If all you’ve ever seen is elections work under normal procedure, it’s hard to imagine they can go any other way. But they can. And when it happens, it happens in a flash. https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/1326325648890208262

Take Haiti in 2010. The candidates had done pretty normal campaigns, given the earthquake and ongoing cholera epidemic. The voters were going to the polls. Everything seemed pretty normal.

Then a couple of campaigns sent out notices that there was going to be a joint press conference. Still pretty normal for an Election Day.

The press conference was loud and clownish. A bunch of dumb, unproven and in many cases unprovable allegations were made about voter fraud.

The candidates issued a joint statement calling for the election to be annulled. They had no authority to do so. They were just candidates, speaking a wish into the world.

As soon as word reached their followers, all hell broke loose.

The streets of the capital were filled with protesters. It was a carnival-like atmosphere at first. Wyclef Jean, who’d tried and failed to be a candidate, went riding around on top of a car.

Suddenly, everyone in the elections bureaucracy was like, what do we do? All the opposition candidates want to stop the election. But the votes were cast! No one can prove any fraud.

So they decided, whatever, we’ll report the results.

The results were that the big right-wing populist candidate—a ridiculous pop star named “Sweet Micky”—was out of the final run-off.

As Haitians say, “pwoblem.” Micky’s supporters, juiced on the nonsensical allegations of fraud and mad that their man had lost, rioted.

These riots were more serious than the first. They spread. Several people were killed. The governing party’s headquarters was burned to the ground.

What do you do in that situation? Suddenly every option is bad. Business as usual is just going to get more people killed.

So who stepped in to save the day? The United States.

The US Embassy put out a statement essentially backing Micky’s version of events. Their evidence: Opinion polls!

A poll had suggested Micky was going to win. And on that basis they said the official results were suspect.

(I’m imagining what would happen if Biden said that because the polls said he should have won Florida and Ohio that the election results were fraudulent. But I digress.)

The Organization of American States did a report, in which they came up with some cockamamie formula that put Micky back into the runoff. Haiti’s president refused to accept the solution.

So the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, came to Port-au-Prince to force him to.

The details from that point are interesting but basically irrelevant. Under pressure from the candidates, rioters, and the United States, Haiti abandoned its normal election procedures. Sweet Micky became president. His party is still in power.

If you think that can’t happen here, ask yourself why not.

We’ve got plenty of people willing to riot. And plenty of guns.

We’ve got the losing candidate asking for the election results to be reversed. Except he’s currently the commander-in-chief. And his party is behind him.

The old joke says: “Why can’t the United States ever have a coup?”

A: “Because there’s no US embassy there.”

But the State Department, DOJ, and the new Pentagon chiefs are clearly willing to play that role.

The real reason we haven’t had a coup until now were just norms. Those old boring silly imperialist murder-for-thee-peace-for-me norms. That was it.

Everyone just accepted that every four years there was an election, the media projected the winner, and the loser stepped aside.

The loser did it because they knew their party could just run again in four years. They’d still be powerful and rich. They believed in a kind of patriotic principle. Or because it wasn’t worth burning the country down to seize an office that would instantly become illegitimate.

Now that’s gone. Will Trump’s most fervent supporters accept if the courts reject the lawsuits? What if the governors refuse to certify the results? Who can compel them to?

Institutions might still be able to right the ship. But we’re running out of time. /fin

It’s a classic. https://twitter.com/suziesaysso/status/1326395668601188354