A house divided against itself
This guttersnipe is not alone. Go to the fevered swamps of Parler, and talk about a Donald Trump-led military coup to keep him in power is rife. Barring that, and assuming Joe Biden's swearing in in 37 days, the chatter turns to armed resistance.
What we're facing now is this: We have a political party where a majority of its House caucus signed on to a futile Supreme Court appeal which would overturn a democratic election with no evidence of fraud or impropriety. This party sought to do so solely because it refuses to cede power in the normal course of democratic politics.
Sure, the case had no chance of even being heard. But that's besides the point. I forget where I heard this, but it's an apt analogy: You have a loaded gun. You have the safety on. You press the gun to my head and pull the trigger. Sure, the safety is on, and the bullet wasn't going to fire. But the meaning is clear. Next time, the safety might be off.
I refuse to give the House GOP caucus members who filed amicus briefs to the Texas lawsuit any benefit of the doubt. I'm not going to ascribe to them the motive that they knew that this case wasn't going to be heard by the court, and were just currying favor with the Trumpists. I will take them at their word and assume that they're done with this 200+ year experiment in self-governance. They have fully morphed into authoritarians, concerned only for their own power and to service the interests of their benefactors.
Last week I wrote that Trump might end up tearing apart the GOP. I still think this is a possibility. And contra this very good analysis from Doyle McManus, Trump will be too busy fending off criminal cases and bankruptcy to be able to focus on rallying his Sturmabteilung. But make no mistake: The forces which Trump has focused are here to stay. We have a not-inconsiderable portion of our electorate which sees American democracy as failed, and will, in ways large and small, work seditiously to upend it and install themselves as a minority power over the majority.
America began as a utopian project; or, rather, several utopian ideals. But utopia doesn't necessarily equate with "good". Both the Nazis and the Communists pursued utopian dreams; and they saw any means to achieve this utopia as warranted. Utopias can engender what Richard Hofstadter described as a "paranoid style" in politics. Utopian projects are so "necessary", that anyone who has even the slightest doubt about them, or contrary opinion, is anathema and an enemy which must be exterminated. We have seen this time and again in American politics, from the Know Nothings, to the Dixiecrats, to now a majority of the Republican Party. And most of these conflicts have centered on Black slavery, and the ongoing repercussions from it, even nearing two centuries after its abolition.
Now, do I think we'll have violence in the streets a la Berlin 1932? While I say "never say never", I don't see it happening, if only because these people are mostly talk. They'll go out and train in the woods as a patriotic militia, but for 98% of them, that's as far as it'll go. However, we have to be prepared for that 1%-2% who do follow through on their pathologies. They've pinned their hopes on Trump miraculously pulling off a coup, and when he fails, will lash out in vengeance and anger.
It was always likely to come to this. Utopian projects tend to produce paranoiacs who will burn everything down if their hopes are dashed. The Trumpist utopia is a dystopia to most of us, but to its believers it's the only way they can see moving forward and living the lives they believe God intended for them. As I've also written, we're in for another long, twilight struggle.