# Hypothetical: Should the military overthrow Trump? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874 "2017-02-03T02:09:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/21 "2017-02-03T12:17:42Z")
Off to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/22 "2017-02-03T12:42:49Z")
Nope. If this became necessary, America would be over already. ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/23 "2017-02-03T16:10:31Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > 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](http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/02/02/sarah-silverman-calls-for-military-to-overthrow-president-trump.html). 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?” No. We have established methods of dealing with Trump within our democracy. The military are not our representatives, so the idea that they should fight individuals within our own government for us unless they actively declaring war on us is ridiculous and hubris on the part of the military. It would set a horrendous precedent that would ruin our country in the long run. We would be effectively forced to start our country from scratch. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/24 "2017-02-03T16:29:07Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 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. > [@Giles](#): > > 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. Or rather, as per **Chronos** it means the country’s really broken and the coup is not going to fix THAT. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/25 "2017-02-03T16:53:13Z")
No, we’re not some banana republic. We have a system! And it works. A military coup would be the death knell for America. Even if it were only for a week or something (which it wouldn’t ever be). Watch _Seven Days In May_. Very topical movie. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2017, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/26 "2017-02-03T16:59:06Z")
Without even checking I can tell you the military overwhelmingly voted for Lord Dampnut and they’re perfectly okay with his stealing the election. They would be far more likely to help him install a dictatorship than stop him. But in an imaginary world when Dampnut arrested congress and the judiciary and the military wasn’t in his pocket, then yes, take him out. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/27 "2017-02-04T01:21:30Z")
Wow. Dick move Sarah Silverman. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/28 "2017-02-04T01:37:59Z")
No because it’s not necessary. Our president doesn’t have enough power that he can be dangerous enough to warrant a coup. We have both checks in other branches of the government and legal ways to remove him if he gets too out of line. Basically it would never get far enough to need it. The only way a coup would be necessary would be if somehow the entire federal government went off the rails. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/29 "2017-02-04T03:16:01Z")
it is not the military’s right or duty to decide to over throw the government. The right is solely owned by the People, as others said, it is there duty to refuse to carry out orders that they know to be illegal, but that is all. Only the People have the right and duty to abolish and reform if a government no longer suits it’s intended purpose. And you do not decide to have a military coup because you do not like the president. Firstly, you don’t do anything simply because you don’t “Like” Secondly, if the president is guilty of gross misuse of office, violation of the peoples trust, and probably 20 paragraphs of other things there is already a legal means in place to take care of such matters, it is called impeachment. You work with the tools and laws and systems you created until such times as all those things fail to serve their intended purposes anymore, then you regretfully abolish them and start over. @Atamasama I will say one thing though. Do not ever be so complacent as to believe that a person never has enough power to become dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![HumbleThinker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5daacb/32.png) [@HumbleThinker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumbleThinker)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/30 "2017-02-04T03:40:05Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > @Atamasama > I will say one thing though. > Do not ever be so complacent as to believe that a person never has enough power to become dangerous. Indeed. At the risk of following Poe’s Law, the German intellectuals and legislature thought the same thing about Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/31 "2017-02-04T03:47:43Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > No because it’s not necessary. Our president doesn’t have enough power that he can be dangerous enough to warrant a coup. We have both checks in other branches of the government and legal ways to remove him if he gets too out of line. > > Basically it would never get far enough to need it. The only way a coup would be necessary would be if somehow the entire federal government went off the rails. Going “off the rails”… is that a term of art? Does it have an actual operative meaning in the context of this discussion? Who decides what “off the rails” is? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/32 "2017-02-04T04:22:14Z")
When Yeltsin had tanks fire shells into the Russian Parliament…that was off the rails. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/33 "2017-02-04T05:01:42Z")
