The Two Coups of January 6th

And the one that’s still happening

The January 6th hearings are right around the corner and I think we are still missing a key point: the ENTIRE Republican Party is culpable. We’re also missing another key point that is perhaps less obvious: the Big Lie contained TWO coups. January 6th was a really terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day…that saw TWO coups smash into one another. Ironically, the second coup stopped the first. Well, temporarily. Let me explain…

Okay, so coup 1 is the older coup. For clarity, I’m going to call this one the “Legal Coup,” not because it is legal, but because it is dependent upon the appearance of legality. It’s Jim Crow 2.0. It focuses on manipulating the levers of power to make it legal. Coup 2 is the “Cult Coup.” This is the one driven by the Trump mob and the Proud Boys. There’s certainly some overlap between the two, but there are some very key differences.

So, coup 1 — the Legal Coup. Even though we like to think of American democracy as this ancient tradition, in actuality we have only even ATTEMPTED a full multi-racial pluralistic democracy since 1965. That’s not a long time. And for pretty much that entire time the GOP has tried to stop us from becoming a multi-racial pluralistic democracy, mainly through a variety of voter suppression measures. And gerrymandering. The Legal Coup’s roots run DEEP — all the way back to the 1700s. The conservative movement in America has always had some level of anti-democracy baked in. From the founding itself (you know slavery, but also stuff like the Electoral College, the non-direct election of senators, the Senate itself, etc.), to Dred Scott, to the Civil War, to Jim Crow, to the opposition to the 19th amendment, to the backlash to the Voting Rights Act (and the eventual gutting of the Voting Rights Act), to that guy on Facebook who loves to remind everyone “we’re actually a republic, not a democracy” — there’s always been a crusade to only let “real” Americans vote. It’s ideologic core is in white Christian nationalism, which argues America is fundamentally a Christian nation and “real” Americans are fundamentally white and male. The current GOP has put this anti-democracy/pro-authoritarian movement into hyper-drive over the last decade or so. To be clear, Trump is not the cause of this movement — he is an outcome of it.

Gosh, that’s depressing. Puppy break.

Coup 2 — the Cult Coup — is the new one. It’s about worshipping at the altar of Donald J. Trump. There’s also a lot of virulent anti-government and white nationalist folks wrapped in there who don’t necessarily worship Trump the man, but recognize he’s the closest thing they’re going to get to enacting their paradoxical authoritarian-limited-government, where the government simultaneously leaves them alone and empowers them to rule/punish others. It’s a lot more authoritarian and fascist than the Legal Coup, though they share a lot of the same goals. To be clear, the Legal Coup is plenty authoritarian and fascist, the Cult Coup is just MORE authoritarian and fascist.

That said, there’s obvious overlap between the coups. A lot of Trump’s mystique is tied up in the white Christian nationalism that is at the core of the Legal Coup. Has there ever been a less Christian man than Donald Trump who is more beloved by the evangelical movement? No. Because they don’t love him for the hippie Jesus stuff, they love him for the white Christian nationalist stuff. They love him because he promises a return to white male Christian dominance, where “men get to be men.” It’s why they love Putin so much. They pretend they mean some sort of weird cowboy myth, but what they really mean is an era where white men are immune to any sort of authority (damn you cancel culture!!!) while also being the sole arbiters of right and wrong — the “alpha” males who get to rule with absolute force. By “freedom,” they’ve always meant the freedom to tell you what to do with the freedom from being told what to do.

The rest of the movement is intimately tied to the culture wars, otherwise known as the restriction of human rights (which is also intimately tied to white Christian nationalism). Trump told his followers they were right — right that the elites were mocking them, right that stuff like affirmative-action was reverse racism, right that immigrants were here to steal their jobs and their prosperity, right that Muslims were a threat, right that the Dumbcrats and feminists wanted to turn your manly man into a beta male, right that the country was inherently theirs and was being taken away by “them,” and right to want to go back to a time before all of this “wokeism,” a time before Brown v Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act and political-correctness and same-sex marriage, a time where white Christian men made and enforced the rules. This is why “owning the libs” is so important to the movement — it’s about saying “We were right that whole time you were telling us we were wrong and racist and homophobic and misogynistic and xenophobic and transphobic and did I say racist? Barack HUSSEIN Obama!!!”

