Trump's coup goes beyond a grift: The president is desperately seeking any path to stay in power

[William769]

For weeks now, Donald Trump's hopes of stealing the 2020 presidential election from the winner, Joe Biden, have been fading. Nonetheless, the dumbest and worst president in American history continued sending out fundraising appeals to his endlessly gullible supporters, giving birth to the theory — to which I, personally, subscribed — that Trump's coup is little more than another one of his many schemes to defraud people. After all, the Trump campaign spent very little on the actual legal efforts to challenge the election and redirected most of the cash into what is likely going to be used as a slush fund for Trump and his family.

And yet, as Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs reported in the New York Times on Saturday, Trump is deep in talks with an increasingly unhinged cast of characters, all of whom believe there must be a way to steal the election even though the Electoral College made Biden's win official last week. The president invited conspiracy theorists like his former lawyer Sidney Powell and former national security advisor Gen. Michael Flynn to the White House on Friday to discuss a potential declaration of martial law as a last-ditch effort to force a second vote in some swing states. That suggestion came from the disgraced Flynn, who has been involved in violently oppressive work on behalf of Turkey's authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The group also discussed "an executive order to take control of voting machines to examine them," though it's unclear what that would accomplish. There's no reason to think the voting machines were hacked and it's unlikely that Trump's team has the technical know-how to alter the machines to generate vote tallies more pleasing to Trump.

The chattering politicos of Twitter responded to news of such a bizarre spectacle by arguing about the odd placement of the article on page A28 in the New York Times print edition, with one side arguing that the president considering a military coup is major news no matter what, and the other side arguing that because Trump isn't going to pull it off there's no reason to get fussed about it. The latter group is wrong, of course, as Trump is still incredibly successful at undermining democracy, even if he's failing to steal the White House.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-coup-goes-beyond-a-grift-the-president-is-desperately-seeking-any-path-to-stay-in-power/ar-BB1c75wQ?ocid=msedgdhp

[MyOwnPeace]

1. Stay in power........

and OUT of jail!

[DSandra]

2. NY Times should know that with Trump, ANYTHING is possible

Not believing something is possible is elitist and underestimates the determination of businesspeople, conartists, and anyone else that seeks power.

[Grasswire2]

3. the seizing of election machines to "examine" them provides opportunity..

...to manufacture false evidence.

Election security expert Jennifer Cohn has warned about this from the get-go.

NEVER ALLOW ELECTION MACHINES TO BE SEIZED.

Never.

[dalton99a]

6. +1

[gratuitous]

4. When he's finally run to ground

I expect to see Trump sobbing uncontrollably, shitting and pissing himself. It's at this moment that he hopes to skitter away when his pursuers are repulsed by his pitiful display.

I really don't understand why the major media aren't coming down on Trump's theft efforts with both feet. Just because his chances of success are near zero, the damage he's doing to the nation and its governmental institutions is incalculable. It's also an invitation for someone with even less scruples but slightly more cunning to try their hand at it somewhere down the line.

[abqtommy]

5. All of tRUMPS supporters and enablers are trying hard right along with him. After all, if they're

wrong then what are they? Scum, that's what, irregardless.