A Trump Coup?
Read it with its sister article: “Trump Coup Scorecard”
By Chris Hables Gray, June 2017
Our July 4th Nightmare
July 4th. Supporters of ISIL (ISIS), all U.S. citizens (the majority) or green card holders recruited on-line, attack eleven cities in mid-America. Several attacks are stopped before any casualties occur, but in Ames, Iowa a truck kills 34 (mainly children) at a picnic and at the Independence Day parade in Tyler, Texas “friendly” fire from open carry citizens contributes significantly to a death toll of 31. Altogether 127 people die, 270 are injured. President Trump declares a national emergency, all commercial flights are grounded, the military goes to DefCon 2, and the Mexican Border is closed. Within 14 hours Congress has met, at Trump’s request, and passed (with small majorities) legislation empowering the President to suspend habeas corpus and invoke Martial Law, as he sees fit.
On Coups
If one searches “Trump Coup” on the interweb it turns out that there are two very different Trump Coups under discussion. There are, more numerous than ever since the firing of FBI Director James Comey, the many commentators who worry that President Trump will try and stage a coup (or is already in the middle of a “slow” coup) to free himself of the Constitutional limits on presidential power and those oh-so-annoying checks and balances it mandates. And there are also a fair number of postings about a “deep” (or “dark”) state coup against the legally elected president.
But before untangling these two potential coups, by Trump and against Trump, it makes sense to ask, what exactly is a coup…or as it turns out...are coups?
“Coup”, from the late middle English, a blow, from the Latin colophus, from the Greek kolaphos “blow with the fist.” So, we get the Plains Indian practice of “counting coup”, keeping track of the number of times a warrior taps an enemy without hurting them. But the coups we are worried about are coups d’état, the violent and/or illegal taking of political power in a state by government insiders (even if only colonels in the military), where as a revolution is the attempted overthrow and/or seizure of state power by outsiders, especially mass movements. This is not to be confused with a coup de force, a decisive blow in war or some other confrontational arena (business, an ongoing dispute), or coup de main (surprise attack) or a coup de grâce, a bullet to the head of a defeated enemy, or a coup d’théâtre, a spectacle like a blow… But come to think of it, “spectacle like a blow” does describe Trump’s political career. In fact, all these other coups could well be part of a coup d’état, but not necessarily.
Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago Law School Professors, have written a very thoughtful analysis of “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy” for the UCLA Law Review. In it, they distinguish between two paths for ending democracy: “authoritarian reversion” and “constitutional regression”. Their definition of “authoritarian reversion” is pretty much a coup, although they actually distinguish between a coup d’état and a declaration of martial law to seize power (p. 13), but I consider them both coups d’état. But they do differ, the more the coup d’état follows general corrupted Constitutional patterns and formally legal yet immoral norms, the softer it is--the more force and naked illegality, the harder. But the taking of power through fiat is a coup, even if it is the coup de grâce to a system that is already dying.
Huq and Ginsburg conclude,
Comparative evidence and a close read of U.S. constitutional institutions and rules provide some ground for comfort that sudden democratic reversals are unlikely absent serious miscalculations by political leaders. (p. 24)
Small comfort indeed, considering our current political leadership, Republican, Democrat, or Trumpian, seems to specialize in “serious miscalculations.”
They also argue that “constitutional regression” is more of a danger to U.S. democracy, and perhaps they are right. Basically, it is a non-sudden “democratic reversal” as they put it. This danger long precedes Trump and will remain long after him. Consider the legal pretense that corporations are people and money is speech, the total corruption of election financing, the growing economic inequality linked to this decay in representation, the direct attacks on the right to vote by the Republican Party, the “capture” of the regulatory system by the corporations to be regulated, and the general militarization of American society as an inevitable result of U.S. Imperialism. But this analysis is not about this democratic decay, it is about Trump coups, so constitutional regression is a problem for another article.
Coups are not anomalies. They are an inevitable part of politics, as are revolutions. Huq and Ginsberg show in their article that roughly a third of coups d’état attempted in Europe against democracies succeeded, and on other continents the success rate is much higher. The U.S. has had several near coups and revolutions in the last 200 years. Some would say we are overdue for a successful extra-electoral change of government.
Removing Trump
Coup d’état: A change in power through violence and/or illegal actions. This is actually a usefully clear definition. Let’s apply it first to the second of our potential Trump Coups, a move to replace Trump with Vice-President Pense or someone else. Right wing nut jobs (infowars), thoughtful leftish periodicals (The Nation), and the gamblers of the world, consider it a real possibility that Trump will be replaced before the end of his first term. In most analysis this is either done by, or with the support of, the deep or dark state. What is this dark deep state? It is the powers behind the elected politicians and the government and corporate bureaucracies that are beyond the elected officials. It always includes the security services and part of the military, but sometimes there are also other civil service “mandarins” (as the Brits call them), and usually powerful interests and people outside of the government are seen as part of this secret state as well.
