Almost four years after supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to keep Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election, Republicans have finally become comfortable using the word “coup.” However, consistent with their upside-down view of the world, Republicans are not using “coup” to characterize what Trump and his supporters attempted between his losing the election and Jan. 6, 2021. They’re using it to mischaracterize Democrats convincing President Joe Biden to step aside to give Democrats a stronger chance of defeating Trump.
Consistent with their upside-down view of the world, Republicans are not using “coup” to characterize Jan. 6, 2021. They’re using it to mischaracterize Democrats convincing President Joe to step aside.
Shortly after the news broke Sunday that Biden was dropping out of his presidential campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democrats’ nominee, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote on X, “Joe Biden succumbed to a coup by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hollywood donors, ignoring millions of Democratic primary votes.”
“The coup is complete,” wrote MAGA Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also echoed the claim that we witnessed a “coup” when Biden dropped out.
“Is it a coup against Joe Biden?” Fox News host Jesse Watters asked Trump and his running mate JD Vance in an interview that aired Monday morning. Vance responded point blank, “Yeah, I think it is.” Trump though was uncharacteristically sheepish, only telling Watters, “Sort of.”
Biden dropped out for the same reason politicians have ended their campaigns since time immemorial: He realized he couldn’t win. As NBC News reported Sunday, Biden decided to end his campaign after discussing his election prospects with his wife, family and key advisers. It’s true Biden wasn’t happy with the growing calls for him to drop out after his deeply troubling debate performance against Trump in June. However, as NBC News noted, Biden reached his decision after reviewing extensive polling data, including data showing how Vice President Kamala Harris would fare in a potential matchup against Trump. At the end of it all, as the NBC News report puts it, “Biden came grudgingly to accept that he could not sustain his campaign with poll numbers slipping, donors fleeing and party luminaries pushing him to exit.”
“While it has been my intention to seek reelection,” Biden said in a letter to the nation Sunday afternoon, “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”
That’s not a coup. That's what American politics has long looked like. True, a president dropping out only a little more than 100 days from the election was jarring and historic. But at the end, Biden made what he believed was the best choice for himself, his family, his party and his country.
In contrast, Trump didn’t bow out even after he lost the 2020 election. Unlike Biden, who accepted that he couldn’t win, Trump wouldn’t even accept that he didn’t win.
As the federal indictment against Trump charging him with four felonies puts it, “Despite having lost, the Defendant was determined to remain in power.” To that end, according to the indictment, Trump “pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.” That’s what Republicans ought to be calling a “coup.”
Unlike Biden, who accepted that he couldn’t win, Trump wouldn’t even accept that he didn’t win.
Trump’s “criminal scheme,” as the indictment describes it, included replacing legally elected electors to the Electoral College with fake ones chosen by his campaign to deliver Trump the victory he didn’t actually win. And it included an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden’s win.
That’s what an attempted coup attempt looks like, not anxious Democrats pressing Biden to drop out. In fact, when challenged, Republicans can’t even defend their use of the word “coup” to describe what Democrats did. “So why call this a coup and not Jan. 6?” CNN anchor John Berman asked Cotton. The senator gave a meandering answer that included, “George Clooney, Hollywood moguls, Wall Street bankers all working behind closed doors to bring unbearable pressure to bear on Joe Biden.”
Berman wouldn’t let the issue go. “You use the language ‘coup,’ and again, you’ve never said that for Jan. 6.” He said, “As far as I know, no cops were beaten up. No one defecated in the Capitol. There was no criminal trespass in terms of changing the Democratic candidates, were there?” Cotton evaded the question and instead began spouting comments about Harris’ record when she was a district attorney nearly two decades ago.
This coup claim is just as baseless and hypocritical as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., claiming that, by Biden dropping out, he is “invalidating votes” of millions of Democrats who cast a ballot for him in the primary elections. Johnson professing to care about Democratic voters is laughable. He played a visible role in trying to help Trump convince the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the votes of millions of people who voted for Biden in the 2020 general election.
By characterizing the Democrats' changing of the guard as a coup, the GOP’s goal was apparently to divide Democrats with a narrative that Biden was unjustly forced out. As the off-the-charts excitement and enthusiasm for Harris confirms, that’s not working. But using the word could definitely work for Democrats. They shouldn’t let voters forget that Republicans have nominated for president a man who fought against leaving when voters told him to. That attempted coup should alarm all Americans who treasure our democratic republic.