As the GOP spends the day trying to muddy the waters, let's be clear about their cynical and dishonest attempt to misrepresent impeachment as a coup.

The impeachment process is a constitutional remedy designed to help our country deal with people like Trump.

If it removes him from office it will because a constitutional process is followed and our elected representatives, including a GOP led Senate, *vote* him out.

A coup is what we have helped cause in Bolivia.

You can tell it's a coup because armed citizens and their military have ejected a democraticly elected President and Vice President by violence and threats of more violence.

Incidentally it is also what Trump essentially threatens every time he primes his base for violence in the event he is legally and democratically removed. So you know, think on that for a good long second.

Lastly, as @Stonekettle points out, the impeachment process would be a pretty terrible way to run a coup given that Mike Pence is next in line for the President.

Re:Pence:

In another time I think he is complicit enough that the impeachment of Trump would lead to his own or at least a resignation.

In the current climate, I wouldn't hold your breath. Trump has a portfolio of things that should have resulted in impeachment but hasn't.

Pence is bad but his smaller infractions combined with the GOP nakedly discarding governance and democratic norms in exchange for money and power means the Senate will most certainly never vote him out.

It would not surprise me to learn, years from now, that a Pence presidency was the back room compromise to secure the Senate votes needed to impeach Trump.

Edit to add: The caveat here is a massive smoking gun on Pence.

If that exists, look for it to come from Russia as part of their ongoing strategy of undermining US citizen's faith in their own institutions.

If that happens, the coup rhetoric ramps up, and we will get to see just how susceptible Trump's base has been to all his priming.