looking like a long day and night and maybe another day began. The first of what could turn out to be three hourly chunks in time in the Capitol had begun with both members of the House and a Republican Senator objecting to awarding the electoral votes of Arizona to Biden. With thirteen Senators and up to a hundred and forty House Republicans in line to support the objections to the outcome of a Democratic election it was as much a reflection of an internal battle in the Republican Party whether to continue with liberal democracy or support dictatorial populism as it was a formal confirmation of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

The first up to speak, in an intervention dripping with emotion, was the outgoing Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell who pleaded for democracy to the packed hushed Senate: 

“Iv’e served thirty - six years in the Senate. This will be the most important vote Iv’e ever cast. The voters, the courts and the states have spoken. If we overrule them, it will damage our Republic forever. If this election was overturned by allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral. It would be unfair and wrong to disenfranchise American voters and overrule the courts, and the states, on this extraordinary thin basis.

Self-government, my colleagues, requires a shared commitment to the truth. And a shared respect for the ground rules of our system. We cannot keep drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities……. I will vote to respect the people’s decision and defend our system of government as we know it.”

McConnell was leading the charge for the GOP to stick to liberal democracy. Then followed the plea by Senator Cruz, who is considered the most accomplished debater in the Senate, for populism and to override the Democratic process. He spoke in prose as opposed to the poetry of his leader. He like Senator Hawley were positioning themselves for 2024. They reckoned that without the Trump following they had no chance to win the Republican Party nomination.

 

Not much else happened till it all hit the fan. The Capitol had been invaded by the thugs Trump and Giuliani had sent down Pennsylvania Avenue. The American legislators were hustled to safety.

The riot mob crashes the Capitol before the debate continues.

Much of what followed has been seen again and again on screens across the world as the inner sanctum of America’s symbol of democracy was polluted by thugs, some armed, wearing all manner of Trump paraphernalia as they raged through the building smashing, looting and desecrating whatever was in the way. It took several hours to clear the buildings of the riff raff. Trump finally reacted many hours into the fracas telling them to leave, but adding a rationale for their behavior and  the message, “We love you”. 

It was a far more sober set of legislators, especially in the U.S. Senate, that returned to finish the day’s business. The fall off of Trump support was not so marked in the House. McConnell defiantly exclaimed, “We will not be kept out of this chamber by thugs, mobs or threats……We will discharge our duty under the Constitution for our nation”. 

 The original obstructionist agenda of objecting to at least a half dozen state electors was abandoned so everyone could go home at 3. 30 am. However there was time for seven of the Senators in the light of what they had just witnessed to withdraw their support of negating the 2020 election. However Cruz and Hawley both could claim in their Presidential bids that they backed Trump to the hilt.  

THE OUTCOME OF THIS TRAVESTY

What is notable is that not only has McConnell at this late stage not acknowledged his complicity in what ultimately led to this outrageous attack, but neither has Lindsey Graham who had his Damascus moment on the issue of negating the voice of the people nor has the other chief enabler Bill Barr, who attacked Trump for his instigation of violence. In that vein there have been a number of resignations from the Trump Administration including two cabinet ministers one of whom is the wife of Mitch McConnell.

Trump belatedly acknowledged that evening that a new administration will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. He threw under the bus the rioters who he had incited to go to the Capitol, who he had promised to go with them and tweeted, “You are very special people. We love you”. According to WhiteHouse reports he watched the carnage on TV with what appeared to be excitement making no move till much later tweeting his supporters to go home and that he understood their frustration.

Five people are dead as a result of this farcical attempt to cement a coup. One of them is a Capitol policeman another a woman rioter and three who supposedly died from other causes. 

There have been calls for impeachment, axing Trump via the twenty fifth amendment where the Cabinet declares him unfit for office and for his resignation - the latter notably includes Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal. Pelosi is apparently committed to impeachment if Pence doesn't initiate the twenty fifth amendment. 

The DC Federal Attorney General is investigating the insurrection and will charge any including the President who were responsible for this act of sedition.

THE LAPSE IN SECURITY

It is outrageous that the Capitol should have been left so vulnerable when this event had been publicized for months. The Capitol Police and the Sergeant at Arms of both chambers, who are immediately responsible for security, have resigned as a result. However the Mayor controls the safety of the City so what was she doing? She controls the City Police. Where were they? There are so many stories about why the National Guard wasn’t there. The New York Times claims that the Mayor did call for them. Larry Hogan the Republican Governor Maryland which is as close as a suburb of DC claims he couldn’t get permission to send them for hours. Trump claims he gave permission and reports say it was Pence…. The full story maybe more sinister than it appears at the moment.

POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE: POPULISM V DEMOCRACY

Trump is still the most influential figure in the Republican Party but is markedly weakened. The question remains will the party embrace the populism that he spawned or will they return to democracy as fought for by McConnell? There were close on a hundred and forty Republicans in the House and seven in the Senate that still voted for a coup. For the moment Liberal Democracy has triumphed and if Biden can deliver it may be reestablished. For whatever reasons he has to convince a sizable number of Americans that electing a strongman, who alone can fix all the woes and dispense with democracy is a pathway to hell.