This state-within-a-state concept is not new; it is probably as old as government. In the 1960s it was called The Establishment. Anyone who has studied politics in human cultures knows that the formal lines of power are often not the most important. Of course, as good Americans we are supposed to pretend that conspiracies are not real, corporations are people, the U.S. is not an Empire and we live in a meritocracy unsullied by racism or patriarchy. But we know different. We know that whoever is elected President, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street banks will manage the economy. We know that whoever is Secretary of State, the needs of Exxon will be served by U.S. foreign policy, not those of democracy.
And, in particular, as a number of well documented articles have explained, the forces of order in the U.S. Empire—the military, the police, and the so-called intelligence “community”—really don’t like Trump. Yes, there are exceptions, the warrior-generals of his inner circle, the NY office of the FBI, and the far right of the CIA/NSA. But the problem isn’t really political. Trump is a rich, racist, women-hating asshole and so, generally, his heart is in the right place. But he is erratic (if not seriously mentally ill), narcissistic, stupid, and without any sense of honor. He is a danger to the empire, which means he is a danger to the powers that be.
But a coup d’état? A coup seems unnecessary. A Vice article on a potential anti-Trump coup makes this clear. The very fuzzy 25th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution allows for the replacement of a nonfunctional President on the say so of the Vice President and a majority vote of the leaders of the House and Senate and the top 15 Cabinet officers. If the President disagrees that he is dysfunctional, it goes to a vote of Congress. If, for example, Trump tried to order a sudden nuclear strike on North Korea, we would expect (hope!) the military would refuse and Pense and the others would immediately apply the 25th Amendment. See the sister article: “Trump Coup Scorecard” for a detailed analysis of the loyalties of those involved in this decision directly and indirectly.
This way of ending Trump’s presidency would not be a coup d’état. For one thing, many of us already believe that Trump is mentally incompetent to be President. This is actually a good time to use the 25th Amendment.
Now, if a small group of players decides that this is all too much trouble and kills or injures Trump as a way of ending his presidency, that would a coup. Heads of State are killed with some regularity, even in the United States. Such a coup need not represent a consensus of elites.
Of course, Pense is as least as dangerous to democracy as Trump, and Pense’s presumed stability might be more facade than reality, as is the case with so many religious fanatics. Pense is a Dominionist, after all, who believes that the U.S. is a Christian nation and our laws should reflect this. See the “Trump Score Card” for more on the Dominionists. But Trump is also deeply unstable. Our current world system, with its incredible technological power (especially weapons), can be tipped into madness by the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time: Donald Trump in control of the Imperial Presidency in 2017.
Pense, following the dictates of his heart, could try and stage a Dominionist coup against Trump. As he famously said: “I am a Christian, a conservative and a Republican in that order.” Maybe, U.S. citizen is fourth? But a Pense coup against Trump would not be easy, he would not have support from capitalists, the military, nor many Republicans, as the “Trump Score Card” shows. A true coup d’état takes the corruption and cooperation of a wide range of institutions that normally would not want to take such a risk. While a number of power centers might decide Trump is a liability, they have the 25th Amendment, they have impeachment and conviction, they have the threat of these interventions, which is what got rid of Nixon.
On the other hand, if Pense becomes President, down the line he could try a coup against democracy to try and impose his Dominionist principles under the color of some horrible crisis. But for now let us worry about a Trump Coup. For pushed into a corner, who can say he won’t try and take full power?
Coup d’Trump
First, let us be clear, nothing Trump has done so far is a coup, and there is no such thing as a “slow-motion” coup. A coup is a blow, it must be swift although a soft blow, at the right time and place, can prove effective as so many Kung-Fu movies prove. This doesn’t mean that the ground for a coup d’état is not prepared before hand. Of course it is, consciously and unconsciously by many different forces. And Trump says and does many things that seem like laying good groundwork for a coup. His assault on the very idea of the truth, his love of authoritarians, his obstruction of justice, his attacks on the press and judges who disagree with him, his illusions about his own abilities and powers, all could be seen as contributing to the context for a coup.
Especially concerning is Trump’s demand for personal loyalty. He even went so far as to invite FBI director James Comey to dinner shortly after he took office and then asked him to pledge his personal loyalty. To his credit (and no doubt one reason he was later fired) Comey refused to do so, remarking that he could not make such a pledge to an individual, for as an FBI agent he had pledged loyalty to the U.S. Constitution already. Comey did promise to be honest (probably another reason he was fired) and promised Trump his “honest loyalty”, whatever that means.
