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Pick your poison:
Backlash now from an angry mob
Full-swing shift into an oppressive authoritarian state once he’s elected
Many of these politicians are hoping that it will be someone else's problem.
For them, the poisons are:
A) Backlash now and get possibly killed
B) Meh. Let someone else deal with it after I retire
Keep in mind that in 2020, many of the Republican Secretaries of State were threatened for not giving the election to Trump. They did the right thing and got death threats over it.
When people stand their ground, we have to remember that they are the last line of defense against democracy. I don't say that lightly. Many Republicans saw the resistance and either replaced these people or wrote laws to make overturning an election easier.
If the Republicans see that they have lost, it won't be another January 6th. It will be a bloodless coup because they've already done the work to bring themselves into power.
And that's why this election is not only important but potentially dangerous. I don't know many liberals who are willing to put their lives on the line to stand up to fascism. Myself included. I'd like to believe I would. But I don't know if I could if it came down to it.
There won't be a " bloodless coup." It won't happen because there is only one president at a time, so no matter how the election goes, Biden sits alone at the levers of ultimate power until Trump is sworn in.
The only way a "bloodless coup" could happen is with the full foreknowledge and cooperation of the US military's senior officer corps, but that's impossible both because it's too difficult to coordinate, and because the senior officer corps absolutely despises Trump as a liar and a coward and for many other reasons that I'm sure will occur to you when you think back on his presidency.
He is widely seen as a gutless incompetent and deeply dishonorable idiot.
Your comment is bang on. The rise of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s should be mandatory reading for everyone. I bet less than 5% of the US population know how the Fascists came to power in Germany and Italy. Most people probably don't realize that Hitler was a populist who rose to power through legal means and then used a false flag operation to jail his opponents and seize power permanently, again using legal means. It would be all too easy for Trump to replicate that scenario if he gets the presidency again. If he gets elected legally (or at least with the appearance of legality), and then uses false flag operation to take out a good chunk of Congress, he could terrify the public and declare martial law. January 6 shows that he has the kind of supporters that would be willing to do something like that. In that scenario, even the US military probably wouldn't stop him.
What a lot of liberals often forget is that our constitution is just a piece of paper. What makes it powerful is the honesty of people in power to execute it to the best of their abilities.
We may disagree with how we accomplish our goals, but so long as we agree that the constitutional is worth protecting, we can dialogue.
The Republicans have shit on the constitution, and have threatened to institute a government based on dogma, where everything is made up and justice is only for the chosen few.
Some have said, "Well, at least I can change it from the inside."
My response has been, "Well, why haven't you?"
The sad thing is that the GOP has become overrun by a small minority who have a dispositional amount of influence. We need good spirited debate in this country. But the GOP is more concerned with power than they are with governing.
I've been saying for almost 20 years that there will be a civil war in my lifetime. I fear that we're getting closer and closer.
Exactly right. It is frightening to think what could happen if Trump gets re-elected. He will have zero incentive to moderate his approach. I wonder if anyone has a plan to prevent Trump from pulling a Hitler, and if that plan could survive his planned purge of the highest levels of the bureaucracy. It is incredible to think that the US is that close to sleepwalking into fascism and a civil war (again).
I'm with you on that. Honestly, I don't think I'd trust someone who sounded sure on that. They're either lying to themselves or a little too eager for violence.