How to Stop a Coup

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This isn’t an analysis of democratic decline. It’s a plan for how to stop it.

The thing about Trump, Vance and Musk is, they have no intention of playing fair. This isn't a casual observation—it's the essential insight required to understand our current moment.

When we treat their violations of democratic norms as tactical errors rather than deliberate strategy, we fundamentally misdiagnose the crisis. These aren't players who occasionally bend the rules; they're actors who reject the very concept of rules binding their exercise of power.

What makes this especially dangerous is how it exploits our institutional muscle memory. Journalists, legal experts, and political opponents continue responding as if we're engaged in normal democratic contestation with shared foundational values. They parse statements for logical consistency, identify hypocrisies, and highlight norm violations—all while missing the deeper reality that consistency, principle, and normative constraints are viewed by this triumvirate not as essential guardrails but as outdated obstacles to power's exercise.

This isn't mere opportunism or political hardball. It represents something far more fundamental: a wholesale rejection of the liberal democratic premise that power must justify itself through reason, consistency, and adherence to established process. In its place emerges a vision where power justifies itself simply by being exercised and maintained.

Two plus two equals four. And power unbound by principle or process is not democracy at all—it's something else entirely. Something with a much older name.

Consider the Oval Office spectacle where Zelenskyy was publicly berated. This wasn't a diplomatic misstep or an accidental breach of decorum. It was a deliberate demonstration of a new paradigm: one where Ukraine's sovereignty, the diplomatic protocols established over centuries, and the strategic value of alliances all mean nothing compared to the raw exercise of personal dominance. When Vance scolded the Ukrainian president for daring to express his country's position, this wasn't an unfortunate lapse in civility. It was precisely the point—to demonstrate that might dictates right, that power need not justify itself, that the weak must submit to the strong.

This abandonment of rulebook is evident in how the administration approaches governance itself. Laws aren't seen as binding constraints but as optional guidance to be followed only when convenient. Congressional statutes are ignored, court orders defied, and constitutional provisions reinterpreted beyond recognition—not occasionally, as exceptions, but as standard operating procedure. The unitary executive theory they embrace isn't just a legal argument; it's a blueprint for autocracy dressed in constitutional language.

Musk's role in this configuration reveals the dangerous fusion of private and public power that defines our moment. His simultaneous control of crucial communication infrastructure, his ownership of companies directly affected by government policy, and his unprecedented influence over governmental functions violates every principle of democratic accountability.

Musk isn't merely an individual actor in this drama—he's architecting an entirely new system of elite impunity. Through his control of X (formerly Twitter), he has created a communication ecosystem where favorable narratives are amplified and critical voices suppressed. This isn't simply about his own power; it's about establishing a blueprint for how other tech oligarchs can operate beyond democratic constraints.

His model is dangerously straightforward: first, own the means of communication through which public discourse occurs. Second, manipulate that discourse through algorithmic control, selectively amplifying friendly voices while suppressing critics. Third, use this manufactured consensus to create a feedback loop where power rewards power—where the appearance of public support justifies further consolidation of authority.

In this way, Musk isn't just another player in the game. He's reshaping the very field on which democracy operates. By controlling the infrastructure of public communication while simultaneously directing government functions through DOGE, he demonstrates how private power can capture public institutions without the messy business of electoral politics. It's a techno-autocratic playbook that circumvents traditional democratic safeguards entirely—and worse, makes it look like innovation rather than what it truly is: an old-fashioned power grab using new technological tools.

The historical pattern is unmistakable for those willing to see it. Every pathway to autocracy begins with the deliberate erosion of the idea that power must explain and justify itself. Viktor Orbán didn't announce his intention to dismantle Hungarian democracy—he simply treated democratic constraints as optional, selectively ignoring them while maintaining their outward forms. Vladimir Putin didn't openly declare his rejection of legal limits—he simply acted as if they didn't apply to him, daring anyone to stop him. The playbook isn't complicated: treat constraints as suggestions, norms as obsolete traditions, and accountability as an unnecessary courtesy.

What makes our current moment particularly dangerous is how this approach has been intellectualized and justified through sophisticated theorizing. Curtis Yarvin doesn't just critique democratic inefficiency—he provides a comprehensive framework for rejecting the very premise that power should be bound by anything other than its own exercise. His neoreactionary vision, where governance is reimagined as corporate management rather than democratic deliberation, offers intellectual cover for what amounts to the systematic dismantling of constitutional constraints.

The judicial sphere represents perhaps the most critical battlefield in this transformation. The courts were designed as the final check on power, the ultimate guardians of constitutional governance. Yet they too are being systematically undermined through a dual strategy: capture and delegitimization.

The capture strategy is well underway. Trump's reshaping of the federal judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court, wasn't just about advancing conservative policy preferences. It was about installing judges who share this fundamental vision of power unbound by traditional constraints. The conservative legal movement has evolved from principled originalism to a sophisticated machine for providing legal cover to authoritarian impulses.

Consider the systematic dismantling of key democratic safeguards: the evisceration of Chevron deference undermines the regulatory state's ability to check corporate power; the embrace of the independent state legislature theory threatens to remove electoral oversight from judicial review; the expansion of executive privilege shields the powerful from accountability. These aren't isolated legal decisions—they're the methodical construction of a judicial architecture that enables rather than constrains the exercise of raw power.

Yet even as the courts are being captured, they're simultaneously being delegitimized when they dare to check power's exercise. When Trump openly declares the President has the right to pardon himself, or when Musk dismisses unfavorable rulings as corrupt, they aren't making legal arguments. They're signaling that judicial authority itself is optional—to be respected only when it aligns with their interests. This creates a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose dynamic: favorable rulings are treated as legitimizing, while unfavorable ones are dismissed as irrelevant.

