Trump Attempted A Coup

Trump attempted to illegally install himself as president after losing a fair election

1 Introduction

Most Republicans seem to agree that what happened on January 6th was a big nothingburger—a few people got a bit too rowdy and broke in, no big deal. They claim that calling Trump a threat to Democracy is unreasonable hyperbole. This is all very difficult to square with even a basic familiarity with the facts—something that most of those who defend Trump wholly lack. Trump attempted a coup; he attempted to overturn the results of a free and fair election that he knew that he lost, which, had Pence not been courageous, could very well have triggered the most severe constitutional crisis since the Civil War.

This might sound hyperbolic. Well, sometimes extreme things are true. To figure out if Trump seriously attempted a coup, you have to actually look into the things that Trump did. The vast majority of people who blow off the alleged ridiculous left-wing witchhunt against Trump based on January 6 haven’t watched the January 6 hearings or read the indictments or read the transcript of the hearings. If you don’t know what was involved in the fake electors plot, for instance, you don’t have any semblance of a basis to dismiss claims that Trump is a threat to Democracy. There’s something uniquely infuriating about the kind of centrist—and I say this as a centrist myself—who comes to conclusions of the form “both sides are reasonably at fault,” confidently, without taking a moment to look into the facts. The first woman in this video is a decently good encapsulation of this kind of error.

This article is obviously not a complete summary, but it provides a basic overview of Trump’s repeated wrongdoing—of his months-long coup attempt.

2 Trump lost

Trump lost the 2020 election fairly. He was told this by everyone around him; Mike Pence, senior DOJ leaders, the director of national intelligence, the department of homeland security, and state legislators and officials. He lost 60 of his 61 court cases, and the one that he won was insignificant. Whenever the DOJ looked into some claim of fraud, at his instruction, it turned out to be specious.

This should not have been surprising. Trump declared on election night, before there was any evidence of fraud, that there was massive fraud. He had been claiming for months that the only way he could lose was due to massive fraud. Thus, in order to think he genuinely won, you’d have to think that the largest instance of fraud in American history was orchestrated right under his nose—while he had the most powerful investigative body in the history of the world under his control. Then you’d have to think that despite this massive fraud that was carried out, every court case about it was dismissed, often by Trump-appointed justices. Despite all of this happening, however, Trump overperformed relative to electoral expectations—he did better than was expected. Then, despite repeated thorough investigations by right-wing officials, including, for example, hand-counting the votes in Georgia, no outcome-determinative fraud ever turned up.

If you believe this, I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.

It’s often claimed that all the dismissals were procedural. This simply isn’t true! In about half of the cases, the dismissals occurred after an assessment of the evidence was done. They were mostly tossed out because the cases were jokes without any substantial evidence brought forward.

3 He knew he lost

Trump very probably knew that he lost (I’d say maybe 70% odds). It’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t realize that he lost after every single one of his claims of outcome-determinative fraud went up in smoke after careful investigation and everyone serious around him—Barr, Pence, and many others—told him he lost. Additionally, only if Trump knew that he lost does it make any sense that everyone around him knew that he planned to declare himself the winner ahead of time, before any fraud could actually begin. This was confirmed by Roger Stone, Pence’s chief of staff (a fellow named Mark Short), and Greg Jacob, Pence’s council. Bannon said:

“And what Trump’s going to do is just declare victory. Right? He’s going to declare victory. That doesn’t mean he’s the winner, he’s just going to say he’s the winner.”

Why does this matter? Well, imagine you learn of some scandal in a game wherein a person, after losing, claims that it was rigged against them. You’re trying to figure out if they are lying, or if they really thought it was rigged against them. It would be relevant if:

1. All their specific claims were repeatedly investigated and debunked, and they lost every court case involving them.

2. You learn from their close allies that they were planning to declare it rigged ahead of time.

In addition, Trump’s conduct shows a completely wanton disregard for the truth. He constantly repeated claims even after they’d been debunked, often with totally made-up wildly fluctuating numbers. That’s the behavior of a bullshitter, not a person who genuinely believes they have a case. For instance, when Raffensberger sent him a link debunking one of his claims, Trump said (LOL) “I don’t care about a link, I don’t need it . . . .  I have a much better link.” Trump repeated the claim that more than 10,000 dead people voted, even after it had been investigated, and the real number was 12. He repeatedly made up numbers—to quote the Jack Smith indictment:

The conspirators started with the allegation that 36,000 non-citizens voted in Arizona; five days later, it was “beyond credulity that a few hundred thousand didn’t vote”; three weeks later, “the bare minimum [was] 40 or 50,000. The reality is about 250,000”;°’ days after that, the assertion was 32,000; and ultimately, the conspirators landed back where they started, at 36,000—a false figure that they never verified or corroborated.*

Additionally, we have testimony under oath that Trump admitted that he lost from Cassidy Hutchinson, former assistant to Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff. Hutchinson testifies that Trump said:

“I don’t want people to know we lost, Mark. This is embarrassing. Figure it out. We need to figure it out. I don’t want people to know that we lost.”

People for some reason don’t buy that Trump knew he lost after seeing this evidence. Let’s go back to the game analogy. Imagine that a person claimed they were cheated against in a high-stakes game. Then you learn:

1. They were planning ahead of time on claiming that the game was rigged.

2. A high-profile figure testified under oath, despite having no incentive to do so, that they’d admitted they’d lost the game privately.

