To coup or not to coup

[Dill]

(07-15-2017, 12:00 PM)CKwi88 Wrote: Goodness,

This is the yin to Lucie's yang.

When worded this way, I think it's 100% no. Any sort of subversion of our democratic system will come in a more subtle manner than an outright coup, at least in the way I understand the word.

I doubt a single Trump supporter would say "I'd support Trump in a coup." However, they may support some of his more authoritarian moves (see requesting personal info of voters) without knowing/caring how it undermines our democracy. It would be much more akin to the "boiling frog" parable than anything else.

I'm not sure it would be a 100% no among Trump supporters. Many would not go along, of course, but many also just see government as already broken. A coup might seem to some as taking the gov. back from Hollywood globalists.

By the way, the interview with Snyder is far from crackpottery.  He reads political history very well in my view, and warns against supposing that Americans are somehow immune to failure of democratic governance.

If I understand him, he is not projecting a South American style coup, with the US Army surrounding the capitol building, but rather the positing of a state of emergency, followed by an attempt to gain enhanced executive control. (Remember how Lincoln imposed martial law during the Civil War?)  If that worked, Trump would continue to consolidate power incrementally.

But Snyder doesn't say it would work, only that his increasing frustration/inability to govern normally would tend him in this direction. But unlike Germany in the 1930s, the US has more checks and balances. That frog won't boil.

So Snyder's argument is not simply the obverse of the right wing fear that Obama would send in the UN helicopters to take our guns away rather than relinquish power on Jan 20.