Piecing Together The Lead Up To The Coup & What Happens Next
Healing After Trumpism Series
The consensus view on the attempted coup seems to be shocked yet unsurprised. This response is emblematic of the collective trauma we’ve experienced by being abused by an autocrat, fascist policy, and white nationalistic rhetoric for four plus years. However this particular act of terrorism was a unique inflection point. Not because these events revealed who Trump was or how much damage he’s done to democracy, but because our collective worst fears of what could happen after his election in 2016 culminated into reality.
The rest of the Republican party should not be left off the hook when we get to the accountability part of our nation’s healing process. A majority of House Republicans and a handful of Senators attempted to subvert the outcome of an election through bureaucratic processes. Plus an overwhelming majority of the party perpetuated the lie that the one of the most secure elections in our history was stolen. Trumpism will long out last Trump. It’s his party through and through. It is now a party proudly anti-democratic.
Despite the normalization of this thuggery, successfully infiltrating the primary branch of US governance is a notable escalation. It was shocking yet unsurprising because it was onbrand but so logistically improbable that we assumed it was impossible — even knowing how nothing in the Trump era was impossible when it came to something new and terrible for our country. Therefore it is essential we fully understand the depth of what has happened. To do that we must take a closer examination of what happened leading up to it, and how it was preventable.
The Lead Up
Before the election some recognized if Joe Biden won, there would be some abnormal elements of this transition whether that would be Trump not conceding, isolated incidents of violence, misleading propaganda, or a coordinated attempt to subvert the election through force or legal proceedings. Pundits and political strategists signaled one of their larger concerns was on the potential legal battle if the election was close. This was imaginable because of 1) Bush v. Gore Florida recount fiasco, and 2) Trump’s extensive litigious history.
Another fear that dominated our nightmares was what would happen if it appeared he was winning on election night and he prematurely declared victory. This was attempted, and since it was predictable we were prepared for it. The media gave the people ample fair warning. As did activist groups and Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. The Social Media companies made a calculated assessment and decided to stop betting against Democracy because Biden was expected to win, and a successful coup is hard to imagine since overthrowing a presidential election has never happened. All of whom were influenced by sustained activism and pressure that continued to move the Overton window in support of action against Trump for his hateful propaganda and rhetoric.
The Democratic Caucus remained unified in message. President Biden was Trump’s perfect foil. He took a moment to calm an anxious nation and insisted we all wait for the votes be counted. History will look back on these words of comfort as the first glimmers of sunshine after years of the United States being submerged in total darkness. It had been so long since someone so measured and patient assured us, that everything would be all right. It also didn’t hurt that Trump’s goons chanted Stop the count and Count the votes outside of statehouses in Michigan and Arizona were to dumb to realize that doing so would guarantee a Biden victory. Yes, it was an assault on our democracy. An ugly warning shot of what was to come, but it was a nascent reminder of why the entire pro-democracy coalition of the voting block remained together.
After all of the legal challenges, recounts, state certifications, and electoral college counts went through we thought we were out of the woods. Our attention, justifiably went elsewhere. Trump continued to do awful things, but each day he continued to do so he mattered less and less — as he will continue to do so for the duration of his life. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. We just needed to get there.
It was therefore reasonable the Biden transition and COVID-19 updates seemed like a much more meaningful point of focus. Not only because these pieces of news would be more determinant of the world we lived in than the remaining days of Trump’s consistently debasing and demoralizing term, but because the media needed to start breaking the habit of covering a fascist. At his core Trump and Trumpism is a destructive need for attention. The media could start weaning off Trump tantrums. The inverse reaction to their 2016 coverage, kneecapping his chances for a 2024 run.
This turned out to be a mistake. Fascists are savvy enough to pursue violent and bureaucratic means simultaneously. They will try all avenues to cling to power and will take whatever successes they can get. They embark on the path of least resistances, by ramming their way down all routes all at once. What’s more, the infrastructure was already in place for a coup. It just took so long to happen because the fascist was already in power. In hindsight, and perhaps most shockingly of all, we did not fully process how much of an emergency and dire warning the attempted kidnapping & assassination of Governor Gretchen Whitmer was. We underestimated how organized these want to be strongmen buffoons — which is more or less the dictionary definition of fascism: organized buffoonery.
