The left keeps taking larger leaps into lunacy. This week, The Atlantic published a series of articles that tell us how Donald Trump is poised to destroy our democracy (again!). One is titled, “Trump’s next coup has already begun.”

Did you catch that? If you’re sane, you might find yourself asking, “Wait, when was the last one?” After all, a “coup,” according to the Oxford Dictionary online, is a “sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power from a government.” Merriam-Webster informs the reader that the word comes from the French term, “coup d’etat,” which means a “sudden and violent overthrow of a government” (often, though not always, by the military).

So, when was our government overthrown by Trump? The answer, of course, is that it wasn’t — ever.

The hyperventilating author of this piece, Barton Gellman, is referencing the protesters (and others) who got into the Capitol on Jan. 6, an event that he claims “sent members of Congress fleeing for their lives.” Calling this a “coup” takes exaggeration to new extremes. Until recently, the most common appellation given to the Jan. 6 event was “insurrection” and even that is hyperbole bordering on hysteria.

The definition of “insurrection” is “a violent attempt to take control of a government.” Not only has the FBI admitted that there was no evidence of any kind of “plot” behind the mobs that stormed the Capitol (How do you attempt to overthrow a government without a plan?) but not a single person who entered the Capitol building was armed. Footage shows Capitol Police letting people into the building, and scores of people calmly strolling through it like they were in a museum. New evidence has come to light suggesting that it was the feds themselves instigating the violence that did take place.

Gellman segues smoothly from exaggeration to gaslighting. “Technically,” he demurs in his first paragraph, “the next attempt to overthrow an election … will rely more on subversion than on violence, though each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect.” Gellman then accuses “state Republican operatives” of achieving this malevolent feat by “building an apparatus of election theft.”

Gee, Mr. Gellman — project much?

The Atlantic articles manage to ignore Democrats’ manipulation of the 2020 election, including hundreds of millions of dollars left-leaning organizations pumped into states to change election laws, often illegally, as well as the widespread implementation of practices like universal mail-in ballots, drop boxes and ballot harvesting that render ballots unverifiable and easily exploited for election fraud.

See how this works? When Democrats game the system or cheat, it’s “saving democracy.” But when Republicans and conservatives vote in large numbers and pass laws to protect the integrity of the system, it’s a “coup.”

Propaganda this baldfaced would be laughable were it not so dangerous.

Conservatives have long complained that leftists see themselves as not merely correct on the issues but morally superior to those who disagree. Now, anyone who pushes back against Democrats’ disastrous political and economic policies is a racist, a white supremacist, an insurrectionist, a criminal, a terrorist.

Here’s the truth: Trump didn’t create anything. He didn’t cause anything. Trump only tapped the public sentiment that had preexisted his entry into the political sphere for years. Americans — Black, white, Hispanic, native-born and immigrant, working class and wealthy, business owners, farmers and the military — were sick to death of being ignored, insulted and lied to by D.C. swamp dwellers (of both parties), the news media and other self-appointed elites. They supported Trump because he amplified their voices; he understood their concerns.

The real “coup” isn’t conservatives’ efforts to preserve election integrity; it’s the left’s attempt to overthrow the truth in their quest for power.

They must be defeated.

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Laura Hollis is a nationally syndicated columnist.