[#-3]

Originally Posted by Itse

Trump is doing a coup exactly the right way.

He didn't declare it, and he didn't look for a judicial approval for anything. He's moving fast on all fronts, too fast for an unorganized opposition to realize what's happening and do something.

He's already acting as if the coup has already happened. Him and his administration are already doing obviously illegal things, and even going directly against the constitution. (The president can not give orders that are in conflict with what congress has decided, so he can't just for example shut down the funding for anything that has congress approval.)

He could of course ask the congress to rubber stamp his decisions, but that would be a bad move, as it would imply the congress has power over his decisions.

The plan (certainly not his plan, but the plan of his administration) seems to be mostly working. People in government are already acting as if Trump has the power to do what he wants, and that belief is what makes power real.

Basically the plan I laid out in this thread at one point. Replace the government administration with loyalists who will do what they are told, and then all he needs from congress is to not get in the way. He doesn't even need a majority of the congress behind him, he just needs enough support to keep congress from actively getting in his way.

The way he's going after army and intelligence leadership is what makes it really, really obvious that he's doing a coup, because those are the other main organizations that could get in his way.

What ever happens, I think we can say goodbye to democracy as we knew it. Doesn't mean a different democracy won't come out of this crisis, but classical liberalism will not survive this challenge.

Ezra Kleins guest today was a conservative anti-trumper, who thinks all of this is terrible but reversable and will be really worried once they defy a court order. I was a little disappointed in Ezra for now pushing back on this harder, because the courts are largely a captured institution that have made several clearly unconstitutional ruling over the past few years, and it is a long standing legal strategy of Trumps to bury the opposition in litigation and proceed anyways. Even if he complies with the letter a court order, he finds new different or creative ways to continue violating the spirit of the court order under the assumption that his supreme court will bail him out in the end.