Hmm, sorry, this is getting more depressing, not less. How about a kitten this time?

Right. So, both coups rely on The Big Lie. They both believe the election was stolen, but they vary on HOW the election was stolen. The talking points are very similar, but the ideological core of the Legal Coup runs much deeper, and is frankly, much more nefarious. Let’s get the easy one out of the way first. Coup 2 — the Cult Coup — literally believes there was rampant fraud and the election was literally stolen from Trump. They are the true believers. They’re the ones posting on Facebook all the time about voting fraud and linking to super-shady YouTube and Rumble clips. For them, the absence of evidence of voter fraud is all the evidence they need to KNOW there was voter fraud.

Coup 1 — the Legal Coup — pays lip service to the voter fraud stuff and knows its voting base is dependent on the Cult Coup folks, but they believe something even more troubling. They believe that the vast majority of Democratic voters are inherently illegitimate because they are not “real” Americans. This belief is at the core of The Great Replacement Myth — “real” Americans are being replaced by minorities. That’s why Republicans are able to justify the obvious contradictions in their voter fraud strategy, namely that fraud only occurs in Democratic districts (especially in “urban” areas). Fraud can only occur when someone votes for a Democrat, so one ballot can be both fraudulent and not, which is why they saw no hypocrisy in saying the 2020 election was stolen from Trump, but other races on the same ballot where Republicans won were free from fraud. Why? Because the fraud is about who counts in “We the people.” The election was “stolen” because the “wrong” people voted for Biden, overriding the will of “real” Americans. Even though Trump got less votes, he got more votes from “real” Americans who hold “real” American values — that’s why the election was stolen from him.

How about a baby giraffe?

Trump has always existed simultaneously at the head of both coups and in the liminal space BETWEEN the two coups. He’s obviously the leader of the Cult Coup, but he is also the Useful Idiot of the Legal Coup. His hammering of voter fraud and a stolen election was essential to BOTH coups. The flaw of the Legal Coup is they thought they could control both Trump and his Cult Coup. They never fully understood how important violence was to the Cult Coup — let the big strong white men decide what is right and what is wrong, let them decide what is the appropriate punishment…just wait until your father gets home. The Legal Coup wanted the threat of violence, but not actual violence.

While both coups are inextricably linked to violence, the Legal Coup relies on the threat of illegal violence and the existence of legal violence. What’s legal violence? Slavery, the KKK, Tulsa, Selma, and on and on (and on) all the way to Kyle Rittenhouse — all “legal” violence. Within that legal violence there has also been a threat of illegal violence, though often that illegal violence would be sanctioned into legal violence…for instance, Kyle Rittenhouse. Or go read about the history of policing in America. We are seeing this threat of violence playing out right now with the gun control debate. There is a not-so-veiled-implication of violence behind every “you aren’t taking my guns” Facebook post.

For the Cult Coup folks, if they’re the ones doing it, then it’s legal violence — see Rittenhouse, Kyle. There’s no difference. “If the government tries to take my guns and I shoot them then they had it coming.” The Legal Coup folks work behind the scenes to make this true, the Cult Coup folks believe it is part of The Bill of Rights. This is why they see storming the Capitol as no big deal — I mean, they videotaped themselves STORMING THE CAPITOL. To them, it was a justified action to “take our country back.” Don’t take my word for it, look at what Ethan Nordean posted on social media, one of several Proud Boys who were just charged with seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding: “We tried playing nice and by the rules, now you will deal with the monster you created. The spirit of 1776 has resurfaced and has created groups like the Proudboys and we will not be extinguished. We will grow like the flame that fuels us and spread like love that guides us. We are unstoppable, unrelenting and now…unforgiving. Good luck to all you traitors of this country we so deeply love…you’re going to need it.”

