Trump isn't trying to seize power

What attempt? Trump isn’t actually doing anything. The dumb lawsuits he is filing are absolutely not going to work. He’s going to leave peacefully in fifty days. He doesn’t have any support among the military. He doesn’t have any support among the government bureaucracy. He doesn’t have anything remotely resembling an effective paramilitary force. There’s no coup here, dumb or otherwise.

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I mean he is attempting to destabilize the entire American electoral system by brainwashing and radicalizing tens of millions of people and inciting violence, so there is that.

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Saying the election results are not legitimate while then peacefully leaving power when the courts reject your legal challenges to those election results isn’t a coup. It’s not even close to a coup.

He’s publicly calling the election fraudulent and saying he is the rightful winner. He has inspired his supporters to also call the election a fraud and a number of prominent allies, eg, the actual traitor he just pardoned, are calling for the military to intervene. I’m not sure what more you want? Like, he’s putting the message out there testing the waters and keeps pushing the envelope ramping up the rhetoric to see how far he can go with it. How else do you interpret Trump saying that his opponent cheated and the election is a fraud other than a soft attempt to hold onto power in violation of the election process established by law?

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Trump saying the election is fraudulent is a way to keep himself in the spotlight, manufacture a grievance to share with his base, weaken Joe Biden’s coming administration and prepare for Trump’s 2024 election bid. It has nothing to do with trying to hold on to power. That has zero chance of working, Trump knows it, and he’s not dumb enough to try.

I disagree with the bold completely. There is a non-zero chance of it working. It may be remote, but you must have been asleep for the past four years if you think the vast majority of elected republicans and their supporters would not jump at the opportunity to keep Trump in power over Joe Biden. Just because Trump and his allies are too incompetent to mount a more serious attempt does not mean Trumpnisnt trying or doesn’t want to hold onto power. Trump also knows there’s a very real possibility he will face criminal charges from New York as soon as he leaves office, so he definitely has incentive to try. Also, what better way to hold attention than staying in office? But there’s another issue with your analysis, it’s that Trump is somehow beholden to his attention-seeking personality disorder that compels him to constantly violate norms and be completely immun from self-reflection and shame, but that really this is all part of some type of long-term strategy to weaken the Biden admin (lol) and set himself up for 2024.

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He also has some pretty powerful disincentives to try to hold on to power. Like the attempt being certain to fail and then being charged with sedition.

I think our ideas of what a coup would look like are probably vastly different if you think he would somehow get charged with sedition in a failed attempt.

Right. My idea of a coup is a coup. Seizing illegitimate power by force. That’s what a coup is.

That’s why people are calling this a soft coup. Authoritarians don’t take over through military intervention now. They use means that appear legitimate, eg staking the judicial system with loyalist hacks that will rubber stamp illegitimate power grabs as legal.

Some people consider any illegitimate seizing of power to be a coup and don’t require force to be a part of the definition.

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So the coup is filing a bunch of dumb lawsuits that are 100% getting tossed and very likely won’t even be heard by the Supreme Court? Pretty low energy coup.

No one said they were smart.

Can we not have a typically Keeeeed discussion of the meaning of the word “coup” when basically everyone agrees what is going on here.

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certainly, as soon as everyone stops dramatically misusing the word coup

Let’s just use usurp and usurping, much more fun than coup.

He told every R election official/Governor/Secretary of State to certify him the winner, and that he was going to make their life hell if they refused, which he has followed up on. Best you can say is the coup already failed.

Your boy Greedy Grifting Glenn is giving you garbage talking points.

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lolololol the coup attempt already happened, it failed, and it consisted of a couple of dumb tweets? Jesus christ.

People are using “coup” because there aren’t really any more suitable words and it’s annoying to type out “attempted illegitimate seizure of power” every time. Before you aids things up further with “well he’s not akshually trying to seize power”, it’s like how checking a door to see if it’s unlocked, with the intention of stealing things inside, counts as attempted burglary. Trump is trying the door and if it had opened for him, he would most certainly have strolled inside and seized power. The fact that he’s not intending to kick the door down or break any windows does not mean it isn’t a genuine attempted burglary, it’s simply an attempt kept at the level which won’t entail any consequences.

I hope this clears things up for you and that you are now satisfied that we all understand what it says under “coup” in the dictionary. Please have a pleasant evening.

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How to people fall for the Keeed shit every single fucking time

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