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The denunciations and conspiracy theories came fast after President Biden announced he was stepping aside from the 2024 election and endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris.
Democratic activists and pro-Biden influencers decried the decision as a coup by monied donors and media figures, disenfranchising the millions of people who had voted for Biden in the 2024 primary. It was nothing less than a mass negation of the 81 million voices who had chosen Biden in 2020, a stab in the back of the most impactful president in a generation, and a seizing of power that went against the very foundations of representative democracy.
Kidding! That was all MAGA-worshipping Republicans who are suddenly very concerned about the sanctity of Democratic voters and stopping insurrections against duly elected presidents.
Yes, the same people who have spent nearly four years claiming Joe Biden was illegitimately elected by 81 million non-existent people are suddenly very angry about the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election. Conspiracy theory influencers and MAGA mouthpieces who constantly call Democrats pedophiles and demons who must be cleansed from the earth are deeply upset that Democratic primary voters aren’t being listened to and nurtured in their “betrayal.” And those voices who were the loudest in supporting an actual attempt at a coup – the January 6th insurrection, where people died and the Vice President was nearly murdered – are now convinced that Biden stepping down of his own volition is a coup that is somehow worse than that actual insurrection (which, of course, was totally fake.)
Like this dude, a Silicon Valley billionaire weirdo who’s close friends with fellow Silicon Valley billionaire weirdo Elon Musk, might be more convincing in his attempt to apply a “Stab in the Back Myth” to Biden if he hadn’t just spoken at the Republican National Convention claiming that, among other things, Biden “provoked” Russia into invading Ukraine.
How can a person believe that January 6th wasn’t a real insurrection, but Joe Biden being convinced to step aside was? Isn’t this just hypocrisy of the highest order? Or are they really concerned for the future of democracy and feeling like what the Democrats did to him was wrong, even if they don’t like him?
If you’re confused, that’s the point. They don’t actually mean any of this, and none of it is meant to make sense.
The concern, the fear for the future of democracy, the outrage on behalf of Biden voters: it’s all an act. Not a single MAGA influencer or politician actually thinks the nomination was “stolen” from Biden, nor do they care even one bit about the potential disenfranchisement of Democrats. They would rather see Democratic primary voters lined up and shot than be taken seriously in their grievances. Do you seriously believe that people utterly obsessed with passing laws to make voting harder and more exclusive actually care about making votes count?
The people who would literally die to support a president who would never willingly give up power are pretending to decry a president willingly giving up power.
That’s not to say that it’s impossible for people to hold two contradictory beliefs – that Joe Biden is a fake president whose real election is being overturned. That sort of cognitive dissonance is common among conspiracy theorists, with one of the most famous examples being a survey of 9/11 truthers who answered yes to believing both that Osama Bin Laden was already dead when US Special Forces killed him in 2011, and that he’s still alive. Ultimately, the details of conspiracist belief can contradict each other because they’re all made up. Barack Obama could be an incompetent bumbling idiot while also being an evil genius who spent decades pretending to be American with nobody figuring out because both beliefs are fictional, and based on nothing other than wishful thinking.
The Trump supporters claiming that the Democrats ousted Biden in a coup, on the other hand, don’t believe any of it. Their outrage stems not at all from sympathy for pro-Biden Democrats and entirely from wanting Biden to stay in the race. Trump was outpolling Biden in numerous critical swing states, and had driven the Democratic electorate into a kind of apathy that almost certainly portended another Trump victory, and what would then likely be his complete takeover of American society.
With Biden out and Harris presumably in, these people are going to have to completely revamp their approach to winning what had been a moribund election that had seemingly been dragging on for years.
They were adamant that Biden stay in the race because they believed he’d lose. And now that he’s out of the race, they’re pretending those beliefs stemmed from genuine concern for the democratic process, rather than owning the libs and pleasing Trump. In fact, Republicans care so little for Biden’s actual presidency that many are demanding he resign right now rather than play out the last five months of his term.
Yes, the people who still think Biden isn’t the real president want Biden to end his fake presidency because he won’t get the opportunity to be real president again.
This is pure insanity that is not designed to cohere on any level. In fact, there is nothing undemocratic about a candidate making a decision to step back. He can’t be forced to run for president, and if he’s changed his mind, then he can do that for whatever reason.
The only thing anyone needs to know about the right-wing outcry of a “coup” is that it’s meaningless and designed to drive a wedge between Democrats who are now, ironically, more united than at any time during the last year. Republicans are panicking, and it’s transparently obvious.
Nobody knows what happens next, how Harris will do against Trump, or what other surprises this utterly insane election cycle has in store. But one thing we can all agree on is that people who cheered January 6th and called Biden’s stepping aside a coup are hypocrites who can safely be ignored. They are lying to their followers and trying to drive Democrats to distraction with their trolling.
The featured picture of this piece is of the coup of 18 Brumaire, the bloodless revolution of 1799 that ended the French Revolution and brought Napoleon to power as a dictator. That was a seizure of power in a non-violent way that soon led to two decades of brutal war all over Europe.
Joe Biden walking away is a candidate for office deciding he didn’t want to be a candidate for office anymore. It wasn’t a stab in the back, it wasn’t an abrogation of voter wishes, and it definitely wasn’t a coup.
But they know that already.
Mike Rothschild 