I understand that full well. The kind of corruption I was specifically describing would obviously be not be state crimes.
Yeah. I’ve been in the real military. An ordinary soldier, not even someone in the infantry, knows how to operate some pretty impressive weapons. I don’t care how many rifles and sawed-off shotguns you have stockpiled in your cabin. A simple platoon of National Guard soldiers, each with a grenade, can take it out in a few minutes. And anyone who finished Basic had to pass a grenade course.
I felt I was clear as well. Getting elected legally takes less popular support than is needed to successfully seize power. So a person who doesn’t have enough popular support to accomplish the former doesn’t have enough for the latter.
So a coup is more democratic than an election? What are you talking about?
Seizing power involves control of the military, and the treasury, and to a far, far lesser extent some degree of support from the general public (but nothing near a majority).
And, just to head off some of the potential responses I might get from others not aware of the context: I’m speaking abstractly now about the concept of “seizing power”. I don’t think it will be attempted in the US, and there’s no way it could be successful if it did.
Given the verb, I assumed the OP meant January 31 2021. Obviously Donald Trump was President on January 31, 2020.
But it’s going to be Biden. “Nobody” is only an option if the US government has been destroyed or disbanded for reasons which are unlikely to be pleasant, and likewise “Someone else” will involve the death of one or more of affected parties (I suppose if Biden keels over before then, it’ll be Harris).
You’re the one who keeps bringing up the word “democratic”. I never used it.
AFAIK he could only be pardoned – even self-pardoned – of crimes he’s been already been convicted of. The “sitting President can’t be indicted” meme might wind up biting him in the ass.
Ford pardoned Nixon for " for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974." Nixon hadn’t been convicted of anything, and I don’t see why Trump would not do the same for himself.
In the end, the question of a presidential pardon isn’t about whether the president can do it. (Nothing is going to stop Trump from pardoning himself.) The real question is how the pardon is honored in the face of a future indictment.
I never claimed that you did. I am trying to summarize how ridiculous what you’re saying is.
If you need more popular support to stage a coup than win via an election, then it would seem that a coup is more democratic.
The problem with this reasoning is it is patently false. Coups and/or authoritarian governments staying in power do not, and have not, needed majority popular support.
There are plenty of times when a minority has seized power and held it, simply because too many people in the majority had bystander syndrome. Bystander syndrome is natural and present everywhere.
That’s true.
What’s also true is that in terms of seizing power, it matters more if you have control of the main levers of power. Many dictators are widely loathed, but as long as the military chiefs are still loyal, no change is going to happen.
When the debate turns personal, I leave the thread. But I’ll respond before I go.
First, I feel you are mixing together two different things; seizing power and holding power. When you are seizing power you are abolishing the existing political system and creating a new one (except in those cases where the old political system has already collapsed.) This is a fragile moment for a regime; a lot of people are still going to feel loyalty to the old political system, even if it’s just to the point of thinking that’s the way things are. You’re asking people to give up their loyalty to the old system and switch that loyalty to your new system. And to accomplish that, you do need popular support. The bottom line of a political system is it needs to have the legitimacy that when it tells people to do something, they do it; that’s popular support.
Once a regime has established its political system and gotten people to accept it, things go a lot easier. Now there’s no longer a choice between the old system and the new one. The new system is clearly in power and people become used to being under it. It becomes the established order.
The second point which I disagree with you on is that I see a difference between public support and democracy. Democracy is when the people approve of the regime that controls their country and the political system says that their ongoing approval is necessary for the regime to stay in power. Popular support just means the people accept the regime and are willing to obey it, even if they would prefer a different system. Regimes can survive without democracy but they cannot survive without popular support; if the regime gives orders and people don’t obey, that regime is powerless.
So to apply this to the current situation in America, I don’t feel that Trump has the popular support to seize power. Because we have an existing political system and that system says Joe Biden was elected President. If 20% of the people accept Trump as President, that means there are still 80% of the people who accept Biden as President, either out of support of Biden, opposition to Trump, or a belief in the existing political system. When Trump gives orders to the 60,000,000 people who believe he’s President and Biden gives orders to the 240,000,000 people who believe he’s President, the outcome isn’t very much in doubt.
I said that your description of seizing power was ridiculous. How is that personal? How is that an ad hominem?
As for you leaving, that is sad if so. I am not here to win anything, I’m here to fight my ignorance and have interesting discussions. I can, and have, admitted when I was wrong. Can you?
No, you don’t. This is demonstrable just looking at the list of coups and dictatorships that were formally democracies.
Look at, say, the list of governments installed by the US / UK in the 20th century. Most were either relatively unknown to the population, or actively hated. Did it matter? Generally no, because if you have sufficient military support and other levers of power, that’s enough.
True, but the point you’re missing is that this is indirect. When a dictator gives orders to military and judiciary and police leaders, they may obey because they are getting a good deal, or are emotionally are on board.
Then the regular folk generally obey the police, judiciary etc. The dictator can actually be extremely unpopular.
I would agree that some popular support is of course helpful though. Something like 20% devotees will do.
Again, nothing like a coup could possibly happen in the US. But that’s because institutions like the armed forces and judiciary are still resilient enough. Not because it’s some RTS where whichever side has the most units wins.