I think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would ask Congress to impeach and move The Donald from office first … otherwise I don’t see the military taking any political action, it’s just not their style … ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/34 "2017-02-04T05:50:42Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > I think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would ask Congress to impeach and move The Donald from office first … otherwise I don’t see the military taking any political action, it’s just not their style … That would still be a political action on the part of the general. The military leadership already said they would not carry out illegal orders, so don’t sweat that. The civilians in Congress will wake up within two years. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/35 "2017-02-04T06:24:57Z")
Yeah, I think that this is one of those things that happens in fixed-term presidential democracies, unfortunately. The independent election of the president allows an inexperienced nutter to come in as “the choice of the people” without having to lead a parliamentary caucus. The lack of a “no-confidence” vote to change the government makes it hard to remove a nutter by legal means. The USA may not like it, but we were officially OK with it happening to Allende in Chile and to Zelaya in Honduras. It’s time. Now, I voted yes, not so much in general, but in the specific case or (as in reality) on the specific theory that it appeared Trump would, unilaterally, try to launch nukes, or otherwise try to start a war. I could alternatively see it being wise if Trump sabotaged a defense treaty, and didn’t respond to, say, Russian aggression. A mentally unfit head of government can’t be permitted to commit us to national suicide, which a nuclear strike on Iran, say, would be. Nor should he be permitted to commit atrocities in our name for his own peculiar egomaniacal reasons, which (at this point) a nuclear strike on anybody would also be. A president refusing to honor the NATO treaty is less clear a case. I’m not sure if it makes as much sense to “cut off the head” preemptively as to wait until a stupid, destructive order. But taking him out now would probably make things more stable, not less. And that’s the point where it becomes a thinkable thing. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/36 "2017-02-04T06:40:23Z")
> [@HumbleThinker](#): > > Indeed. At the risk of following Poe’s Law, the German intellectuals and legislature thought the same thing about Hitler. Perhaps it’s the German in me that makes me think any tactic is acceptable if it gets an under-educated, racist, senile, egomaniacal dictator, or incipient all-of-that, out of power. Right now, it looks like the USA is determined to learn this the _hard_ way. Which, if it only killed white Christian conservatives like my extended family, would be OK. (Well, not OK, but “on one’s own petard,” yeah?) The problem is that this is a nuclear superpower and a global hegemon. I can pretend to be blithe about my own country going to hell, in a way I can’t about us taking entire other countries out in a global race war. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/37 "2017-02-04T06:54:23Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > … can’t be permitted to commit us to national suicide, which a nuclear strike on Iran, say, would be. Just curious, why do you think that a nuclear strike on Iran would be “national suicide”? It’s certainly not ideal, but I don’t see how it gets anywhere near “national suicide”. Imagine if Trump decided it was time to dismantle Iran’s nuclear facilities. That’s certainly a decision the President is entitled to make, and not necessarily anything ‘mentally ill’. In working our way down the list, if we find that our much-vaunted bunker-buster bombs aren’t enough to take out the underground facility at Fordow, a not-quite-inconceivable backup plan might be to nuke it. Would that strike be “national suicide” in your mind? ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 7:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/38 "2017-02-04T07:08:29Z")
The USA could nuke Iran if and only if Iran launched nukes first. There is no way for the USA to strike Iran first without reprisals from other countries. This is the sort of thing that the old foreign service hands would explain if asked. But Trump dumped them. And just as you don’t realize this, there’s a chance he doesn’t, either. Whoopee! We’re all gonna die! ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/39 "2017-02-04T07:13:56Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > The USA could nuke Iran if and only if Iran launched nukes first. There is no way for the USA to strike Iran first without reprisals from other countries. This is the sort of thing that the old foreign service hands would explain if asked. But Trump dumped them. And just as you don’t realize this, there’s a chance he doesn’t, either. > > Whoopee! We’re all gonna die! Hey, I’m just trying to learn here. Which other countries do you think would offer these reprisals? What would they constitute? Nuclear strikes on America? Sanctions? Something in between? Please be specific. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2017, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874/40 "2017-02-04T07:40:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Hey, I’m just trying to learn here. Which other countries do you think would offer these reprisals? What would they constitute? Nuclear strikes on America? Sanctions? Something in between? Please be specific. Almost certainly both Iran and NK would attempt some kind of nuclear option, whether by missile or some other form of nuclear attack. I would expect severe sanctions from the EU, NATO, and the UN. Putin would probably just applaud Trump sending the country into a tailspin, whatever Russia’s previous relationship with Iran was. I have no idea as far as China is concerned. There would likely be a lot of harsh rhetoric and sabre-rattling from them, but as far as final action(s)? No clue. Big economic implications there too. But it’s difficult to be specific about a highly theoretical scenario. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetical-should-the-military-overthrow-trump/778874.md?page=3)