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Don’t expect another attempted coup — it may not be necessary
Was there really an attempted coup?
Bennie Thompson, chair of the House of Representative’s select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol, said, “January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup.” This conclusion was also from numerous journalists in mainstream media and on the left. Conservatives and Republicans deny any such tag.
Sally Denton wrote in the Guardian about a 1930s Coup Attempt Against FDR; there had been a former such attempt. The retired US Marine Corps Maj Gen Smedley Butler testified before Congress that a group of Wall Street financiers recruited him to lead a fascist coup against FDR. None of the financiers appeared before Congress, and the Roosevelt Administration took no action on the General’s claim. It has slipped into a footnote in history.
The mob of a thousand trying to stop Congress from functioning on January 6th could squeeze into a definition of a coup. Still, it was not a military takeover of a democratic government which is a classic definition of one. Those coups happen regularly across the globe, as in Spain (1936), Chile (1973), Burma (1988), and Egypt (2013).
Focusing on a “coup,” a single violent action to overthrow an existing government, ignores the more significant practices that endanger our republic. Democracies have collapsed without being toppled by the military or even a rioting mob.
The Concentration of Political Power sets the stage
The most insidious threat is an elected leader and a single political party bending the rules to alter the balance of power between the executive, the legislature, and the courts. An executive can apply newly gained power to direct those institutions and the national bureaucracy to muzzle government critics by restraining a free press and tilting the electoral process.
Becoming an authoritarian ruler is not a solo act. Dependency on an elite of wealthy benefactors is necessary but not sufficient. A populist uprising against the status quo is also an essential ingredient. Most citizens need not revolt, but the dissatisfied must be the loudest, best organized, and plurality of the voting population.