And consider what Trump said when challenged over his claim that he couldn’t order U.S. soldiers to commit war crimes: “They won’t refuse. They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me,” he claimed on Fox News. When challenged that these would be illegal orders he replied, “I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it.”
Clearly, Trump is not philosophically opposed to having absolute power, but maybe he is not smart enough to figure out how to take it? Marsha Gessen, a biographer of Putin and an astute defender of democracy argues in “Trump’s Incompetence Won’t Save Our Democracy” (The New York Times, June 2) that is wishful thinking.
What is needed for a successful U.S. Coup d’état ?
Huq and Ginsberg (p. 29) summarize the U.S. Constitution’s provisions around “states of emergency”:
These are not mere abstractions. Between 1985 and 2014, some 137 countries invoked a state of emergency at least once… Against this background, the U.S. Constitution is strikingly ambiguous on how emergencies alter the bounds of governmental powers, or redistribute authority between different parts of the body politic. Article I hence allows for Congress “[t]o provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions,” a power that formally shifts authority from the states to the national level. Another clause in Article I forbids the suspension of the right to file for habeas corpus “unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Although the text is not pellucid, it is generally agreed that this language allocates to Congress, not the president, decisions about emergency detention-related powers.
But read this closely (p. 31) and the main reason an “extra legal” coup is unlikely is that under current laws, shot through with national security/emergency exceptions, pretty much anything is legally possible already.
As a result of these various considerations, constitutional bounds are quite elastic in real or purported emergencies, with little reason for officials to anticipate either ex ante injunctive barriers or ex post damages actions. In addition, Congress has enacted a wide range of statutory emergency powers of surveillance, detention, and force, that in net sustain and expand this elasticity. As a result, it will be the rare instance in which a desired emergency response cannot be routed through existing statutory and constitutional channels. Hence, while legal elasticity in the context of exigency has the arguable cost of failing to limit prohibit or punish hasty, unwise, or discriminatory actions, it has the benefit of mitigating the need to adopt extra-legal measures. Emergencies can be managed within the framework of ‘ordinary’ statutory, doctrinal, and textual frameworks: There is no cause for disruption of the democratic system in order to secure additional powers that might be perceived as necessary.
Such careful parsing is the way law professors see things, but as far as I am concerned, evoking martial law when it is not necessary, for example in the case of an attack imagined at the start of this article, is a coup. The casualties in “Our July 4th” Nightmare” are roughly the blood cost of traffic accidents every July 4th in the 21st Century so far, but who doubts that if such an attack were to occur the Republicans would whip up all the fear they could to constrain as many liberties as possible?
The attacks of 9/11 didn’t even result in martial law. So martial law in the face of “Our July 4th Nightmare” would clearly be a case of Trumpian overreach, possible thanks to the corrosive power of fear, the venality of the Republicans, the spinelessness of the Democrats, and Trump’s hard-core base which is incredibly delusional. But what if it is a dirty bomb in LA? Or a real war in North Korea? Who thinks Congress has the backbone to resist the easy answer of shifting yet more power to the executive branch, even though after Pearl Harbor martial law was not declared? Congress has been afraid to formally declare war since then, not afraid of the fighting (which from Vietnam to Iraq has never stopped), but the responsibility. A declaration of war, by the way, doesn’t institute martial law, nor does declaring a state of emergency but both can lead to it.
However, with Trump as President, there will be a lot of hesitation. Few people in power trust his judgment. To make a Trump dictatorship legal Congress has to give him certain powers. Even more critical will be how the American people react, and what the key power centers decide to do.
A successful coup d’état would not just need a majority vote from Congress, but also buy-in from most of the military, support (or acquiescence) of the key intelligence agencies and neutrality or support from the Supreme Court. Would it need some support in the streets or from Wall St., Exxon, or Silicon Valley? Not in the short run.
Before a coup d’état could happen in the U.S. certain preconditions must be established. There needs to be a context for the imposition of autocracy. The national security state framework that has been in place since World War II is integral to this, as my 1995 book Postmodern War argues. And while Trump has gone further in many regards than Obama did in exerting the power of what is called the Imperial Presidency by political scientists, he has acted in the context of what Obama, and every president back to FDR has done to keep the U.S. in a domestic regime of “cold” war. See my Peace, War and Computers (2005) for an analysis of how our current TerrorWar is structurally like the anti-communist Cold War.
So what are the preconditions for a Trump coup? The following list is inspired from history, and some contemporary analysts (such as Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny), but is entirely my own.
1. Grievance & Fear
The twin gods of Trump’s world view.
