2000 Election - Was It A Coup?

[Zhade]

I've run into a couple of people who, while acknowledging the theft of the general election in 2000, do not believe it was a coup d'etat. I believe the evidence proves it was.

Was it a coup? If no, why not?

[Skip Intro]

1. Control of the Amercian government was seized

and its massive forces, on both domestic and foreign fronts, used in ways radically contrary to the creed, or welfare, of its citizens.

coup d'etat: The sudden overthrow of a government by a usually small group of persons in or previously in positions of authority.

Seems, sadly, pretty clear to me.

[Zhade]

2. I agree, of course. The definition of "coup" is pretty clear.

NT!

[PaDUer]

3. Also election 2002

Even the mormons boards were upset because they knew it was fixed...seems they chose WHO they wanted as governors!! We can't let this continue, or it's OUR fault for letting it go on!

[jsw_81]

4. Pretty much

Imagine if some foreign country had a presidential election in which the "losing" candidate got 500,000 more votes than the "winner" and had the election stolen in a key province that just happened to be governed by the winning candidate's younger brother. And imagine if the nation's high court -- a court dominated by judges who were appointed by the winner's father and his former boss -- shut down the recount in that key province so that the "winner" could take office and take control of the military.

If this had happened in Brazil or Kenya or Russia every single American would consider it a coup. But when it happens in country called the United States and the "winner" is named Bush, then we're all just supposed to forget about it and accept his election.

[wuushew]

5. The troll factor is several points higher tonight

interesting

[Zhade]

20. Sorry, I'm not sure I follow you?

NT?

[proud patriot]

6. I prefer to call it Usurption but Coup will do

;-)

[Zero Gravitas]

7. Yes

Bush only won the Electoral College because a partisan decision by the SCOTUS prevented a full count of the votes in Florida. Gore got more valid votes in Florida than did Bush, and he got more votes nation wide. The American people made their choice but the Republican Party was not willing to accept it and installed their candidate anyway. A Coup is the best description of what happened.

[SarahB]

8. Bloodless coup of 2000

:( I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to resolve either.

[debsianben]

9. Depends what you mean...

My problem with calling it a coup is that the term tends to be loaded with all kinds of false implications. When people think "coup" they usual think of something like Chile 1973 (or Hati 2003), not just a failure to let people who won an election take office, but an overthrow of the whole system of elective government in favor of a dictatorship. That's just not what happened. Florida 2000 was a blatantly, absurdly transperantly stolen election. And I think that it is profoundly racist for some people to say that every one needs to "get over it," particularly if the person advocating that people "get over it" is white--considering that the main device by which the election was stolen was the systematic disenfrachisement of tens of thousands of minority voters.

BUT we should also keep in mind that it wasn't exactly the first stolen election in American history...and, sadly, it probably won't be the last. There have been several cases of stolen elections in the past that I doubt most DUers would wish to refer to as "coups"--for example, the 1960 Presidential election.

The rhetoric of the "2000 coup" is often casually linked to such things as the appointment of Ashcroft, the passage of the USA-PATRIOT Act and all the other attacks on civil liberties that have gone with it. Scary shit, granted, but not the kind of dramatic change indicated by the pre-2000 and post-2000 as indicated by the "coup" rhetoric. Rather, especially given the unprecedented opportunity and public acceptance after 9/11 (which Clinton wasn't "lucky" enough to have fall in his lap), the Patriot Act, etc., was simply a logical continuation of a proccess of eroding civil liberties that was already well underway in the Clinton era. Remember the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996"? That was Clinton's baby (not a Republican initiative that Clinton "sold out" to, but a Clinton initiative, exploiting Oklahoma City just as Bush would exploit 9/11 for the Patriot Act), and it was also some very scary shit, the first step along that road, and today a favorite tool of the Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department.

I think that the stolen election in 2000 was a symptom, not a cause, of the continuing proccess of declining democracy in America.

[noiretextatique]

13. i agree that 2000 was a symptom

one that should have sent us to the emergency room. instead...it was pretty much ignored and denied. and it was a coup, orchestrated and excuted by the republian party, with the help of the democratic party.

[maveric]

17. Explain to me exactly HOW the 1960 election was stolen.

And if you say that because Illinois was a tainted state, with the total electorate that went to JFK, Illinois wouldnt have mattered. He still would have beaten Nixon.

[OneBlueSky]

10. yes, and it's going to happen again this year . . .

because it's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes . . . and we all know what that means with the advent of electronic voting . . . barring some miracle, there's no way BushCo will lose this election, regardless of what the American people may want or what the polls may show . . .

[debsianben]

15. Take Heart

I mean, granted the companies behind the paper-trail-free electronic voting machines are solidly Republican and not above cooking the books, but on the plus side, as I think Brian Leiter pointed out on his blog, computer hackers tend to be pretty left-wing, so maybe when the results start coming in the election will be a tight race between Kerry and Nader!:)

[jus_the_facts]

16. Yep....that's exactly what's gonna happen....

....it's already been happening ever since 2000 in the elections that've been held since where computer voting has been installed...look at the California's Gov's race....that was another coup on the state level...there we're still people who weren't even allowed to vote in that election too because of the registrar of voters records not being updated and polling places were also moved...and so on and so forth it'll be even worse than last time as they learned how best to thwart the process...we should have revolted then...if we don't this year when it happens again...then we deserve everything that they'll do to us...in fact we already do! :(

[Hekate]

11. I've always thought so

But I think it probably hurts too much for a lot of people to actually use a term like that about our country. I know it does me -- so much of what's gone on since the 2000 election debacle has just kind of been stunning.

I watched my country's election process being subverted by a "bloodless coup," and I kept thinking, "But that's always been something that happens in banana republics, Not In My Country."

I watched my country railroaded into attacking Iraq by an unceasing drumbeat from nearly every television news source, complete with theme music and special graphics, until one day my stomach gave a lurch and I thought, "Damn, this is propaganda, but that's something a totalitarian government does -- Not the Free Press of My Country."

Living through this crap hurts. I can't say I blame people for not being able (or not wanting) to name what they see.

Hekate

[DemPoliticalJunkie]

12. It sure as hell was!

Damn straight!

[jpgray]

14. Yes and no, because essentially everything was in place beforehand

You've had election fraud, terribly corrupt and corporate-beholden presidents, foreign illegal military adventures, civil rights violations, lies, war crimes, etc. This administration has just done it more stupidly, more bluntly, and more obviously than any other.

[nomatrix]

18. Excuse me, this was no ordinary coup

Here is how it was stolen
http://www.legitgov.org/index_hot_April5.html

Here is where it was fought
http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/us/election/election2000.html

Here is how it will be done again
http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/

Suggestion to all who justify & argue this has been done before...watch what happens from these cases.

The U.S. Supreme Court and The Imperial Presidency
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20040116.html

[Jane Austin]

19. It sure feels that way. :(

n/t

[Piperay]

21. I see some no answers and even though asked to

I see no explanations, I wonder why. :shrug: