Alexandra Petri explains why we don’t need to be concerned about all the news we’re learning about Trump’s coup plot:
Don’t worry! We keep learning unpleasant things about the tail end of the Trump administration, but the most important thing is that they are all in the past, where nothing can hurt us. (That is why we are so keen to purge all the history books!)
For instance, Donald Trump was recently upset that Mike Pence did not want to overturn the election (his words, which he has now walked back a little, not mine). Just a little light overturning, as you do for a pancake! He is trying to stop the revising of the Electoral Count Act so that future vice presidents will definitely be able to overturn elections, if they want; not for sinister reasons, just because he wants to make sure Kamala Harris has all the power she needs. He loves Kamala! I’m sorry, not “overturn” — “ensure the honest results of the election.”
We also learned that Trump wanted to seize voting machines. He actively pushed Attorney General William P. Barr to do that. Then he had Rudy Giuliani telephone the Department of Homeland Security to see about some seizing. Which Giuliani did! But later, when the plan evolved into issuing an executive order to authorize the military to do the seizing, Giuliani didn’t want to do it, and it did not happen. In other words: The system worked just as designed.
Yes, when we reached the coup stage of “ask Giuliani for his opinion about whether the military can seize voting machines,” Giuliani did exactly what he was supposed to do and spontaneously decided hedid not want to overturn the election. That is the robust protection the Founders built into the system! There was never any doubt Giuliani would for no clear reason determine he did want to support the rule of law and oppose having the military seize voting machines!
All the other people Trump leaned on ignored and disregarded him or pretended not to understand what he was tacitly asking. And it is fine, because those people are still in control of the elections — ah, what? They’re being hounded out? They fear for their safety, and the people who are trying to replace them have a much different attitude to election legitimacy?
Sure, Trump pressured the Arizona and Georgia governors to maybe not certify their states’ results. And we’ve known for a while he called up Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and kept asking if he could maybe see his way to finding 11,780 votes. Personally, himself! But it didn’t work! Not there, nor in Michigan, where they certified regardless, and — the Republican member of the Board of State Canvassers who voted to certify Joe Biden’s win has been removed from his position now? I’m sure that’s fine. When is the next election? Not for a while, right?
All kinds of election-traducing plans, in short, were circulating within the Trump White House like flies in the Oval Office — but without Reince Priebus to swat them. But it’s fine because Trump is gone (now), and he is not being made to face any consequences — because he learned his lesson! And he will definitely pick Pence as his running mate in the future, out of respect for his display of sterling character, so we don’t need to worry about the Electoral Count Act at all.
As long as we don’t read about the attempted coup or ask anyone questions about it when we invite them on the television, it’s nothing to worry our little heads over. It’s one of those bygones that we have to let be a bygone. Our system is foolproof, for the specified degree of fool that has tried, once, to overturn it so far!
So, no biggie. Nothing to see here. Move along …