For the Legal Coup the threat of legal violence was essential, but more important was the absence of illegal violence. For the Cult Coup, violence was always more of a feature than a bug. This pressure point is where the two coups will collide.

The Legal Coup’s plan was pretty simple: Sow doubt; delay certification; push the vote to either the Trump friendly House (by state, if not by total representatives) and/or the Supreme Court. Heck, pushing things to SCOTUS worked pretty well in 2000, why not do it again? As Donald Trump, Jr. texted Mark Meadows two days after the election when a winner had yet been declared, “We control them all,” meaning Republicans had control over key state legislatures, a state advantage in the House, control of the Senate, and control of the Supreme Court. “We have operational control Total leverage. Moral High Ground. POTUS must start 2nd term now.” For Donny Jr., the key here is that it all looks “legal,” even though he knows what he is suggesting is inherently illegal. “If Daddy just acts like he won, then it will look like he won…No one has ever told me they love me.”

Okay, so let’s travel back in time a bit to the fall of 2020. I’m so sorry to do this to you. As election day approached, it was becoming more and more likely that Trump was going to lose. He was historically unpopular, his approval rating was always low, and he was overseeing a public health and economic catastrophe. He was in a bad spot. Public polling showed him trailing Biden rather significantly nationally (Trump actually did better than polling suggested), and more importantly, he trailed in key swing states. While not a certainty, his team knew it was much more likely than not that Trump was going to lose. Why does this matter? Because they began plotting the Legal Coup before the election even happened.

Trump was regularly saying the election was rigged prior to November 2020. If you remember, he even claimed the 2016 election he won was rigged (to justify why he lost the popular vote). Whereas in 2016 he blamed 3 million illegal-immigrants, in 2020 they had a less-preposterous bogeyman: mail-in-ballots. Trump was decrying them as early as April 2020, saying, “Mail ballots are a very dangerous thing for this country, because they’re cheaters. They go and collect them. They’re fraudulent in many cases.” Was this true? Of course not. Did it matter? Nope. Those illegitimate Democrats were going to be the ones casting the mail-in-ballots, especially in those fraudulent “urban” areas like Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta. The Cult Coup fell HARD for this bullshit — the election was being stolen! Look at that watermark! “They” were stealing the election from real Americans right before our eyes. The Legal Coup knew this was, let’s say, difficult to prove — you know, bullshit — but it gave them the appearance of legally challenging the election results. Using the canard of mail-in-ballots, Trump even suggested in July that he would not accept the results of the election. The Legal Coup was always in plain sight — phase 1: sow doubt.

Trump mixed in some Cult Coup stuff along the way, like telling the Proud Boys to “Stand back and stand by.” The Legal Coup was onboard with this call to arms because remember, the threat of violence is important. A lot of other shit happened that I just can’t relive, suffice it to say the campaign was awful. Fast-forward to election night, where Trump was leading in several key states in same-day voting, but thanks to a variety of Republican state laws about when and how mail-in-ballots were counted, the large pro-Biden mail-in vote had yet to be tabulated. These Republican laws prevented the counting of mail-in-ballots prior to Election Day in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, so that it would appear on election night that Trump was winning. That’s not an accident; it was part of the Legal Coup — sow doubt.

Using the confusion these laws created, Trump came out on election night to declare victory, “Frankly, we did win this election.” Sow doubt. That was always part of the strategy — it still is part of the strategy for 2022/24–2000 Mules!!!). Trump took to Twitter, TV, and rallies to rail over and over again how the election had been stolen, often citing mail-in-ballots as the culprit: “Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.” From May 2020 through January 6th, he tweeted 75 times about a “rigged election.” And it wasn’t just stolen from him, oh no, it was being stolen from his god-fearing “real” American patriot followers. And it was being stolen by illegitimate Americans in Philadelphia and Detroit! George Soros!!! At this point, the goal is the same — sow doubt — but the two coups’ tactics split.

