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There's time to be alarmed. It's such a time. The president's blatant, if incompetent, attempts to steal the election are happening in a period of entrenched of minority rule, and are met mostly with silence or approval by Republican leaders. New piece:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/trumps-farcical-inept-and-deadly-serious-coup-attempt/617309/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/12/trumps-farcical-inept-and-deadly-serious-coup-attempt/617309/
Armed men are showing up at elected officials houses and Republican election officers in Georgia are begging for GOP leadership to stop all this ""before someone gets killed"—to no avail. The clownishness of the attempt does not make it funny or harmless. https://twitter.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/1335766211687313409
I've seen three versions of dismissing the alarm. "This is always the way it is" (not sure how this is comforting but it's not even all true); "It's not technically a coup" (true, but we're not contesting a grade here) and "he will lose." (The path we're on is the same...).
This is exactly right. (I did not try to get into that in the piece because it was already long.) Yes, minority rule is not at all unprecedented in this country, but no we have not fully grappled with it—and that makes the need for alarm, now, more urgent. https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1335956395682902016
More here. What's going on isn't just some legal, if distasteful, wrangling. It's a blatant—and yes, incompetent and buffoonish—attempt to steal an election, and that effort is being supported and allowed by a party that is entrenching minority rule. https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1335973811255209987
All of that can be true, but not change the substance of the threat we're facing, especially with all the structural, minority-rule entrenchment. https://twitter.com/umanoid/status/1336026581278593025
Look, this is *today* and the Republican leadership is not standing up to defend an R governor while GOP election officials are begging for this to stop before "someone gets killed" & armed protesters are showing up at elected officials houses. This isn't just some norm-bending.
I've just published a strong counterargument to my essay about the seriousness of Trump's attempts. Go read @Pinboard's worthy rebuttal titled "This was the Most Ordinary of Elections." (Counters will be a regular feature of @insight, my own newsletter!) https://zeynep.substack.com/p/is-this-a-coup-introducing-the-counter
Another counterargument to mine from @dandrezner who highlights "the near-total absence of violence or mobilization toward violence" (well, kinda true enough... yet) and says Republicans are not lockstep (I think the elected ones are pretty lockstep!) https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/12/07/its-not-coup-its-not-even-bad-coup/
