Effort to disenfranchise voters an attempted coup

Perhaps I was deluded by the five decades of elections through which I have lived, including the insanity in

2000, to believe that no elected officials would seek to destroy the free and fair elections that are the braces for our democracy.

I have known both Democrats and Republicans in my life who I respected, even when I disagreed with them, as I often have with both.

They were thoughtful community leaders with a genuine desire to see everyone in the community, as well as the community itself, become stronger, more prosperous and more engaged in the process of governing.

Yet, the lawsuit from Texas, the 126 members of Congress who supported it, and the attorneys general from the 17 states who have signed on to it, was an attempt to stage a coup.

A faction of the Republican Party is seeking to end the United States democracy — whether it is a show coup to spur fundraising or to avoid alienating the President Donald Trump voters they have been working to dis-inform for decades or whether it is to truly overturn the election and, consequently, disenfranchise the more than 81 million Americans who voted for President-elect Joe Biden.

Everything I read reassures me that it will be an unsuccessful coup, but it is not reassuring. Republicans who proved themselves patriots by running a fair election and confirming the fair results are being threatened as are their families. Call this what it is: a coup.