This is a coup, a veritable coup d’état!
A coup d’état is the illegal seizure of power by violent or anti-constitutional means. The classic coup is a violent eruption, with dramatic scenes of tanks roaming the streets or planes bombarding the presidential palace. Self-coups, conversely, are a variant in which democratically elected leaders use their position to dismantle the institutional order and perpetuate their power. We are in the process of a self-coup in the United States. It is not yet complete; of course, it must be stopped.
A self-coup is a form of coup d’état in which a political leader who has come to power through legal means stays in power illegally through the actions of themselves or their supporters.
Self-coups have become more frequent in recent years. According to a vast dataset created by political scientists, one-third of the 46 attempted self-coups since 1945 have occurred in the last decade. Another alarming fact is that although only half of “traditional” coups since 1945 have been successful, more than four out of five self-coups led by democratically elected leaders have succeeded.
And remember, Trump warned us that he would do something like this. He kept saying to his audiences, “Vote for me now and you will not have to vote again.”
Some may ask, but is it a coup? A writer in Liberal Currents responds to that question as follows.
“To make a very, very long story short: People working for Elon Musk, who is technically working for President Donald Trump, have attempted to suspend large parts of the federal government, including a total closure of the U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID). They have also established a back door into the Treasury system that distributes funds and have possibly already used it to stop funds. They are trying to end the 14th Amendment. They are firing people en masse from the civil service, including those they consider their political enemies, those who they suspect of promoting “diversity,” and anyone else, for any reason. They do not have the legal authority to do any of these things, and in many cases, not even the security clearance to look at the things they are shutting down. There’s obviously more, but these are probably the most “coup-like” actions.”
Since that Liberal Currents article was written back in February, the Trump administration has been defying the courts with its lawless deportation activities, among other issues, including the insane tariffs. Other activities include illegally using IRS tax data to track immigrants, revoking billions of life-saving health service and research dollars from NIH, firing thousands of Social Security employees and putting the agency into a tailspin, firing dozens of staff at the agency that supports museums and libraries, eliminating billions of dollars in grants to major universities, and even taking over the Institute of Peace, which is not even a government agency.
I agree with conservative columnist David Brooks that what is happening is not normal. Therefore, America needs an uprising that is not normal. The first step, of course, is to accept the argument that we do not have various unrelated problematic activities by the Trump administration but a wholehearted attack on American institutions in the service of acquiring dictatorial power—a self-coup.
Our institutions will not save us. They are not strong enough. The Global Freedom Index indicates our retreat from democracy. Freedom House, a nonprofit organization located in Washington, D.C., tracks the health of democracies. The Global Freedom Index gives each country a score between 0 and 100, with 100 meaning the most democratic. In 2015, the United States scored 90, in line with countries like Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, and the United Kingdom. But by 2021, after the first Trump presidency, the U.S. score had declined to 83.
America’s score of 83 was lower than that of every other established democracy, and it was equal to the score of troubled democracies like Argentina, the Czech Republic, and Lithuania.
Brooks argues, “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits, the scientific community, civil servants, and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.”
In other words, we need all—or most—hands on deck in a coordinated force.