Trump's Coup Was Never A Victimless Crime
Remembering that monster’s victims.
The last time I spoke with my cousin, in December 2020, before he died from COVID-19, he was terrified about Donald Trump’s ongoing daylight election heist. “Cuz, what’s going on?” he texted me. That was a legitimate question, because while Republican cowards thought it was no big deal to “humor” Trump, a sitting president’s refusal to accept an obvious election loss is a big deal. My cousin thought he lived in an America where his vote mattered, and he’d die not knowing if he were right.
That’s something I will never forgive.
As Fulton County DA Fani Willis outlines in her 98-page ass-shredding indictment, Trump had started plotting to steal the election back when the polling winds cried “one termer.” He preemptively undermined faith in the election among his dullard supporters, and most chillingly, he’d planned to declare victory on election night, regardless of the actual results. Far-right Trump adviser Tom Fitton allegedly submitted draft remarks where Trump would say with all the conviction of a despot, “We had an election today — and I won.”
But he hadn’t. Not that he cared. He considered the presidency his personal property and he intended to hold onto it, no matter who he hurt. He wasn’t simply stealing a $400,000-a-year job from Joe Biden; he intended to deny a basic freedom — choosing our leaders — from millions of American voters.
When Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who’d supported Trump, simply told the truth that the election wasn’t stolen, the MAGA mob showed up outside his house and threatened his family. Republican elections official Gabriel Sterling said at a December 2020 press conference, “A 20-something tech in Gwinnett County today has death threats and a noose put out saying he should be hung for treason because he was transferring a report on batches from an EMS to a county computer so he could read it. It has to stop.”
Sterling begged Trump, along with his willing accomplices Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, to “step up” and “take a position of leadership.” There was so much willful denial at the time from both Republicans and Democrats, who couldn’t accept that the president of the United States wasn’t just a passive observer to this horror but the primary instigator. This is what he wanted.
Trump callously targeted innocent people as part of his coup. There are many reasons I want to see Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani die in prison, and Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss are at the top of the list. These evil men knowingly smeared their good names with what seemed like racist impunity. They acted as if no one would notice or care as they stood back while the mob they unleashed subjected Freeman and Moss to racist messages and death threats.
From the Washington Post:
“It was just a lot of horrible things there,” Moss said at a hearing Tuesday before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Many of the messages were racist and “hateful,” said Moss, who is Black. “A lot of threats wishing death upon me, telling me I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’ ”
These women were forced into hiding and had to quit their jobs with the Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections, where Moss had worked as a poll worker for more than a decade. They ruined Moss’s health.
Moss and Freeman were subjected to an extensive investigation due to Trump and Giuliani’s lies, and they weren’t officially cleared of wrongdoing until more than two years after the 2020 election. Let’s not kid ourselves: Trump and Giuliani wouldn’t have blinked if these women were locked up on BS charges in furtherance of their scheme. Worse has happened in Georgia.
Yet, Trump and his thugs’ rightful indictment is the first time Caitlyn Jenner claims she “felt ashamed” of America — not a sitting president’s premeditated plot to remain in office against the voters’ will.
Donald Trump attacked American democracy, like a common terrorist. It’s why my cousin died afraid. He also attacked Americans, like a common mob boss. It’s why he should rot in jail, without pardon or forgiveness.
It’s why we should never forget his victims, even as we celebrate his downfall.
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"There are many reasons I want to see Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani die in prison, and Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss are at the top of the list."
Goddamn right.
>> "Let’s not kid ourselves: Trump and Giuliani wouldn’t have blinked if these women were locked up on BS charges in furtherance of their scheme. Worse has happened in Georgia."<<
I don't know that it's worse than if they have been locked up on election lies, but Bowers v. Hardwick arose out of Georgia where they were sending men to jail for 20 years for having consensual sex in their own private bedrooms. And that was the 1980s.
Honestly, with how badly queer men and trans women of color have been treated by law enforcement there, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason that we haven't found out about a Georgia-based forced confession scheme involving officers torturing random "suspects" that is worse than all the horrible shit we know about from Chicago is ... that they're still doing it, and it's going to take another 30 years to get to the point where it's safe enough for a whistleblower to let us know.