Unabashed and dangerous bullshit

This month President Trump tweeted: “As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP.” That wasn’t a one-off tweet; it was coordinated messaging. The Trump campaign announced that it would spend part of an $8 million ad buy on spots accusing Democrats of orchestrating a “coup.” And former House speaker turned Trump sycophant Newt Gingrich call impeachment “an unconstitutional coup.”

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Political scientists define coups as “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.”

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Coups are illegal. Impeachment follows the law. Coups tear up constitutions. Impeachment is established by Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution. Coups are extrajudicial. Impeachment emerges from the House Judiciary Committee. Coups are lightning-quick attacks that rely on the element of surprise to catch the leader off guard. Impeachment is a slow, methodical and publicly known process built on painstaking evidence-gathering. Coups are secret plots. Impeachment hearings take place in the arena of public opinion. Coup plots are hatched by men with guns. Impeachment is being overseen by a woman with a gavel.

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I’ve interviewed generals, coup plotters and presidents toppled by coups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. They are extraordinarily destructive events. Economies collapse. People get tortured. Whether coups succeed or fail, they create cycles of purges and retribution that inevitably lead to wider bloodshed.

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In short, the brazenness of Trump’s Orwellian inversions of the truth with his “coup” claims are enough to make Big Brother blush. But his rhetoric could also incite violence.

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Because coups cause such turmoil, even alleged plots can cause chaos.

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[S]ome Trump supporters, including Sean Hannity of Fox News, have repeatedly called for “purges” of what they call the “deep state.” More recently, Hannity has called impeachment a “Soviet-style impeachment coup attempt,” a contradictory jumble of words that shows him to be as reckless as he is ignorant of history.

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A messaging strategy that conflates legitimate and lawful congressional oversight with an illegal military putsch makes violent conflict more likely.

  WaPo

I suspect they hope for this. Trump could then declare a state of emergency and suspend the Constitution. And THAT would be the coup. We're in very dangerous times.

For the past several years, Trump has repeatedly condoned, incited or encouraged political violence. Falsely claiming that constitutionally mandated oversight of his alleged criminality is a form of serious political violence against him is another form of incitement, because it primes his supporters to think of appropriate remedies in terms of political violence.

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In fairness, Trump is not the first person to wrongly call impeachment proceedings a coup. In 1998, when Bill Clinton was impeached, several House Democrats (including Jerrold Nadler, the current chairman of the House Judiciary Committee) called Republican-led proceedings “a partisan coup d’état.” They were wrong.

And they were wrong to say it. But Democrats don't have armed militia willing to back them.