The Legal Coup heads to court while the Cult Coup heads to ballot counting sites. The Legal Coup is thrilled with the Cult Coup at this point, and on the surface, they are working together. The threat of violence and the outrage from the Cult Coup members mobbing these ballot sites was useful to the Legal Coup for PR purposes. Much like they knew they were probably going to lose the election, the Legal Coup knew they were definitely going to lose in court BECAUSE THEY HAD NO EVIDENCE. They filed 62 lawsuits and lost 61. The only one they won said that voters in Pennsylvania had only 3 days after the election to “cure” their ballots by providing proper identification, when necessary. They lost the other 61, including a key suit in Texas that asserted “the vice president has the constitutional authority to decide which states’ Electoral College votes to count.” He did not. The public pressure/spectacle from the Cult Coup helped deflect from the fact that the Legal Coup literally didn’t have a leg to stand on.

It bears repeating: THEY KNEW THEY WERE GOING TO LOSE IN COURT. They didn’t need to win though, because the plan at this point was to sow doubt. The idea was always that the challenges themselves, along with Trump’s endless tweets, Fox/Newsmax/OANN’s relentless propaganda, some good old fashioned both-sidesing from the mainstream press, and public displays of outrage (and violence) from the Cult Coup — all that would be enough to sow doubt. The demands for sham audits and recounts and phony hearings based on made up anecdotal evidence of “a guy’s friend’s cousin who saw someone drop off a bag of ballots”— all of it was part of the plan. Trump’s whole career is based on endless litigation, running out the clock (or the opponent’s finances) with endless legal action. The lawsuits were meant to do the same: sow doubt, certainly, but there was also the goal of running out the clock in order to delay certification (file enough suits to keep the courts busy up-to-and-through January 6th). Can’t certify on January 6th? Oh gosh, I guess that means we go to SCOTUS. The Legal Coup is called the Legal Coup for a reason — it had to look legal.

During this time, Trump was also trying to install what essentially amounted to a sham attorney general. Using the Justice Department as his own personal lawyer and legal defense was nothing new for Trump, so he figured he’d try one more time. After Bill Barr resigned in December, Jeffrey Rosen was named acting attorney general. Trump wanted him gone and replaced with Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who was “open” to pursuing baseless voter fraud claims and helping Trump delay Biden’s certification, using the massive power of the Justice Department to help “legally” sway the election results. Trump was ultimately talked out of the unprecedented move, but it once again points to the push to make the coup look legal.

The Cult Coup was busy this whole-time mobbing ballot counting sites and posting bullshit conspiracy theories and videos online. Their presence at sites in Michigan and Arizona gave the Legal Coup team confidence that they would provide the threat of violence without actually becoming violent. The threat of violence makes the movement seem larger and more widespread — and dangerous. Look at those people banging on the windows of the Detroit ballot counting site — gosh, if they’re that mad there must be something going on! The outrage and threatening behavior is a tactic. For instance, the vast majority of Americans want stricter gun laws, but the gun nuts are loud and threatening, making their movement seem larger than it is. And just like with the gun nuts, the threat of violence alone is not enough. There has to be real doubt — meaning we have to think those people might break down the doors in Detroit and storm the ballot-counting facility, just like the storming of state capitols the previous spring and summer sent the message that violence is on the horizon. But the fact that the violence never got that far (I mean, it did, but we had become numb to it) made the Legal Coup folks trust that the January 6th protest would go the same way. The Cult Coup must have missed the memo.

Thanks for staying with me. Here’s a sleepy puppy.

