Video: UVA Prof. Larry Sabato Warns – “This is a real danger. We’re still in crisis. And people act as though it was one day in January. They couldn’t be more wrong.”

See below for video and a transcript of UVA Professor Larry Sabato speaking to the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.

“I have more faith than almost anybody, apparently, in the January 6 committee. Now maybe it’s because I have a better idea than most do of what they’re going to reveal, not all the details and they are very confidential as they have to be. But this is going to be more powerful than people think. There are going to be a lot of public hearings that they’re going to have televised hearings, some in the evening during June. I’m not saying it’ll be like the Watergate hearings. You know, back then,  nothing got done in the country, the productivity rate fell to zero, everybody watched every minute of the Watergate hearings. It won’t be like that at all; for one thing, we have 400 channels, so there are plenty of diversions.

But what people are going to see is that we came far closer than most people have accepted to an overthrow of the U.S. system. We had a coup d’etat that could easily have succeeded. And you know what saved us? It’s something nobody ever mentions. Donald Trump and his minions actually thought he was going to win. And truth be told, if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I think he would have been elected to a second term via the electoral college. He’s never going to win the popular vote; if he runs again in 2024, whether he wins or loses, he’s never going to win the popular vote. Accept that. But our system is based on the electoral college; he can with relative ease win the electoral college.

So they had had really in their minds been reelected; Trump was absolutely sure he was going to be reelected, and most of the key people around him believed he would be too. And they came close enough, as I’ve mentioned. That means they didn’t get started on this plot until the days after the election; well, it was already getting on mid-November by the time they got organized and they only had until January 6 when when Congress validated the electoral votes from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. That’s what saved us. We had enough time and enough people who were willing to stand up for the American republic to keep the first coup d’etat since arguably Lincoln was assassinated – that was an attempted coup d’etat, kind of strangely, but it was an attempted coup d’etat – the first one since 1865. And it could have succeeded. It could have succeeded! And people need to understand that. They need to accept that reality in order to prevent this from happening again. Because if Trump gets back in – I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, he’s going to, I don’t know whether he would run again, I doubt it given his age – but he’ll have some Trump substitute and they’ll do what’s necessary to get that person elected in all probability.

So we’re talking about the very essence of the American republic. And people need to wake up to the reality. You know, it isn’t a bunch of clowns in the street, you know, running into the Capitol (although some of them weren’t clowns, they were very dangerous people that ended up hurting dozens and dozens and dozens of policemen). But they need to accept this reality. And Donald Trump knows very well at some level of his consciousness that he’s made the whole thing up, this ‘big lie’, voter fraud – get real! That’s my field, it’s a field of many other people who’ve looked at this very closely. There wasn’t any voter fraud. This is all made up by Donald Trump to explain why he lost. And it’s not just to protect his ego. It’s a four-year plan to get it right the next time. They didn’t have enough time to organize it last time. This time, they have four years, and so they’re running candidates for secretary of state in the key swing states, so they can run the election. And they’re going to run up their totals in the state legislatures this year. They’re going to get additional governors, and they’ve already got more governors than the Democrats have. This is a real danger. We’re still in crisis. And people act as though it was one day in January. They couldn’t be more wrong.”