Monday, February 10, 2025

Is It Really a Coup?

Joyce Vance: Is it really a coup if it doesn't feel like one? If your day-to-day life hasn't changed? Can it be a coup if I can still write posts like this?

Posted by lamplighter at 06:17 AM | 16 COMMENTS | permalink

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Listen to Secretary Pete. And remember, these are our funds. These are our courts. And these are our streets.[image or embed]

" George Takei (@georgetakei.bsky.social) February 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM

Literal Andrew Jackson backed off that position because he realized it would tear the Union apart, and he threatened to invade South Carolina over nullification a couple years later[image or embed]

" Robert Black (@hurricanexyz.bsky.social) February 9, 2025 at 12:58 PM

Comments

More from the OpEd...

... What we've seen over the last two weeks and accelerating over the weekend looks like a coup, a hostile, undemocratic takeover of government. Merriam-Webster says a coup is "a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics and especially the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group." No violence so far because this is a coup fueled by tech bros, not the military.

But we're watching the alteration of government happen before our eyes.

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat calls it "a new kind of coup," writing in Lucid about Elon Musk's seeming power sharing with Trump: "And here is where the U.S. 2025 situation starts to look different.

The point of personalist rule is to reinforce the strongman. There is only room for one authoritarian leader at the top of the power vertical. Here there are two." It is unusual, but it is still an effort to use extra-legal, undemocratic practices to radically alter American democracy, undoing the balance of power the Founding Fathers established between the three branches of government by consolidating power in the hands of the presidency as a complacent, Republican-led Congress looks on. ...



#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-09 02:53 PM

@#1 ... as a complacent, Republican-led Congress looks on. ...

Complacent?

Or cowardly?

#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-09 02:54 PM

One more excerpt from the OpEd...

... Richardson concluded: "The replacement of our constitutional system of government with the whims of an unelected private citizen is a coup. The U.S. president has no authority to cut programs created and funded by Congress, and a private citizen tapped by a president has even less standing to try anything so radical."

So, "coup" is the correct way to label the transformation of government we are living through. But with so much continuing normally, it's easy to doubt what you're seeing. Even experiencing it from the perspective of historians who understand this moment through the lens of history, it doesn't seem quite real. ...


#3 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-09 02:57 PM

Complacent?

Or cowardly?

Or complicit?

#4 | Posted by et_al at 2025-02-10 02:32 AM

Is it really a coup if nearly half the electorate was dumb enough to vote for it?
The country has been handed off to plutocrats and millions of America are stupid enough to applaud them for taking it.

#5 | Posted by anton at 2025-02-10 06:58 AM

The U.S. Supreme Court just ordered Musk to Cease, Desist and destroy any information he downloaded from the U.S Treasury thus far.

Who believes Musk will obey that order and what will Trump do if he doesn't?

#6 | Posted by Twinpac at 2025-02-10 07:27 AM

It is not a coup until and unless he fails to abide by a SCOTUS judgement. If that happens, the military will have a decision to make. Do they act then or do they wait until he issues an unlawful order. Pete Hegseth, as SOD, will have little to no influence in their decision.

The first thing that would likely happen is that Democrats and some Republicans would call for his impeachment and eventual conviction. At this point, Trump's militia would start acting up, there would be protests in the streets and Trump would declare martial law to quell the disturbances. It won't be until Trump issues what the military considers to be an unlawful order that they would take action. If he did issue such an order, what action(s) could the military take? 1) The general(s) could resign rather than follow the order(s); 2) They could refuse to obey an unlawful order(s) and NOT resign; 3) They could order his arrest and have him court martialed. If generals resign in sufficient numbers, it's going to be obvious to the general(s) next in line that something bold (i.e. arrest and court martial) has to take place.

The generals know that they would be court martialed if they resign and Trump stays in office. It is for that reason that I don't think that many would resign. I think they would act to have him court martialed rather than wait to them to be court martialed. The real question is what would the chain of command and soldiers do? Do they follow their CIC or do they follow their chain of command? Hmm...