So, at this point everything is going according to plan for the Legal Coup. Heck, technically the Cult Coup doesn’t even exist yet. The Legal folks are under the impression they have full control of the Cult Coup folks, like I said, at this point they’re just Trump supporters. And the plan was working…well, I mean, it wasn’t, it was never really going to work. It was dumb-as-shit and unbelievably treasonous, but it was unfolding how they wanted. Also, remember that they tried other “legal” plans, like calling Georgia and asking to switch the vote to Trump +1. If Georgia just changed their vote, then the coup would look legal.

When January 6th rolled around, the Legal Coup was in full swing. We’d seen once again the threat of violence across the country when states met to cast their electoral votes in December — Arizona moved their vote to a secret location for security purposes. The bogus alternate slate of electors from various states had been “certified.” The insurrectionists in Congress were ready to object to the certification and do everything in their power to delay, while the insurrectionists on the outside — the Cult Coup — were all riled up to protest the stealing of this great American election. Again, not to belabor the point, but while the Legal Coup relied on the threat of violence, the key was always making it seem legally legitimate. Sow doubt; stop the certification; get it to the House; get it to SCOTUS.

Mike Pence was proving problematic for the Legal Coup. He’s not a hero here, he’s a coward, but he’s a coward for different reasons than the ones the Cult Coup had for trying to execute him. He just wasn’t sure if he had the power to overturn the election. He thought not, but the Legal Coup folks kept telling him he did. He didn’t. He very very very clearly did not have the power to single handedly overturn the election or stop the certification, but they kept telling him he did. A small but key detail in all of this is the plan for Pence to recuse himself and have Senator Chuck Grassley oversee the day’s events. Meaning the Legal Coup had alternate plans for Pence, if he was not “man enough” to get the job done. It didn’t happen, but they planned for it, because, say it with me, it had to seem legal.

As we know, Trump was pressuring Pence both privately and publicly, riling up the Cult Coup crowd. The pressure was so intense Pence’s staff had to warn Pence’s Secret Service on January 5th that the President of the United States was a clear and present danger to the Vice President of the United States. Good God! Read that sentence again. Pence’s hesitancy gave them a new boogeyman for their supporters. As the Cult Coup breached the Capitol, Trump tweeted to them: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution.” For the Legal Coup, the Mike Pence stuff was only supposed to be a threat. The gallows were “metaphorical.” Oops.

The threat of violence was always part of the plan — it still is. All the anti-mask and anti-CRT school board meetings, the “don’t take my guns” hysteria, vigilante laws like Texas’ abortion ban, and pretty much all of the recent right-wing outrage is tinged with either the threat of violence or actual violence. We’ve seen it used to bully decent people out of positions on school boards, as well as key election positions like poll watchers and election judges. The election workers need to willingly step aside to be replaced by insurrectionists — they can’t be violently thrown out…well, it can’t look like they were violently thrown out. It has to seem legal. On January 6th, we saw the same thing: Mike Pence needs to either do his job or willingly step aside. If he doesn’t, we’re coming for him. The Legal Coup meant it as a threat; the Cult Coup meant it literally.

I’m sorry to keep repeating myself, but the threat of violence on January 6th was important, but more important for the Legal Coup was the absence of actual violence, maybe a broken window or two they could blame on antifa, but nothing major. The coup-logic was depending on Congress saying something like, “Look how mad these people are. There are a lot of questions. Where’s Mike Pence? That mob looks like they might do something. Maybe we better hold off before they do. Audit the results one more time. Better safe than sorry.” Again, it had to appear legally legitimate. Sow doubt. Stop the certification. Get it to the House. Get it to SCOTUS.

