To the Editor:

It’s no surprise that Trump refused to condemn white supremacists during the “debate”; that would come uncomfortably close to condemning his base. Instead, he gave a shout-out to the Proud Boys, telling them to stand by. Naturally, they’re thrilled.

One of the salient features of this pro-Trump white nationalist outfit is that they show up heavily armed. The question naturally arises: What is it Trump wants them to be standing by, ready to do?

Unfortunately, the question pretty well answers itself. Let’s say you’re looking to end a democracy. You’re facing an election it looks like you’re going to lose, and you’re planning to stay in power anyway. Of course you’ll do the easy stuff, like claiming that the election will be a fraud before it happens. But things might get hard. What if you’re losing on election night, and the mail-in ballots aren’t helping? What if, god forbid, you can’t get the Supreme Court to void the vote and award the election to you?

At some point, in order to end a democracy, you may need to order some armed people to do your will for you. In most cases, this will be some uniformed service. Maybe the army. And if you’re operating in a nation where the democratic culture is not strong, you may well succeed with your coup d’etat by convincing a handful of colonels to back you.

If you’re going to do this in the United States, it gets dicey. Here, the democratic political culture runs relatively deep. Your colonels may kind of look at you funny when you try to explain to them that they need to help you end the democracy they swore to uphold.

You won’t have any problem like that with the Proud Boys. They’re standing by.

Eric Kuhn

412 Arbutus Street, Middletown October 1, 2020