2. Vilified Other(s)
Take your pick: Muslims, immigrants, gays, liberals, women… The view of Trump, his family, and many of his supporters is that those who are against Trump should have no rights. As Eric Trump said on the Sean Hannity Show (Fox News, June 6. 2017): “I mean, to me, they’re not even people.”
3. Delegitimize the Press
Daily.
4. Delegitimize Judicial Norms
Often.
5. A Private Army
Disturbing as Trump’s personal cadre of bodyguards and rally muscle is, the real Trumpian brown shirts will be the drawn from the militia movement. The Republican Party has continually tried to legitimize the alt-right militias, from suppressing the Obama era FBI report that labeled them a profound domestic threat to the widespread and hypocritical support of the Bundy occupations in Nevada and Oregon. Militia “security” is already showing up at Trump demonstrations (anti and pro) as they did to Trump rallies during the election.
6. A Party that rejects “traditional” politics
Significant parts of the Republican Party, especially in Congress, continue to drift away from traditional politics in their need to placate their base, which is now Trumpian. This started before Trump, in the violation of sense and decency around judicial nominations during the Obama administration, which involved massive stonewalling culminating in stealing a supreme court seat through obstruction and hypocrisy. Clearly, this is also a contributing factor to significantly delegitimizing judicial norms (#4). The Trump administration’s decision to restrict congressional information requests to Republicans is to claim that only Republicans are “real” representatives of the Legislative Branch, with its rights and obligations. This is a very dangerous development.
7. Elite Support
Some. But clearly a Trump weakness. See the “Trump Coup Scorecard” for an analysis.
8. A Crisis
Pick one or make one.
What are the key coup warning signs?
The first sign is when (not if) we are attacked by ISIL or a similar group. Such an attack is inevitable, thanks to Trump’s policies and ISIL’s situation in Syria and Iraq. A crisis such as this is the only real opportunity for a Trump move to dictatorship. It need not be ISIL, a nuke from North Korea, a pandemic (whatever the cause), or some other disaster could also supply the pretext.
What happened on September 11, 2001 was the result of years of U.S. policies in the Middle East. This was a bipartisan effort. When the “blowback” of US imperialism hit NY and DC on 911, the Chaney/Bush administration was ready with a wish list of wars (Iraq) and policies (torture, mass surveillance) it wanted. But they stopped short of ending democracy, which might not have been possible in any event. The next time could well be different. We should never underestimate the power of fear.
So what are the other warnings signs of a Trump coup d’état? In general, over reach. A security and military response that doesn’t match the real threat. This could include:
* All commercial air grounded (as happened after 9/11)
* Increased use and powers to Homeland Security centers.
* Requests to the Press to withhold information.
* Mass arrests of protesters and preventive detentions.
* Restricting protests.
* Censoring the press and social media.
* Arrests of reporters for spreading national security information.
Really bad signs:
* Martial law (with or without majority support from Congress).
* Banning all public assemblies.
* Suspension of habeas corpus (as Lincoln did).
* Internment camps (as FDR did with Gov. Earl Warren’s support).
* Nationalization of state national guards (where states resist).
* Supermajority blank check from Congress.
* Loyalty oaths to Trump, not Constitution.
* Purges in military, intelligence agencies, and government
* Closing media outlets. Mass arrests of reporters.
* Closing social media outlets.
* Court orders ignored.
* Rule by presidential degree.
--
Marsha Gessen warned us back in 2016 that autocracy is possible in the U.S., just as in Russia and she gave us some advice: #1. Believe the Autocrat; #2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normality; #3. Institutions will not save you; #4. Be outraged; #5. Don’t make compromises; #6. Remember the future.
So, can it happen here? The refusal of the intelligence establishment to help Trump stop the FBI investigations is telling. He doesn’t have the support, at this point, he needs to succeed. But this doesn’t mean that Trump won’t try a coup, some think it inevitable. Succeed? I don’t think so. But he has been underestimated before.
So now the obvious question is:
What Will You Do If Trump Tries a Coup?
**
Postscript: I finished this article listening to the One Love Manchester concert and thinking how fundamentally different responses to terrorist attacks can be. One can be brave, talk and sing about love, happiness, even forgiveness. And one can be angry and afraid and obsess about revenge.
“Let’s not be afraid.” – Lewis Mumford, opening words, One Love Manchester concert, June 2017.
Bibliography
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Devega, Chauncey (2017b) “A coup in real time? Historian Timothy Snyder says the Comey firing is Trump’s ‘open admission of collusion with Russia,’” Salon, May 11.
Gessen, Masha (2016) “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” The New York Review of Books, Nov. 10.
_____ (2017a) “Trump’s Incompetence Won’t Save Our Democracy,” The New York Times, June 2.
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_____ (2005) Peace, War and Computers, Routledge.
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Lexicolatry, accessed May 6, 2017
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