Back during the campaign, and during his Cabinet nominee announcements, the Left seemed very concerned that Trump was too cozy with the military, and doing things to undermine the principle of civilian control over the military. Sarah Silverman recently took a different tact though, when she appeared to call for the military to overthrow Trump in a recent tweet. That got me wondering how many Dopers might support something like this, so here’s the hypothetical:
For whatever reason, the military is virtually unanimously ready to overthrow Trump. Perhaps it’s because they’ve all come to their senses and realized that the election was stolen from Hillary, or they’re angry about the way Trump says “the cyber”, or they think he’s a madman and they can’t abide him being in charge of a nuclear arsenal. And the Joint Chiefs have lined up everything. By some twist of fate, you find yourself on their coup council. Maybe it’s your charming personality, your brilliant mind, your good looks, or the incisive commentary you’ve been offering on the Dope lately. They’ve all agreed to go ahead with the coup if you’ll just give it your blessing. They’ve got a plan that will result in minimal bloodshed, but Trump will be out of power. They’re not even interested in a South-American style military junta. They’re patriots that love the Constitution and will happily turn power over to whomever you decide (assuming they’re legally qualified to be President), just as if they’d been elected last November. It could be Pence, or Hillary, or even yourself. All you have to do is say “OK”. All eyes turn towards you. “Sir (or Ma’am - however you identify), shall we proceed?”
I think that overthrowing Trump by Cabinet (1/2 Cabinet + the VP’s vote) would be better than a military coup. At least it would still preserve Constitutionality intact in that case.
But to answer the OP - I would be very tempted indeed to say “yes,” as all eyes turn on me…
No. I hate Trump, but the only possible situation were that would even be remotely justifiable is if he actually tries to start a nuclear war & it’s the only way to stop him. Even in that extreme scenario I’d prefer him to just be locked in a conference room without a phone while the 25th Amendment get’s invoked.
Emotionally satisfying as it would be, I’d need some serious justification before I’d say Yes, and I’d qualify it by having him put under arrest and having an impeachment trial. No way would I accept anyone (least of all myself) being ‘appointed’ President. It would have to follow the Constitutional chain of succession. Unfortunately, it would turn the US into Religious Right World, but I couldn’t justify any other solution.
When I was in the army, I asked a group of fellow officers what they would do if the PM (Harper at the time) gave a blatantly illegal order such as occupying the country and introducing marital law without proper justification. Would you overthrow the gov’t? Every single person at the table said some variant of “I would refuse the order but not overthrow the gov’t”. In short, they felt that it wasn’t the Canadian Forces role to enable the gov’t to oppress the people, but nor was it our role to overthrow the gov’t. They felt that a military willing to overthrow the gov’t based on their own perceptions was simply too dangerous to Canadian democracy and ideals, but none-the-less an illegal order is an illegal order and should not be carried out.
Well, the President is the CiC of the military, so, if he issued an order and the military rejected it, that would seriously undermine his authority. It would kind of have the effect of deposing him. I would have a hard time seeing a president retain his position if he was unable to control the military.
No military coup because that sets a bad precedent but there was a time when Trump said/did something outrageous (can’t remember exactly what since there’s new ones every day) that had me wondering if he was going to get shot in the back of the head by a member of his own Secret Service detail. But I will readily admit this is probably because I have seen a lot of movies and shows in which the President is in a bad situation because of a treacherous member of the Secret Service (Air Force One, 24, Big Game, White House Down, etc).
Basically, Trump would have to present a clear and present danger [sic] to the country AND the normal mechanisms for temporary or permanent removal would have had to have broken down before I would consider a military coup remotely justifiable, and I can’t imagine what such an extreme circumstance would look like. Refusal to obey his orders, sure, I can envision such circumstances, but an actual coup? No.
I don’t know if I would ever bless it. There would be times where I wouldn’t be for or against it such as a blatant power grab. Plus, if Trump not only ignored the courts, but also ignored any enforcement of the courts, AND the enforcement arm of the courts (i.e. the police and U.S. Marshals) refused to enforce court orders. But then I would still be neither for nor against it, because at that point the country’s pretty much toast anyway so it’s pretty much meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
In the US, you have two mechanisms to overthrow a president: impeachment and Amendment 25. If neither of those will work, it’s not up to the military to fix the problem.
Any world where the military is ready and willing to stage a coup is sufficiently different from the real world that it’s impossible to answer the question.