Barton Gellman is a staff writer for The Atlantic. He is amazingly prescient. Right before the election of 2020, he wrote an ominous article speculating that Trump, if the election results were close, might refuse to concede. He foresaw the chaos that Trump would indeed unleash, undermining the integrity of the election, which is the central mechanism of democracy.

Now he has written an equally astonishing article in The Atlantic, in which he warns that “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun.” He summarizes Trump’s strategy to overturn the election of 2020 by trying to persuade Republican legislatures to overturn the popular vote (if the Democratic candidate wins it) and submit slates of Trump electors for certification by Congress.

Trump put pressure on Republican state officials in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia to override the popular vote, but that didn’t work. Then he tried to stall the certification of the…