Trump’s coup attempt: dangerous for the US and the rest of the world

All kinds of Chickens come home to Roost

Ironically, there are big problems with US elections, but they favor Republicans and have been tolerated by Democrats in order to ensure that the only real electoral threat to Democrats comes from the right. In 2000 and again in 2016, the Republican candidate won the presidency despite losing the popular vote. From 2008- 2010, despite controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, Democrats did nothing to reform an electoral system skewed in favor of Republicans. While Democrats did resort to the Russiagate conspiracy theory to try to discredit and even overturn Trump’s 2016 victory, there was no visible interest in abolishing the “winner take all” voting system that led directly to that victory. Getting rid of that system would not only make it harder for Republicans to win elections, it would increase electoral pressure on Democrats from the left. Without such pressure – with “nowhere else to go” [as US historian Thomas Frank stresses] to punish Democrats electorally for failing to deliver for anyone but the rich – voters either stay home or get taken in by people like Trump. In short, a voting system rigged to ensure that Democrats can ignore pressure from the left has saddled the country with menacing right wing insurrectionists.

Additionally, US politicians constantly get involved supporting coup attempts abroad (often successful ones). In 2019, to take a very recent example of one Trump supported, bogus claims of electoral fraud incited right wing riots (aided and abetted by the police) which finally led the military to “suggest” that the democratically elected president, Evo Morales, resign. The coup led to the installation of a dictatorship which was in power for almost a year before overwhelming popular revulsion led to the restoration of democracy in October. The coup could never have succeeded without Bolivian and international media cynically spreading the fraud claims. Should we be surprised that Trump and his handlers thought a coup like that might be worth a shot at home?