This might speak, in part, as to why the intelligence on the planned MAGA invasion of the capitol was not taken as seriously by security officials as it should have been. In the coming months we’ll learn more and more about how much of this was due to a pre-planned coordinated effort with security officials sympathetic to this white power movement, but on the margins I’m sure we’ll learn how some officials just didn’t take them seriously. Even within the Trump era this seemed unimaginable. However, if we had a better understanding of our history perhaps it wouldn’t have been. This was not the first time a white supremacist mob staged a coup in the US. In Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898 they were even successful. This ignorance of our nation’s white supremacist roots compounded with the overwhelming amount of information we had to continuously process through the Trump era compelled the public to filter through the white noise of just another threat to our democracy. During Trump’s presidency there were dozens of threats a day. Undoubtedly the aspects of our security apparatus which were still intact suffered from this as well.
What Happens Next?
It is important to remember as we learn who personally played a role in the coup, that holding culpable individuals accountable for the actions isn’t enough. Because this wasn’t just a failure of people, this was a failure of our policing and security apparatuses as institutions. Some well intentioned white people, post-enlightenment, believe that although these structures were once designed as mechanisms of white supremacy, they no longer operate in this matter because of the reforms and advancement made predominately by black activism — even though these institutions perennially exhibit white supremacist violence and patterns.
The reality is that even though institutional reforms have generally made violent racism less prevalent over time (bearing in mind that often regressive and progressive advancements happen simultaneously) the understanding of white supremacist institutions functions remain intact because they have remained unchallenged due to our nation’s insistence by white fragility to remain willfully ignorant. Any future attempts at reformation of these institutions must account for the culmination of a given institution’s racism, within the context of America as a racist structure in general, in order to root out the rot. This will be challenging work, but it must be done for us to move on. Healing is much more difficult and perhaps impossible without true accountability, and that involves understanding our institutions’ true history. Historically speaking, if White America had been willing to embrace the uncomfortable process of confronting our own racism within our culture, then perhaps a mob of MAGA minute men wouldn’t have been so ready to be activated and engaged in continuing the civil war.
Holding ourselves and our systems of power accountable for our racist past is essential to restoring America’s standing in the world. This is more than just “clean up work” for the Biden administration. This is an opportunity for all of us to enthusiastically endorse our belief, our willingness, our love for democracy itself. Restoring the power of our example is about more than a return to normalcy. It is a new way for us to model the power of our example. We can demonstrate to the world how to restore a democracy, how to overcome the kinks that made democracy vulnerable, for all other countries that autocrats and anti-democratic forces threatened and continue to threaten. We can map out how to come back after nearly falling over the edge into fascist oblivion.
What needs to be repaired to restore democracy depends in part on one’s belief system. If you’re a socialist you may believe either a revolution or incremental reforms need to make the wealth distribution more even and the advancement of economic equality will strengthen democracy. If you’re a capitalist you may believe exporting the allure of the free market around the globe will be accompanied by western values such as democracy. Either way your definition of success is democracy. But there’s a third outcome altogether. There are regressive periods of history, that could last years if not centuries. If democracy is not strengthened it will break. Global citizens will be more vulnerable to authoritarianism. Countries that are already autocracies will get worse. We saw this happen again and again through the Trump era: China’s reach eroding Hong Kong’s democracy and civil liberties, the genocide of Uyghurs in China, the rise of Modi and Hindu nationalism in India, mini Trump’s election in Brazil, the rightward nationalistic trend throughout Europe, etc.
All of these countries on the brink of full blown tyranny need to learn how to access the off ramp. Governments, but mostly people and people’s movements, looked to the US to model democracy throughout the 20th century. If the United States is to remain a world leader they need us to demonstrate that an off ramp even exists. Anti-corruption and democracy reform can strengthen our standing in the world as well as the standing of democracy in the world.
If neither of those things matter to you, or rather you think aren’t there more pressing concerns domestically, I would caution you to look to the future. There is nothing more existential to our existence than defending and advancing democracy across the globe, except for perhaps fighting climate change, but even that fight largely depends on the state of democracy around the world. If democracy fails, China will rule. It is all but guaranteed their economy will surpass the US. The US will learn how to be more cooperative, we will no longer have veto power over the world’s agenda, nor should we. But if we don’t succeed (or don’t even try to due to lack of political will) then that creates a vacuum for the Chinese government to fill. As the world gets more globalized do we want to face off an unchecked China for the next century? Or restore our place in a global governance system to advance the liberation of all peoples?
Democracy has not had its final word, but neither has autocracy. The outcome of this debate will be determined entirely by our actions. Achieving the desired outcome begins with restoring democracy, and that begins with restoring American democracy, or even building it back better stronger than before. Embrace the reality that fascism did happen here, but it couldn’t stay because we wouldn’t allow it.
Also part of this series Healing After Trumpism