Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"In political science, the term coup refers to the illegitimate overthrow of a sitting government--usually through violence or the threat of violence. The technical term for attempting to stay in power illegitimately--such as after losing an election--is self-coup or autocoup, sometimes autogolpe.

"Much debate has ensued about what exactly to call whatever Trump is attempting right now, and about how worried we should be. It's true, the whole thing seems ludicrous--the incoherent lawsuits, the late-night champagne given to official election canvassers in Trump hotels, the tweets riddled with grammatical errors and weird capitalization. Trump has been broadly acknowledged as 'norm shattering' and some have argued that this is just more of his usual bluster, while others have pointed out terminological issues with calling his endeavors a coup. Coup may not quite capture what we're witnessing in the United States right now, but there's also a danger here: Punditry can tend to focus too much on decorum and terminology, like the overachieving students so many of us once were, conflating the ridiculous with the unserious. The incoherence and incompetence of the attempt do not change its nature, however, nor do those traits allow us to dismiss it or ignore it until it finally fails on account of that incompetence.

[...]

"The U.S. president is trying to steal the election, and, crucially, his party either tacitly approves or is pretending not to see it. This is a particularly dangerous combination, and makes it much more than just typical Trumpian bluster or norm shattering.

"Maybe in other languages, from places with more experience with this particular type of power grab, we'd be better able to discuss the subtleties of this effort, to distinguish the postelection intervention from the Election Day injustices, to separate the legal but frivolous from the outright lawless, and to understand why his party's reaction--lack of reaction--is not just about wanting to conclude an embarrassing presidency with minimal fanfare. But in English, only one widely understood word captures what Donald Trump is trying to do, even though his acts do not meet its technical definition. Trump is attempting to stage some kind of coup, one that is embedded in a broader and ongoing power grab.

"And if that's hard to recognize, this might be your first."

-- Zeynep Tufekci, "This Must Be Your First", The Atlantic, 2020-12-07