Despite having been a failure at almost everything he’s attempted during his life, one-term, twice-impeached former president Donald Trump came incredibly close to pulling off something that had never been attempted in the history of the United States: A coup that would have allowed him to remain in office even though he had lost the 2020 election.
So what went wrong? As it turns out, a last-minute limo ride to the U.S. Capitol was all that stood in the way of Trump being installed as dictator for life.
Thanks to the superb investigative work of the January 6 House Select Committee, we learned this week that the Secret Service was unable to get adequate police protection for Trump to travel to the Capitol and complete his illegal takeover.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and the author of Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present explained Saturday on CNN just how close the United States came to being an absolute dictatorship, with host Jim Acosta asking her:
“(Liz) Cheney also said Trump had a sophisticated seven-point plan to overturn the election and the chair of the committee, Bennie Thompson, called this a coup attempt. Ruth, you’re an expert on coups. What’s the significance of that?”
Ben-Ghiat responded:
“I was really pleased to see Chairman Thompson use that word because it’s the right word for something that’s the result of a process that started — in a sense it started before November 2020… because Trump had been trying to discredit elections for several years and forming his personality cult so the faithful would rally when he summoned them.”
She then added:
“But coups can take months or years to plan and this was a multi-pronged attempt to overthrow our democracy. It’s worth reviewing that he tried so many things simultaneously. He had General Michael Flynn trying to have martial law or military intervention and he tried the trickery that happened with the Georgia Secretary of State. And when none of that worked, he went nuclear and did what autocrats have done in the past and used violence, summoned the people there to right this monstrous wrong on his behalf.”
But it was what the author said next that stunned Acosta:
“It’s interesting, what came out recently, is Trump was trying to get to the Capitol on Jan. 6. He couldn’t get there. This is consistent, if you’re having a coup and summoned everybody and you expect to be anointed as the head of a new illegitimate government, you have to be there. There’s a phase in coups. They’re violent, quick, and then you have the pronouncement of the new order. That’s why he was trying to get there.”
Acosta could only respond:
“Wow! That’s a great point.”
If Trump had made it to the Capitol, we would now be living in a totalitarian state. We just barely avoided what the Founding Fathers most feared.
One reply on “Trump’s January 6 Coup Only Failed Because He Was Unable To Get To The Capitol: Report”
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse.” If the Secret Service had enough cars available, they would have ‘safely’ delivered Trump to the Capitol to complete his plan. They would have been following orders and breaking laws by assisting in a coup, and render the Great Experiment in Democracy a final blow. A coup de grace.