Because of recently released DOJ notes of phone calls between Trump and Jeffery Rosen, the acting attorney general after Bill Barr resigned, we now know Trump did in fact try everything he could to subvert the 2020 election and stay in power illegally. It can be called nothing other than an attempted coup. No one took him seriously the many times he said that he would not accept the outcome of the election if he lost. He was telling the nation what he planned to do. On election eve when it became apparent he was losing to Joe Biden, he began the drum beat of “stop the steal” and continued that mantra until it was tattooed on the brains of his supporters that somehow the election had been rigged against him. We all know what happened next: Two months of false claims and frivolous lawsuits and lies about the process of certifying the election culminating in the attack on the capitol on Jan. 6. As more facts come to light detailing Trump’s actions during those two months, it’s becoming clear just how close we came to losing our representative form of government in exchange for an authoritarian dictatorship led by Donald Trump. This is not hyperbole. Those who would say it could never happen here are foolishly naïve. We survived only because of the actions of people like General Mark Milley who saw what was going on and vowed not to let the military become part of Trump’s plan, the leaders in Congress who on Jan. 6 refused to leave the capitol and were determined to continue the electoral vote certification, state election officials who refused to kowtow to Trumps demands to cheat for him, and the capitol police who fought Trump’s army of deplorables. These are the true heroes of the 2020 election. Trump and those in his administration and the republicans in congress who were complicit in the attempted overthrow of our government must be held accountable and punished for their actions. The message must be: It can never happen again.