Donald Trump is loudly and frequently promising to execute a coup d’état if he is re-elected president — not merely to take office, but to convert the entire federal government to a fascist dictatorship, with himself as the dictator, perhaps for life. I have a question: why is anyone taking him seriously, let alone quaking in fear?
I have not done a survey, but every single coup d’état I ever heard or read about, in which a democratic country was forcibly subjected to a dictatorship, the army was involved. Remember all the newsreels of tanks in the streets, surrounding the parliament and the presidential palace? To convert a government from one form to another requires brute force, and only the armed forces have it. (In the case of Fidel Castro, he raised an army capable of defeating government forces, but my point remains the same — the only hammer capable of driving this nail is a powerful army.)
Donald Trump doesn’t have one. Even if he were elected president, he wouldn’t have one. The U.S. armed forces swear allegiance to the Constitution, not the president, and they have been trained to know an illegal order when they see one. There’s precedent: in the last days of the Watergate-ravaged Nixon administration, when his sanity was in doubt, Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger circulated an order to all military units within several hundred miles of D.C. forbidding them from obeying any order to mobilize or move unless it was countersigned by him. It was an illegal order, but it ensured that a lunatic president could not get his hands on military force.
Donald, bless his little heart, does not read history or know how democratic republics work, so it’s understandable that he continues to entertain fantasies about a vice president single-handedly overturning an electi0n, and a president using the army to conduct mass deportations (now, not only of illegal immigrants but of pro-Palestinian protestors) and set up concentration camps.
Likewise, his fever dreams of turning the federal Department of Justice into a vengeful mob pursuing his enemies, opponents (and people who have been insufficiently worshipful) — which is what he now imagines it to be — are hopelessly unrealistic. Again, there is precedent, and again it’s Nixon.
In October of 1973 an increasingly desperate Nixon ordered his attorney general to fire the special prosecutor who was investigating the president and had subpoenaed his once-secret recordings of White House conversations. The AG refused, and resigned. The deputy AG also refused, and resigned. The next guy in line caved, and dismissed the special prosecutor. So Nixon won the Saturday Night Massacre, as it came to be called, but he still lost the presidency a few months later, narrowly avoiding impeachment and prosecution.
In short, his behavior turned the Congress against him, and the courts, and he couldn’t use the army or the justice department to save him, so he descended into disgrace and virtual exile. And he was an order of magnitude smarter, and more experienced in government, than Trump will ever be.
Every day, Trump is descending deeper into his dark fantasy world of hate, retribution, persecution, and chaos. We do not need to go there with him.
Well — the one thing I could say about Trump is that he might be the candidate who would prevent us from descending into nuclear war with Russia over Ukraine, which is where we increasingly seem to be heading. Great, Trump has been convicted — so, when do we start going after the bankers and Wall Street types who caused millions of Americans to lose their homes during the 2008 financial crisis? The answer is that they own the system, and the rules they make are for us, not for them. Trump doesn’t own the system, that’s why he’s in court. I don’t plan to vote for him in November — he’s an MLM charlatan who will bring on full-on fascism. I’m a Dem, who was one of the 57,000 uncommitted voters in the Maryland Democratic primary last month. Green Party, here I come…
Thoughtful post.
The Green Party under Ralph Nader gave us President George W. Bush
Think about it.
And the two party system gave us …
John B. Anderson, George Wallace, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader: all third party candidates, and all losers. And these guys are only the ones who ran during my lifetime!
Forget about finding a pie-in-the-sky alternative to the two party system in this country…Never happen.
Well, I agree about pie-in-the-sky. A third party is a pretty long shot – but getting the necessary action from the ‘two’ – party system is a pretty long shot too. Whose pie is bigger and whose shot is longer?
passive solar, here,
As a Canadian, I am wondering whether the skewed Electoral College being part of your system doesn’t impact your 4 part series and the 1 piece of writing above?
It will come down to the “swing states” and so far those voters seem to be more equally divided…..meanwhile over at the “Daily Docket” I am reading, sometimes twice a week, that the Republicans are doing everything “legal” to gerrymander the vote or exclude voters by either a narrow reading of the Voters Rights Act or ignoring it completely.
How do Progressives overcome all of that…..few of those can be remedied by November.
When the election is close, the Electoral College can be decisive, as it was in 2016. Same with gerrymandering, which does not actually deny anyone the vote. When the popular vote is a blowout, as I expect it will be in 2024, they really don’t matter much.