Whoa. L.A. Times Op-Ed: If Trump wins, a coup isn't impossible here in the U.S.

[cali]

Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story -- the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil -- should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.

Trump is the most brazenly authoritarian figure to secure the nomination of a major American political party. He expresses his support for all manner of strongmen, and his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, has actually worked for one: former Ukrainian president and Vladimir Putin ally Viktor Yanukovich. At the Republican National Convention here Monday, Manafort put some of the tricks he learned overseas as a dictator whisperer to good use, employing underhanded tactics to avoid a roll call vote on the convention’s rules package and quietly removing language from the party platform expressing support for Ukraine’s democratic aspirations.

Throughout the campaign, Trump has repeatedly bragged about ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, and has dismissed the possibility that he would face any resistance. “They won’t refuse,” he told Fox News’ Bret Baierearlier this year. “They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.” When Baier insisted that such orders are “illegal,” Trump 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.”

Oh really? Blimpish swagger might fly within the patriarchal confines of a family business, a criminal operation (the distinction is sometimes blurred) or a dictatorship. It does not, however, work in a liberal democracy, legally grounded by a written constitution, each branch restrained by separation of powers.

Try to imagine, then, a situation in which Trump commanded our military to do something stupid, illegal or irrational. Something so dangerous that it put the lives of Americans and the security of the country at stake. (Trump’s former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Marco Rubio, said the United States could not trust “the nuclear codes” to an “erratic individual.”) Faced with opposition from his military brass, Trump would perhaps reconsider and back down. But what if he didn’t?

<snip>


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-kirchick-trump-coup-20160719-snap-story.html

James Kirchick is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Initiative. His book, “The End of Europe”, is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

[kentuck]

1. It's true...

If we had a free press, then perhaps we could avoid such a thing from happening. But we don't have a "free press". We have a corporate media that is opposed by a political media on the right. If one says it is daylight, the other says it is dark. The truth cannot enter either door. It is a dangerous time.

[roamer65]

2. A coup is definitely possible in the USA.

November 22, 1963 was coup.

[Hekate]

3. So was Bush vs Gore

[Oneironaut]

4. Doubt it. The military would (hopefully) refuse the commands.

Trump is all talk, though. He plans to do .001% of he actually says. He's less than a paper tiger - like a Kleenex tiger.

[Mc Mike]

5. Repugs are ALWAYS threatening civil war, if they don't get their way.

I'd love to see them try it. And we'd take a few more bundy brigadiers off the streets and put them under the prison, where they belong.

[Doremus]

6. It wouldn't be the first time. Read up on Prescott Bush. I wonder if there are any Smedley Butlers

in today's military.

[cali]

7. I think that's what the author is saying.