It has to look legal. It’s why Republicans have spent the past year-and-a-half rewriting laws at the state level about who can vote, who counts the vote, and how the vote is certified. They’re simultaneously also trying to install insurrectionists into as many of the election levers of power as possible in the 2022 midterms, so that when they try again in 2024 it seems legal and legitimate. The scariest part is that a lot of the candidates this time around are Cult Coup true believers, like Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano. It’s not an accident that the most important question in Republican primaries is “Who won the 2020 election?” There’s really no other policy, plan, or platform beyond The Big Lie. No, really, just like in 2020, Republicans in 2022 have no platform. When they call Georgia again (or Pennsylvania or Wisconsin or Michigan or Arizona), they want the person answering the phone to say, “Oh, you’re right. It turns out Trump did win by 1 vote.” That way it’s “legal.” That outweighs any policy or party platform.

The problem for the Legal Coup is that the Cult Coup had lost patience and had always seen literal violence as a legitimate option. Not just the threat of violence, but actual violence. Remember, on January 6th the certification process was only just beginning when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol. The Legal Coup hadn’t figured out yet that there was a second coup — they thought the Cult Coup folks were following their orders. Much like establishment Republicans thought they’d be able to control Donald Trump way back in 2015, the Legal Coup thought they could control Trump and his supporters on January 6th. They couldn’t. Even Trump himself can’t cross his cult without feeling their wrath. The Legal Coup had lost control, as Nordean forewarned, “We tried playing nice and by the rules, now you will deal with the monster you created.” It turns out the people they had been indoctrinating with propaganda were pretty darn mad and wanted to take matters into their own hands. We all know what happened next. Legitimate political protest, a tour of the Capitol if you will.

The Cult Coup sacked the United States Capitol.

This was bad. Very bad. But not in the way you or I think an armed mob storming the Capitol is bad. For the Legal Coup, it was bad because the Cult Coup’s violence stopped the Legal Coup. The violence changed everything. Trump supporters literally storming the Capitol was the last thing the Legal Coup wanted. The “sow doubt” part of the plan was so successful within the right-wing echo chamber that it backfired on the Legal Coup. It was always a dangerous gamble to use the threat of violence, and when the basket of deplorables breached the Capitol, the gamble failed. There’s more than one way to stop the certification, and the mob wanted to stop it with violence.

Let me be clear, I’m not suggesting the violence was a good thing. It was terrible. People died. Radicalized extremist right-wing fascists tried to violently overthrow our government. I don’t think that’s fully sunk in — Merrick Garland, you there? I know it hasn’t because so many of them are running for office in 2022. If anything, we are somehow underplaying the fact that Trump supporters SACKED THE FUCKING CAPITOL. And let’s settle the most obvious debate in history: Yes, Trump is 100% responsible for it. I’m simply saying the violence (temporarily) stopped the Legal Coup from moving forward.

FFS, we need a baby dressed as a baby panda or something.

Turns out one guy ostensibly part of the Legal Coup was thrilled with the Cult Coup’s violence (and so were some of the dumbest members of Congress who saw violence as the quicker and easier route…who we’ll probably learn were much more heavily involved in the Cult Coup than previously reported). The problem for the Legal Coup was the guy they were trying to install as king stopped following the script. Trump, who always loved it when people showed their loyalty to him in grand public gestures (and who is very lazy and very stupid and never follows the script) was ecstatic. Most of the insiders — from Mark Meadows to Ginni Thomas — were worried the violence was going to stop their coup. Again, it was the last thing they wanted. This is where the great fissure happens because Trump wanted the violence to continue. There’s no other explanation for his hours-long silence.

While Trump basked in the glow of violence-in-his-name, the rest of the Legal Coup-Crew recognized the violence was a threat to their dream. Violence draws attention. They needed the process to be slow and boring. Nobody watches the electoral vote certification — hell, before January 6th most Americans didn’t even know that was something that happened. The coup-crew didn’t want the whole country tuned in to watch Trump supporters ransacking the Capitol, beating Capitol police officers, and carrying a Confederate flag through the halls of Congress. “Is that an actual gallows?” “Are they chanting “Hang Mike Pence?” “Why is that guy in body paint and viking horns?” They wanted it to be loud-quiet. They wanted 30-second clips of angry but peaceful protests playing on the evening news as the newscaster declares, “The electoral certification was paused today as Congress vowed to look into voting irregularities in the 2020 election. President Trump promises to seat ‘the real’ slate of electors from Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania.” They wanted it at the top of the evening news (the loud part), but framed in a way that made it look legal (the quiet part).

