The First is One Too Many

I first witnessed a coup attempt in the Philippines on the morning of August 28, 1987, a couple of months after I arrived in Manila to work for the democracy-promoting, San Francisco-based Asia Foundation. On that day, a well-armed group of military dissidents nearly toppled the duly elected government of President Corazon Aquino. As tanks and armed personnel carriers rumbled by our office, my colleagues and I had no idea whose side they were on.

Just weeks earlier, a Filipino co-worker had proudly told me about joining the massive “People Power” demonstration that helped depose the country’s dictator in February of 1986. Now he and his fellow Filipinos began to look broken. How had so much turned so bad so fast for their democracy?

A Mess, Not a Process

Last week, I discussed how Donald Trump could try to steal the presidential election through voter suppression, voter disqualification and court decisions, and how Republicans planted the seeds of such an effort long ago.

I’ll now address how, even though Joe Biden is president-elect, Team Trump could seek to reverse the result by taking the fight to state legislatures, Congress and the Supreme Court. The strategy would exploit archaic, arcane aspects of our electoral college system that are even more nonsensical than you might imagine.

I’ll also sketch why Trump will most likely fail, not least because it might not be in the interests of many Republicans or the Court to see this battle through to the bitter end.

But “most likely” leaves no basis for complacency. That’s especially the case since Trump, like other would-be and actual autocrats elsewhere, has shown us who he is.