We have something new in US politics: a pretender. Former President Donald Trump is still claiming that he really won the election, and is now saying he’ll be “reinstated” to office by August, after an audit of some kind provides proof of voter fraud. Some of his supporters are egging him on; others are going along with portions of the charade; still more are trying to ignore it all.
It’s tempting to treat the whole thing as a joke. But there are reasons to take it seriously. Political science Twitter takes us through it:
Seth Masket: “If Trump is trying to recruit allies for his reinstatement, at what point to we treat this not as a delusion but as a coup attempt? He kinda has priors.”
Lilly Goren: “Usually this turns into a civil war of some kind, at least if the deposed king is still wandering around. #Machiavelli had a lot to say about what to do with bloodlines, though that was much more in keeping with principalities and monarchies and not elected democracies/republics.”
See also Asha Rangappa and my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Francis Wilkinson.
It’s quite possible that Trump doesn’t realize what he’s proposing is flat-out illegal. That is, the choice Masket is posing is no choice at all: What Trump claims will happen, an extra-legal seizure of power, would be a coup regardless of whether he’s delusional or not. And we don’t even have to explore what he really thinks; as Benjy Sarlin points out, “What’s definitely true is he ACTS on conspiracy theories as if they were real.”
Sometimes (historical) fiction is helpful in explaining modern politics. The TV show “Outlander,” in its first three seasons, told the story of the 18th-century Jacobite revolt against the English in league with the pretender Charles Edward Stuart, or “Bonnie Prince Charlie.” The pretender is portrayed as a fairly ridiculous figure. Yet there are plenty who are willing to do his bidding, either because they truly believe in the cause, they suspect they can use the cause to further their own interests, or because their friends believe in the cause and they don’t want to contradict them. Since no one is willing to tell Stuart he’s a joke, he winds up leading them all to disaster, as the revolt is put down in battle. Indeed, since the show involves time travel, the central characters know for a fact that the rebellion is doomed, and where and how it is doomed, but they’re still helpless to stop it, largely because people around Stuart believe that he’s a royal.
“Outlander” is a historical romance, of course, but it illustrates a certain path dependency that seems to parallel what’s happening in the Republican Party. Presumably, only a handful of Republican politicians actually think that Trump will be president again by August, and most of them actually prefer abiding by the rule of law. But once the party sets up its pretender, the costs of taking him down rise rapidly. And each time they go along to get along, they make it that much harder to break out of the trap without both the party and those who risk taking Trump on bearing the costs.
Of course, it could all amount to nothing. Reporting suggests that some of Trump’s advisers are trying to steer him elsewhere. And while he’s known for his preoccupations, he’s also known for not following through on things, so perhaps he’ll get distracted rather than continuing to build the expectations of his strongest supporters. It’s also possible that more Republicans will decide that the costs of defying Trump are smaller than the costs (to themselves and the party) of trapping themselves further. Still, even if Trump was gone from the scene entirely, democracy in the US would face serious dangers. And he’s not gone yet.
Bloomberg
