I just had a quick exchange on Twitter that I regretted and then muted because it was just a touch unhinged. (I should know better.) Basically the OP suggested that Trump was executing a coup (actually sparkling autogolpe) and Biden and Pelosi weren't doing anything about it. This was the latest iteration of the "Do Something" caucus on Twitter, that freaks out over every burp and fart emanating from Cheeto Benito.
Trump's salient characteristic is failure. He was a terrible business man, a terrible husband and father, a terrible human being. All he has been good at is "selling his brand" with a BIG assist from Mark Burnett and Celebrity Apprentice. Trump is a celebrity, not a businessman. Everything else reeks of failure.
The idea that he could overthrow the electoral result is an article of faith amongst Manic Progressives. There's a weird sort of symbiotic relationship between Trump and a segment of the Left that sees America as being in a perpetual state of near failure. They almost crave his assaults on institutions, because they don't really care for those institutions either.
Trump's attempts to overturn the election are laughable and have all failed. Today is the "safe harbor" day for the Electoral College results. It's over except for more whining from Trump and his Enablers. Next week the Electoral College selects Biden and in early January, the House (and likely the Senate) confirms it.
This is not to say there are not things to be worried about. The Arizona GOP tweeted out explicitly violent imagery linked to fighting the legitimacy of the election. I am genuinely worried about right wing political terrorism. There will be people who die over this. Temperatures are very high and Trumpists who have been fed a steady diet of bullshit are prepared to believe that Biden (of all people) is a Communist and America needs them to take up arms.
So while Rightist terrorism is a real threat, I don't believe a true Rightist insurgency is looking at all likely. The piece in Prospect magazine I linked to the other day places Trump not in an ideological political movement but an online celebrity cult. Trump is the "most online" president ever, and it extends beyond Twitter. Like 98% of all online discourse, it is about shouting and grievance and noise without every really being about anything substantive. The vast majority of Trumpists are couch-bound and lazy, willing to scream and wave a flag at a rally but taking actual risks with their life and limb...that seems beyond them.
Like Trump himself, Trumpists are all talk and little action. The long nutjob is absolutely going to respond to Trump and the GOP's rhetoric and kill someone. We have not seen the last Kyle Rittenhaus. This is bad. Very bad. It is not, however, an immediate threat to American democracy. Aside from McConnell's plan to pack the courts, Trump has achieved remarkably little as president. He has certainly not done much that could properly be understood as "creative," though he has been "destructive" in his repeal of regulations. Much of that will be undone in short order. Among the most baffling assertions in support of Trump by Cult 45 was that "he kept his promise and got things done."
Trump failed to build his wall and get Mexico to pay for it. He failed to "drain the swamp." He failed to bring China to heel. He failed to reorganize the global order. He failed to bring back coal or reinvigorate the Rust Belt. He blustered and he spun and he tweeted, but he accomplished very little, because he's a failure and has always been a failure.
His cultists are more or less the same. Angry, raging and impotent.
We are not done with the dark days, but the darkness we are in needs to be plumbed and understood. Trumpists will kill people. That seems inevitable. They will not overthrow our country.
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