A cowardly president is telegraphing his own coup

This will be remembered as the week President DonaldTrump formally announced his plans to stage a coup.

Coups, as a general rule, don’t receive much advance publicity. ButTrump needs attention the way normal humans need oxygen, so hewent ahead and let the American people knowwhat’s coming after theNov. 3 election.

AskedWednesday if hewould commit to a peaceful transfer of power, the leader of our soon-tobe-former democracy said:“We’re going to have to seewhat happens. You knowthat I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.”

Half of that is true. Trump has been complaining, endlessly, about the fact that in the face of a wildly contagious virus that has killed more than 200,000 Americans on hiswatch, voters will be voting by mail in higher-thanever-before numbers.

The other half, however, is nonsense. The ballots aren’t a disaster. The ballots are controlled by the states, bothDemocraticand Republican-led, and there’s absolutely no evidence to suggest voter fraud is even a remotely serious issue in any state in this country.

Trump continued: “Get rid of the ballots, you’ll have a very transfer— you’ll have a very peaceful— therewon’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation.”

You see, it’s simple. There are certain votes the president doesn’t want counted, and as long aswe “get rid of” those votes, the transfer of power will be peaceful because he’ll win andwe can all rest easy knowing our benevolent orange-hued dictator has his best interests at heart.

(Moments afterTrump made those statements, theword “democracy” began to fade from every dictionary in the country.)

But hold on, you say, aren’t you being a bit extreme calling this a “coup”?

Thanks so much for asking! No, I’m not.

Along withTrump’s refusal to promise a peaceful transition of power and his obvious desire to “get rid of” ballots— your ballots, the ballots of people exercising their right to vote— the president has done everything he can to preemptively paint the coming election as inherently fraudulent. He has made clear there will be litigation, a suggestion he’ll rely on judges he has placed to help him win.

He saidWednesday that a new Supreme Court justice should fill the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat before the election because “I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling— it’s a scam— the scam will be before theUnited States Supreme Court.”

There’s no scam. There’s only an election, one this cowardly little president is clearly frightened he’s going to lose.

So he’s telegraphing a coup, because he’s too clumsy and erratic to hide anything. He’smaking it abundantly clear that a Joe Biden victory in the election cannot and will not be legitimate, and that he, the paper-tiger president of the United States, will do everything in his power to scare voters, sow distrust in the electoral system and angle to disenfranchise as many potential Biden voters as possible.

To Trump and his supporters, this is a president showing toughness. To everyone else, it’s a scared little man puffing out his chest to intimidate people and looking like the feckless, aspirational dictator that he is.

It’s pathetic, of course, but it also can’t be ignored. Because this particular feckless, aspirational dictator has every member of his political party marching in goosestep behind him, a remarkable feat given none of them have spines. ThoseRepublicans with their limp torsos and occasionally furrowed brows are helpingTrumpzip a new Supreme Court justice into placeweeks before an election, rendering theword “hypocrisy” meaningless and facilitating the president’s ideal outcome of an election decided by “his” judges.

So make no mistake, this is a president who knows he’s losing — confident people don’t behave thisway. And this is a president whowill do everything in his power, up to and including staging a coup, to maintain power and not suffer the disgrace of losing to the man hemocks as Sleepy Joe.

By effectively inviting Americans to his coup— Make Coups GreatAgain!— Trump has one goal: Cast doubt on the results of our election and, ideally, make people believe he’ll win no matter what, thus depressing turnout.

So here’s what Americanswho don’t appreciate such behavior fromtheir leaders can do: Be not afraid.

Trump could absolutely win this election outright. No question.

And he could absolutely leverage his power to disqualify mail-in ballots or halt counting. He could declare victory on election night well before all ballots are counted and then litigate the results all the way to the Supreme Court.

But he is counting on you to accept such things as a fait accompli. Don’t. Be not afraid. Vote, encourage others to vote and do everything you can tomake sure people understand that this frightened man-child is, almost unbelievably, a real threat to our democracy.

Vote. Vote so hard it dents the ballot box.

The coupTrumpwould gladly stage ismore complicated a thing to pull off than his simple mind can imagine. But if enough people vote against his undemocratic leadership, it becomes wholly impossible.

AndTrump becomes the very thing he fears most: irrelevant.