Instead, by drawing the nation’s attention in a horrifying fashion, the Cult Coup’s violence was going to make it look like the Legal Coup-Crew were trying to overthrow the government. Of course, they were trying to overthrow the government, but it couldn’t look like they were trying to overthrow the government. It had to look legal. Say it with me: sow doubt, stop the certification, get it to the House, get it to SCOTUS. For the Cult Coup, remember, any violence they commit is inherently legal because they are righteous and fighting to take their country back from dark forces. For the Legal Coup, it was a disaster.

With no violence they could continue the public debate. They had the massive right-wing echo chamber outrage machine behind them. They could count on Chuck Todd to both-sides a legal battle. Try as he might (and he has…more than once) it’s a lot tougher to both sides a violent insurrection. The Cult Coup ruined the Legal Coup, at least temporarily.

The text messages flooding into Mark Meadows that day are not about stopping the insurrection. They are about stopping the violence, which they all saw as the greatest threat to their legal insurrection. Holy shit.

Trump, however, is a narcissist who thrives on grievance. He was thrilled people were literally fighting for him, rather than just doing “boring” “pussy” stuff like trying to execute a coup through the courts. Nerds! Here was his dream come true! “Patriots” willing to tear down the Capitol to install their dear leader as America’s rightful king. If they’d go this far with this little tangible evidence, what else would they do for him? And how easily could he make them do it? While all the Legal Coup plotters begged him to stop the violence that was ruining their plans, Trump saw another path to the throne, probably his preferred path all along: violent spectacle.

But the violence galvanized public opinion. It strengthened resolve against the outlandish Big Lie (at least for a while). It gave Democrats a spine (at least for a while). It led to the certification, the very thing the Legal Coup was trying to prevent (though a majority of Republicans still voted to overturn the election). The violence stopped the coup-through-court attempt. Again, it wasn’t going to work. FFS, Rudy was on the team. But it had a better chance than a violent insurrection. The violence stopped the-behind-the-scenes-coup. That’s why they all furiously texted for Trump to call it off. And he was too vain, too stupid, and too undisciplined to do it.

Fuck.

While we have rightly focused on the violence of the Cult Coup — and Trump’s central role inciting and perpetuating the violence — I fear we have not focused nearly enough on the still ongoing Legal Coup. I mean, who are we kidding? We haven’t focused nearly enough on either coup, but we really haven’t focused enough on the Legal Coup. Again, I’m not trying to downplay the violence, I am terrified of future violence from the Cult Coup faction. But the graver threat to our democracy long-term is the “silent” Legal Coup — think Jim Crow, one law is passed at the state level and then another and another (and another)and suddenly Black people have virtually no rights (and illegal violence has become sanctioned legal law enforcement). The coup that makes it look like we still have a functioning democracy while we slip into full authoritarianism — that’s the one that keeps me up at night. A violent coup will always have a natural opposition because there is a touchstone — there’s a January 6th to point to. The Legal Coup just…happens as we go about our daily lives.

The other factor that makes the Legal Coup more threatening is that while the Cult Coup needs Trump, the Legal Coup DOES NOT NEED TRUMP. The fairy-tale belief among faaaaaaarrrr too many that once Trump is gone suddenly all the problems he exposed/exploited/created vanish is grossly misguided. The Legal Coup is happening right now within Republican state legislatures. If it helps Trump, great, but they’re just as happy with another fascist like Tom Cotton or Ron DeSantis. I’d wager they probably prefer DeSantis to Trump in 2024. They are actively and openly “fixing” the problems of the 2020 Legal Coup so the next one works. I just hope we recognize it’s still happening before it’s too late.