November 12, 2020, 2:02 pm*
In spite of the fact that Joe Biden has widely been projected to be the winner of the 2020 election, winning multiple key swing states to put him significantly ahead, Donald Trump has continued to attempt lawsuits and claim election fraud. Though many experts on the topic have said that it is unlikely Trump could find any path to changing the results, people are still wary of an attempted coup by the current president.
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To address this, an organization called Choose Democracy has popped up to offer a list of 10 ways ordinary folks can prepare for and respond to a Trump coup if it happens. This advice, representing the first section of the group’s “Prepare” page, has gone viral in the past couple of days as Trump goes on tweeting false information about voter fraud in all capital letters.
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It’s also available in video format on YouTube.
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Choose Democracy has been preparing for the possibility of a coup attempt by Trump since months before the election. The first item on the list, “Don’t expect results Election night,” has already come to pass at they predicted.
“Many mail-in ballots may not be counted until days or weeks after Election Day,” they explain. “Since Democrats are expected to use them more frequently than Republicans, voter tallies are expected to swing towards Democrats post-election night (they call it a ‘blue shift’).”
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The second item advises people to call a coup a coup if and when it happens. Choose Democracy lists three main ways to spot a coup during this election, warning people to take action if the nation does one or more of the following:
- Stops counting votes;
- Declares someone a winner who didn’t get the most votes; or
- Allows someone to stay in power who didn’t win the election.
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Of course, with the Electoral College in place, Republican presidential winners often lose the popular vote, but that’s a different discussion.
The rest of the list items focus on accepting the reality that a coup is happening and refusing to go along with it as well as advice for concrete actions to be taken once it becomes clear that it’s going down. Preparation for those actions is also key, including finding protest buddies and committing to nonviolent actions like sit-ins and strikes.
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Choose Democracy draws on examples of other coups throughout history to back up its advice.
“Typically power grabs are organized in secret and launched suddenly,” they argue under item four. “Most campaigns that defeat coups do so in days: Soviet Union in 1991 took 3 days, France in 1961 took 4 days, and Bolivians in 1978 took 16 days.”
Thankfully, a new poll has found that close to 80 percent of U.S. residents have accepted that Joe Biden will be the next president, and public opinion can go a long way toward stopping a coup attempt before it happens. Still, maybe give the whole list a read and send it to a few friends, just in case.
*First Published: November 12, 2020, 1:59 pm
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