The response from our institutions has been woefully inadequate precisely because they continue operating on outdated assumptions. Congressional hearings, judicial rulings, media exposés—these traditional mechanisms assume a shared commitment to truth, consistency, and procedural legitimacy. They presuppose that being caught in contradiction or exposed violating norms carries consequences. But what happens when powerful actors simply don't care about these constraints? When they view the exposure of their violations not as embarrassing revelations but as demonstrations of their freedom from conventional limits?

This dynamic creates the appearance of accountability without its substance. Courts still issue rulings, Congress still holds hearings, media still publishes investigations—but these actions increasingly resemble institutional muscle memory rather than effective checks on power. Like a patient continuing to blink after brain death, these reflexive responses create the illusion of a functioning system while the actual capacity for enforcement withers away.

The most perverse aspect of this transformation is how it weaponizes democratic language against democracy itself. Freedom of speech becomes the justification for manipulating public discourse through algorithmic control. Concerns about government overreach become the pretext for dismantling regulatory safeguards that prevent corporate capture. Democratic mandate becomes the rationalization for ignoring constitutional constraints. The very vocabulary of democracy is repurposed to serve its systematic dismantling.

This is the essence of the contest without rules—not just the violation of norms, but the deliberate inversion of their meaning. When Trump declares that "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law," he's not simply expressing his belief in executive power. He's articulating a vision where power determines legality rather than being constrained by it, where the powerful define what law means rather than being subject to its independent judgment.

Understanding this dynamic requires abandoning comfortable illusions about our current situation. This isn't a policy dispute or a particularly aggressive form of partisan politics. It's a fundamental contest over whether power will be bound by principle, process, and democratic accountability at all.

So what is to be done? The first and most crucial step is to recognize the contest we're actually in—not the one we wish we were playing. Defenders of democracy must stop bringing rulebooks to a contest where the other side has already burned them. This doesn't mean abandoning principles or adopting their tactics. It means developing responses that acknowledge the true nature of the threat.

Effective resistance begins with rebuilding institutional muscle that carries real consequences. When democratic institutions operate as though their authority is self-evident, they become vulnerable to those who simply ignore that authority. Congress must rediscover its full arsenal of powers—and use them with unflinching resolve.

What would this look like in practice? When administration officials ignore subpoenas, Congress should not merely express disappointment or file lawsuits that take years to resolve. It should exercise its inherent contempt power—a authority the Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed—to directly detain those who defy its oversight. This isn't unprecedented; throughout much of American history, Congress regularly arrested individuals who obstructed its constitutional functions. The decision to abandon this power in favor of more "civil" approaches has directly enabled the current crisis.

Similarly, when executive agencies violate statutory mandates, Congress shouldn't just hold hearings—it should use targeted appropriations to starve defiant agencies of funding while bolstering those that maintain their independence. It should specifically prohibit officials who defy legal requirements from being paid, a power explicitly granted in the Antideficiency Act. This isn't partisan overreach; it's the proper constitutional function of the legislative branch.

The judiciary, meanwhile, must recognize that rulings without enforcement are mere suggestions. When Trump or his allies defy court orders, judges should use their full contempt powers, including escalating financial penalties and, if necessary, detention of non-compliant officials. The courts have traditionally assumed voluntary compliance from the executive branch. That assumption is no longer valid.

Media institutions must abandon both-sides framing that treats fundamental attacks on democracy as mere policy disagreements. When one side rejects the very premise of constitutional governance, portraying this as normal political contestation actively enables the dismantling of democracy. This isn't about partisan preference—it's about recognizing an existential threat to the system itself.

Citizens and civil society must embrace the concept of defensive democracy. Countries like Germany, having learned bitter lessons from Weimar's collapse, structured their post-war systems to actively prevent democratic backsliding. They recognize that democracy must sometimes defend itself against those who would use its own mechanisms to destroy it. An American version wouldn't look identical, but the principle remains: democratic systems must be actively protected, not passively assumed.

But defensive democracy requires more than just institutional safeguards. It demands a proactive strategy to counter the right's structural power. This doesn't mean mirroring their anti-democratic tactics, but it does mean recognizing that asymmetric responses to symmetric threats guarantee democratic failure.

We must counter algorithmic suppression and information manipulation by building robust alternative communication infrastructure. When Musk controls the primary platform for public discourse, relying on his goodwill to allow democratic speech is suicidal naiveté. This means investing in decentralized communication networks, developing public interest digital platforms, and creating financial and regulatory incentives that make algorithmic manipulation more costly than compliance with democratic norms.

On the other side of this crisis, we will need new legal frameworks specifically designed to protect democracy itself. Just as Germany's constitution contains explicit provisions prohibiting the use of democratic mechanisms to undermine democracy, America will need updated constitutional protections against weaponizing democratic processes to dismantle the system. While a formal constitutional amendment is most unlikely in the current environment, federal and state legislation could establish stronger guardrails against electoral subversion, political violence, and the fusion of corporate and governmental power.

Perhaps most importantly, we must rebuild shared mechanisms for determining truth. When reality itself becomes optional, when powerful actors can simply declare their own facts without consequence, democratic deliberation becomes impossible. This isn't just about fighting "fake news"—it's about constructing information ecosystems that can withstand deliberate attempts to dissolve shared reality.

Two plus two equals four. The contest is being waged without rules not by accident but by design. And until we recognize this reality, we will continue bringing rulebooks to a confrontation where the other side has already decided that power, not principle, determines what the rules even mean. The time for comfortable illusions has passed. Democracy's defenders must see clearly the nature of the threat we face—not to despair, but to finally begin mounting an effective resistance.

Obviously, we have to impeach these sons of bitches, first. If that wasn’t already clear.