3. Every one of their claims of rigging was investigated and debunked repeatedly.

4. After these debunkings, they’d repeat the lies!

5. Their claims would involve totally wildly fluctuating insane numbers. They’d make totally different claims of rigging on different occasions, sometimes claiming that 10 points had been subtracted from their score, other times that 100 points had been subtracted.

It would be reasonable to think that person was lying and knows it wasn’t rigged. That person is Donald Trump.

4 Trump made a concerted attempt to overturn the election

After losing the election, Trump knew that he lost. Despite this knowledge, he made a concerted effort to overturn the results of the election. This took place in various stages.

First, he and his co-conspirators organized slates of fake electors. The electors are the people who vote to elect the president, in accordance with the votes of their state. Trump tried to get state legislatures to decertify their election results and instead appoint other fake electors in every contested swing state. In other words, he tried to get state legislators to pick fake electors, rather than those picked by the voters. The scheme was well described by Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona:

His idea is basically that all of us (GA, WI, AZ, PA, etc.) have our electors send in their votes (even though the votes aren’t legal under federal law — because they’re not signed by Governor); so that members of Congress can fight about whether they should be counted on January 6". (They could potentially argue that they’re not bound by federal law because they’re Congress and make the law, etc.) Kind of wild/creative — Im happy to discuss.

Wild/creative indeed!

When persuading the legislators to certify fake electors didn’t work—because he had no real evidence—Trump resorted to intimidation. He, for instance, Tweeted negatively about Rusty Bowers, an Arizona State Representative, after Bowers refused to attempt to certify the fake electors. This lead to many serious, credible death threats against Bowers. Similar things happened when Trump pressured Raffensberger to comply with his attempts to overturn the elections. It sent a signal: if you crossed him in his election scheme, there would be serious threats on your life.

After his plan failed in the legislatures, he tried to get Pence to illegally certify the fake electors, rather than the real ones. He repeatedly in private pressured Pence to do it, even after Pence told him repeatedly that he didn’t have the authority to do so. He told Pence in private that he’d trash him publicly unless he overturned the results of the election.

Note that Trump lied and mislead many of the fake electors. Many of them thought that they were only a backup plan if his court challenges went through, rather than intended to be certified instead of the real electors.

Then, on January 6, Trump incited the mob that attacked the capital. The entire purpose of the mob showing up to protest was to get Pence to certify the set of fake electors. What do you think they were protesting? After the mob broke into the capital, many of them trying to hang Pence, Trump poured fuel on the fire, saying:

“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

This would be a bit like if a bunch of my followers were in the midst of violently attacking the white house, attempting to execute Biden, thinking they were honoring me, and I choose that time to Tweet out how terrible Biden is. Then, Trump sat around for hours, doing nothing as the mob violently attacked the capital. The only thing he Tweeted that was at all pacifying was:

“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”

For hours, he sat around doing nothing as he was called on by his children and close advisors. This is because he was hoping that the mob would successfully intimidate Pence into certifying the fake electors. When McCarthy called him and urged him to call off the mob, Trump suggested that the rioters cared more about their country than McCarthy.

On top of this, Trump pressured Raffensberger to “find 11,780 votes.” Remember: Trump knew that he lost. He was asking Raffensberger to fabricate votes—votes he knew didn’t exist. He was trying, including through fear and intimidation (saying that Raffensberger could be jailed if he didn’t go along with his scheme), to get Raffensberger to find nonexistent votes. This is much less significant than the fake electors scheme, but still quite significant.

5 What would have happened?

What would have happened if Trump had been successful—if Pence had certified the fake electors? Well, this would have been a coup. It would have involved the sitting president overturning a fair election. Probably the Democrats would sue. The courts would, of course, declare Trump’s actions illegal—and then there would be a conflict between the courts and the president. The commander in chief, in charge of the military, would have broken the law—and would be at odds with the duly elected next president?

Who would take over? Would the military buck the commands they were given from the commander in chief? This could result in a total breakdown of the American order, the same way that coups in other countries annihilate their institutions. As Huemer writes:

we’re not going along with election results, all bets are off, and we’re thrown into the situation of third-world dictatorships when someone stages a coup. If you (playing the Democrats) don’t want to completely give up everything, you have to fight this, and now that the other side is openly breaking the law, that fight is no longer restricted by the bounds of law.

So physical violence is no longer out of the question. It’s not out of the question that you have to assassinate Trump. Or you call up the police and try to have them arrest Trump. It’s not out of the question that he calls up the military and orders them to defend him against attempts to arrest him. And that there is then a schism in the military between people who want to follow Trump’s orders and people who want to forcibly remove him from office. What happens then?

Suppose the military refuses. Trump fires the general who refused, then moves on down the chain until he finds someone who will carry out his orders. If we’re stealing elections in broad daylight, it’s not clear why any of these things would be off the table.

What happens in the rest of the country? Riots across America, pro- and anti-Trump forces fighting in the streets?

I really don’t know what would have happened. This sort of completely open defiance of the procedures has never before been attempted in our history, as far as I know. However people responded, this would very likely have been the most serious constitutional crisis since the Civil War. We were saved from it only by Mike Pence’s refusal to do Trump’s bidding.

This is completely disqualifying! If you attempt a coup and almost succeed, you should never be anywhere near the levers of power every again. Had Pence not temporarily grown a backbone, there would have been a non-trivial probability of a civil war or some other descent into mob rule. It’s not hyperbole to call Trump a threat to Democracy given the facts—he attempted a coup, and got close to succeeding. Those who bury their head in the sand and ignore this fact, claiming it’s some sort of left-wing hyperbole, have let partisan politics melt their brains.