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What Would a Military Coup Look Like?
The Constitution is being shredded, and Trump is selling the country out to Russia. Is there any way to stop it?
Off-handedly, I shared in a WhatsApp chat with some friends that I “wished the generals would wake up.” One of my friends in the group asked me what I meant by that. While my comment was more emotional than anything, it was something he said that got me thinking about how a military coup would (could) play out — if at all.
“Trump was elected, and whether you like it or not, he’s the president.”
Many of us “don’t like it,” and we didn’t like it in 2017 either, but then Donald Trump was constrained by laws. A lot has changed since then. As I pondered what my friend said, I imagined many people in 1933 said the same thing about Hitler. “Well, he was elected.” Germany in 1933 was a constitutional republic, and Adolf Hitler used the system to end that republic, replacing it with a fascist dictatorship.
I wondered how many Germans from 1933 thought the same thing as my friend, “He was elected, so;” So, the decimation of our governing order is supposed to be permitted? How many Germans from 1933 would like to call a mulligan on that sentiment? What seemed to be hyperbole just a month ago is now becoming business as usual in our country. All of the guardrails are gone. The Republican Congress has waived its Constitutional duty to ensure the president abides by the laws outlined in that document. There is no guarantee that SCOTUS will stop Trump’s assault on our nation. Even less predictable is that if the courts rule to curb Trump’s behavior, there is no guarantee he will pay them heed.
“He who saves the country does not violate any law” is now the governing motto of Trump and company. If Mike Pence had the loyalty to the Constitution to stop Trump on January 6th, JD Vance is a disloyal piece-of-shit who sold his half-Indian kids down the river when he came out in support of Musk’s “Big Balls” hacker. Big Balls has a white-hot hatred for Indians in America, but Vance defended his right to hate them. We cannot count on Vance or anyone around Trump to enact the 25th Amendment.
This would mean there is only one potential option: the military removing the…
