Here are the six 'buffoonish' ways Trump tried to execute his coup: Former Ted Cruz staffer

On Thursday, writing for The Bulwark, conservative analyst and former Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter outlined all of components of former President Donald Trump's effort to stage a coup.

"From the summer of 2020 through January 6, 2021, Trump’s buffoonish plans evolved — ultimately taking shape as a multipronged plot to rob Joe Biden of the presidency, one that descended into bloody violence at the United States Capitol," wrote Carpenter. "It happened fast, but not all at once."

It began, she noted, with his conspiracy theories about the election being stolen, which started even before any ballots were cast: "He and his team started questioning the legality of mail-in voting, especially as the practice was being more widely adopted because of COVID. That month, Attorney General Bill Barr told the New York Times that foreign governments might conspire to mail in fake ballots."

The second part, wrote Carpenter, were the more than 60 failed lawsuits to overturn the election, most prominently the lawsuit out of Texas by state AG and "Lawyers for Trump" director Ken Paxton trying to have millions of legal votes thrown out. That occurred simultaneously with the third plan of fake federal investigations: "In an unsettling departure from Department of Justice precedent, Attorney General Bill Barr on November 9, 2020 gave federal prosecutors approval to investigate the president’s unfounded claims."

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The fourth part was the "Stop the Steal" messaging, which quickly inflamed Trump's supporters: "Immediately after the election, protests demanding that election workers 'Stop the Count' materialized in Michigan as Trump supporters sought to discount mail-in ballots that took longer to count and largely favored Biden," wrote Carpenter. "On November 14, 2020, thousands of Trump supporters rallied in Washington. The events descended into street violence that evening, leaving two officers injured."

The fifth part was the push for Biden-backing states with GOP legislatures to adopt fake slates of electors backing Trump — complete with dozens of these fake electors signing on to fake election certificates. And all of this was supposed to advance as the sixth part unfolded: Trump pressuring state officials to invalidate ballots, as he did with Secretary Brad Raffensperger in Georgia.

"Although Trump wasn’t successful in overturning the election, his schemes captured the hearts and minds of the Republican base, many members of the Republican elite, conservative media, and fringe militia groups alike. Those groups worked in concert toward an end goal of rejecting Electoral College votes on Jan 6th," warned Carpenter in her conclusion. "Don’t think they won’t try again."

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