A Modest Proposal: A Coup to Save Our Republic from MAGA Tyranny
Time to ponder the unthinkable: a coup to pre-empt Trump from re-taking power and imposing a fascist dictatorship.
Caveat: I expect the self-correcting mechanisms of our democracy to kick in to prevent Donald Trump from being re-elected president. I believe that, as in the 2020 election, millions of sensible citizens will again decisively reject Trump and his MAGA minions and give Joe Biden another four years of sane and solid, if unexciting, leadership. I believe we are nearing a turning point where the rule of law will cripple and bankrupt Trump to such an extent that his self-made image as the Teflon Don of American politics will crumble, ultimately leaving him an addled and spent political has-been faced with spending his twilight years fighting indictments, enormous financial penalties and possibly incarceration. But what if I’m wrong and we face the reality of imposition of fascist rule by MAGA/white Christian nationalist extremists abetted by cowardly Vichy Republicans? Do we Americans sit back and watch our enfeebled democratic system allow “Dictator on day one” Donald Trump be sworn in — a replay of Adolf Hitler’s legal assumption of the chancellorship, followed immediately by the crushing of dissent and imposition of totalitarian rule? Faced with this very same scenario and the certain end of democratic governance, there is another option: a coup to save democracy.
This admittedly troubling essay is written with equal measures of Jonathan Swift’s satirical “A Modest Proposal” and Thomas Paine’s polemic, “Common Sense” (“O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth!”).
If you haven’t familiarized yourself with “Project 2025,” I strongly urge you to do so now. Conjured up by radical right “think tanks,” it plans to unleash on Day 1 of a second Trump administration a reign of terror beginning with mass dismissals of career government workers who will then be replaced by fanatical MAGA shock troops hell-bent on implementing Trump’s Campaign of Retribution aimed at hounding his enemies, aided by a compliant Justice Department. On the foreign policy front, Putin will call the shots, starting with the U.S. abandoning Ukraine, withdrawal from NATO and forging of a Greater Eurasian Co-Prosperity Sphere of new-era fascist regimes, led by Moscow and Putin’s new lap dog ally, President-for-Life Donald J. Trump. It also calls for immediate invocation of the Insurrection Act not only to help carry out mass arrests and deportations of migrants held in concentration camps, but also to quash inevitable public protests and pursue Trump’s adversaries.
Trump and his undead MAGA mobs have been broadcasting their intentions openly. Trump even told Sean Hannity that he would be a dictator on “day one… After that, I’m not a dictator.” Sorry, but that’s like saying “I’m going to be pregnant on day one. After that, I’m not pregnant.” His promise to invoke the Insurrection Act further negates his statement. Any doubts about Trump’s intentions should be dispelled by the January 6, 2021 insurrection and his role in it, for which he has been indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Democracies can become debilitated to the point that they allow an autocrat to take power through elections. Hitler did that in 1933. After being sworn into office by President Hindenburg, he wasted no time in passing the Enabling Act which empowered his government to issue laws without the consent of parliament, thereby laying the foundation for the complete Nazification of German society. In a very Trumpian move, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, elected to office in 2018, refused to accept defeat in the 2022 general election; he has been charged with abuse of power as president and is being investigated for allegedly attempting a coup d’état to unseat his successor.
There are real and growing fears that Trump, driven by the very un-American motives of vengeance and retribution, will end America’s 246-year democratic experiment and replace it with one-man rule on the Putin model. In that case, the majority of Americans committed to our democratic system will need to ask themselves: “Do we acquiesce, or take action to protect it?”
Whether Trump attempts again to steal the election, or actually wins it legitimately, extra-constitutional action may be justified to prevent dictatorship. The Republican Party, many of whose congressional members conspired in the January 6 putsch, has proven itself after all a willing accomplice in ending democracy.
But there is no precedent for such a thing, you say. And would it not be equally as unconstitutional as Trump’s attempted coup in 2021, not to mention the draconian measures laid out in Project 2025? The answer to the latter, admittedly, is yes. But the answer to the former, i.e., precedent, is — not quite.
In their book, Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa describe actions taken by Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley and other senior military officers to prevent Trump from starting a war and completing his coup attempt:
Milley was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.
Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world.
[Pelosi:] This is bad, but who knows what he might do? He’s crazy. You know he’s crazy. He’s been crazy for a long time. So don’t say you don’t know what his state of mind is.
[Milley:] Madam Speaker, I agree with you on everything. The one thing I can guarantee is that, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I want you to know that — I want you to know this in your heart of hearts, I can guarantee you 110 percent that the military, use of military power, whether it’s nuclear or a strike in a foreign country of any kind, we’re not going to do anything illegal or crazy.
On January 8, Milley summoned senior officers into his Pentagon office to review the process of ordering military attacks, including with nuclear weapons. He confirmed with each that they were not to take orders from anyone without his involvement.
“We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He is acting out like a six-year-old with a tantrum,” CIA director Gina Haspel told Milley just after the November election. Milley assured her that “We’re going to be steady. Steady as a rock. We’re going to keep our eye on the horizon. Keep alert to any risks, dangers. Keep the channels open.”
In their book, I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker recount how for the first time in American history the nation’s top military officer was preparing for a showdown with the commander in chief over the latter’s coup attempt.
“They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed,” Milley told his deputies. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns,” Milley said. The authors add, “Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military.” He viewed Trump as “the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose” and saw parallels between Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric and Trump’s Big Lie about election fraud. “This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides. Of the rabble-rousers assaulting the Capitol, Milley said, “These guys are Nazis, they’re Boogaloo Boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II” espousing “the gospel of the Führer.”
When it looked like Trump was about to can FBI director Ray and CIA chief Haspel, Milley warned White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, “Just be careful,” which Leonnig and Rucker believe was a warning that he was watching.
On January 12, the Joint Chiefs signed a memo rejecting the violence and reminding service members of their obligation to support and defend the Constitution and reject extremism.
What these accounts show us is that military leaders were forced into such a dangerous, unprecedented role because the Republican Party has abandoned commitment to the truth, democratic governance and the rule of law. The institutions and checks and balances will function and contain demagogues like Trump only if those entrusted to honor them remain committed to the democratic project.
Late last year, I wrote, “Should Americans lose their minds and actually return Trump to power, those who treasure democracy must begin planning for resistance.” As the MAGA movement becomes even more radicalized, with explicit plans to destroy democracy once its leader is back in power, however, we must contemplate more rigorous action, specifically calling on the military to intervene, even if that entails extra-constitutional means. It has been done already when Gen. Milley essentially violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military, which pulled the rug from under Trump and gang, who counted on using troops to enforce their nefarious anti-democratic plot.
Military intervention would, of course, entail an unprecedented temporary suspension of the Constitution — in order to save it. Admittedly, we would be viewed as a banana republic by friends and foes alike. A plan for much needed reforms and a date certain for restoring constitutional procedures would need to be established and measures to stave civil war would be required. The devil, it goes without saying, is in the details. Horrible proposal, you say? Yes, but think of the alternative scenario.
After all, said Jonathan Swift, “Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.”
The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.