#7 | Posted by FedUpWithPols at 2025-02-10 07:30 AM

The Republican controlled Congress? Complacent? Cowardly? Co-conspirators?

All of the above, like Ostriches with their head in the sand.

And I'm not above including spineless Democrats AND especially the U.S. Supreme Court when the "coup" lands in their lap.

#8 | Posted by Twinpac at 2025-02-10 07:38 AM

You can learn quite a lot about Trumpism by reading Murray Rothbard and Samuel T. Francis, whom neither he nor most of his followers have ever read. J.D. Vance, Curtis Yarvin, and Peter Thiel, all definitely have, though.

#9 | Posted by lee_the_agent at 2025-02-10 07:58 AM

"One more excerpt from the OpEd..."

Front page, headliner Opinion-nutjob... Go ahead and put some dancing bananas up there.

#10 | Posted by lfthndthrds at 2025-02-10 08:07 AM

If Trump and Vance, along with Supreme Court Justices, were actually honest they would not do the ox have no intention of abiding itath of office lie. I would have more respect for them "If they just said "they hate the Constitution and have no intention to pbey it or enforce it." I guess that piece of fi lth George W. Bush set the standard when he said "it's just a piece of paper." Personally, I consider Dubya to be the worst President in history before Trump!

#11 | Posted by danni at 2025-02-10 08:22 AM

This article got coup'd as a headline ...

#12 | Posted by Bluewaffles at 2025-02-10 09:14 AM

Part Two of the OpEd...

Coup, Continued
joycevance.substack.com

... As we end this week, there are lawsuits. Lawsuits everywhere, challenging just about everything Donald Trump is trying to do that exceeds the bounds of lawful presidential power. The question is, will it be enough? Will the lawsuits work? Will the courts hold?

There is reason to be deeply concerned about Trump's Justice Department under new Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi unleashed a barrage of memos on her first day in office that made key changes to how DOJ operates.

They ran the gamut from creating a "Weaponization Working Group" that will investigate the Trump investigators, to prioritizing federal death penalty cases. There were 14 memos in all. We'll learn more about what each one does as Pam Bondi's DOJ gets to work, but one that jumps out involves disbanding TaskForce Klepto Capture, which, in its two years of existence, led to almost $700 million in assets being seized to enforce sanctions and restrictions against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

On day two on the job, Bondi filed lawsuits against Illinois' governor, Chicago's mayor, and other officials, challenging that state's ability to operate sanctuary cities. Between the memos and the lawsuits, that's a lot to read, let alone understand. So it's impressive that Bondi also found time to do an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News during her second day on the job, with the White House as her backdrop. ...


#13 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-10 11:40 AM

@#10 ... Front page, headliner Opinion-nutjob ...

From the About page of the Substack ...

joycevance.substack.com

... There's a wonderful story about Ben Franklin. As it's told, he was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and a woman shouted out, "Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?" (I love that it was a woman.) Franklin is said to have responded: "A republic, madam ... if you can keep it."

I'd like to be a part of keeping the republic. That's why I decided to start this substack, Civil Discourse.

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to serve at the Justice Department for more than 25 years. I started out as a line prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Alabama in 1991. After ten years prosecuting criminal cases, I moved into our appellate division and served as the chief of that division before becoming one of the very first U.S. Attorneys appointed by Barack Obama and confirmed (unanimously if you can believe it in this day and age) by the Senate. ...



#14 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-10 11:43 AM

@#6 ... The U.S. Supreme Court just ordered Musk to Cease, Desist and destroy any information he downloaded from the U.S Treasury thus far. ...

Mr Musk may have already been selling the data to data brokers. My guess is that the data are untraceable now. ...


#15 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-10 12:56 PM

@#4 ... Or complicit? ...

Good point.

#16 | Posted by LampLighter at 2025-02-10 05:56 PM

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