What's the bare minimum it would it take to overthrow the US Government?

Great Debates
1

Inspired by the Insurrectionary Theory thread (and with permission from the moderators):

You have been selected as the Commander-in-Chief of the Glorious Revolution. For reasons shrouded in mystery (perhaps it’s Bronies, ObamaCare, or MoveOn.org just decided to go for broke one day - the cause isn’t important) the time has come to water the tree of liberty once again. You’re in charge, you can order your minions to obtain whatever personnel, equipment, or circumstances are necessary to succeed, and they’ll faithfully execute whatever strategy you decide upon.

Keep in mind, times are tough and we’re fiscally-minded revolutionaries, so we don’t want to incur unnecessary expenses or waste. We’re also not blood-thirsty so unnecessary loss of life should be avoided if possible. How would you overthrow the federal government in as economical and effective way as possible? What would you need to succeed? How would you do it?

Could you pull it off with four middle-schoolers, a pocket knife and a book of matches? You and your hunting buddies? Seal Team 6? The entire 10th Mountain Division and a couple of Carrier Battlegroups? Just need Gov. Perry to declare Texas’ independence?

“Success” is achieved when the federal government (but not necessarily state or local .govs) no longer have the ability to exercise meaningful control over 50+% of their territory / population. Tax evaders go unpunished, federal agencies like the EPA, ATF, DEA, are unable to enforce their rules / statutes, federal courts and Congress (if they are still in session) are ignored and new laws aren’t actually acted upon, troops under federal command have either been defeated or ignore orders to enforce the Executive’s will, etc.

P.S. Yes, actual revolution is of, course, highly illegal and treasonous. If George Washington had been captured, the British would have presumably hung / shot him, and the same fate awaits you if you fail (and almost certainly awaits you if you were to attempt such a thing in reality, as opposed to this thought exercise on an Internet forum).

2

Are we to assume that, outside the members of the Glorious Revolution, the political climate is the same as today’s? That is, the American people’s attitudes toward our system of government, violence, and so forth are unchanged?

3

I just don’t think it can be done, once the US Military is let loose on you you go the way of John Brown.

IOW the revolution will be short and unsuccessful.

Capt

4

Changing attitudes towards our system of government, violence, etc. might be (probably are) some of the bare minimum circumstances required to succeed, but as a starting point, yes, assume that we’re starting today.

For example, one might posit that you would need every registered Democrat to go all Tutsi and Hutu on their registered R neighbors. That’s asking for a fairly radical action from a lot of people, so I’d score you pretty poorly on the “bare minimum” category, but it’d probably work, so there’s that.

5

What if, as C-i-C of the Glorious Revolution, you succeed in recruiting half of the officers in the military to your cause? Or all of them?

6

Alright, understood. That being the case, it’s a matter of brute force, because only a tiny percentage of Americans outside the Revolution itself are going to go along with it. The ideals of rule of law, democratic government, and peaceful transfer of power are ingrained too deeply to imagine otherwise.

Therefore, I’d suggest that the bare minimum would be ~70% of the armed forces, and about a third of the population. Those aren’t careful calculations, of course.

Foreign intervention would complicate matters. I’d like to think our allies would send troops to protect the legitimate, elected government.

7

Look, if you’re just going to “magic wand” anything we come up with, then you could accomplish your objective with a wad of gum, a piece of string and a can of Campbell’s Cream Of Chicken soup. If you stick to your original premise however, you will need an organized and trained force with superior firepower. Frankly, if you gathered up all the patriot day campers that are out there and got them to put down their beer cans long enough to train together as a single unit(fat chance on that one), you wouldn’t have a force capable of taking control of Detroit, let alone the country.

8

I think putting the question in terms of what level of violence needs to be inflicted in order to be successful is focusing on the wrong aspect of revolution. The key question is how disaffected/angry must the population be in order to produce a massive political change.

My WAG is that 40% or more of the population must fully understand and enthusiastically embrace the whole idea of revolution. I don’t think 40% plus of the population needs to be willing to take up arms and die; more like they must be willing to vote, demonstrate, speak out, and counter the government in its policies.

I think the critical number is somewhat less than a majority of Americans because I see 40% as a tipping point at which moderates or disinterested people would stop viewing them as whackos, and the number of establishmentarians would really start dwindling.

But the odds are extremely tilted in the favor of any revolution being through political means, rather than through seizing and holding American territory. That’s because the reality is that modern societies like ours simply don’t collapse into civil war because our civil society is now so firmly rooted in our culture that the will of the people can result in massive changes without needing to kill people.

9

Hey, OP-Then what?

10

Education would do it.

Put someone like Chomsky on the school curriculum, require news to be balanced and impartial, ban corporate funding of politicians.

It would be over real quick.

11

The idea isn’t to wave a magic wand at anything, but to try and estimate the minimum circumstances / support necessary to achieve “success”. I suspect that even those minimum circumstances are far beyond anything we consider remotely possible today, but that doesn’t mean there are no circumstances / level of support that it would make it possible.

For example, a few dozen Timothy McVeighs, all scheduled to blow up their nearest federal building next Monday at 10:00 AM would probably get you a good ways down the road towards succeeding.

Or the commander of the 10th Mountain Division becomes convinced that Obama is a Kenyan and his troops are loyal & committed enough, or convinced themselves, to wage a guerrilla war against every official acting in a federal capacity. Maybe he wins over 10% of the population that are willing to shelter and supply the revolutionaries.

12

Good question, but not one I’m trying to address in this thread. Sounds like the good topic of another thread, but probably largely depends on the motivation of the revolutionaries and the means they use to achieve success. Maybe 50 independent nations, divided along current state lines?

13

I agree, violence is, at most, a partial solution. At some point the revolutionaries would need to win the “hearts and minds” - or at least the benign indifference - of the general public. That is, unless their plan is to just kill everyone who’s not enthusiastic enough about their revolution.

14

Do you mean like in a generation? Once the school-aged children grow up to become adults? or do you see it happening faster than that?

15

Such an event would make you the most hated man on earth.

You would have to use your magic wand to mind-control each and every one of them to follow orders and stay silent. Since you have already stipulated have no such thing, what will happen is that the troops that don’t report him for being a nutcase will be boasting online about what will happen, and the sane members of our government will put his ass in prison.

16

Doesn’t “overthrow the government” imply replacing it with something else? Merely obstructing the government is a lower bar; as you say, it can be done by destroying federal buildings. Actually putting a new government in place is much, much more difficult.

17

That’s not an overthrow, which is forcible, by definition. What you’re describing is an election.

18

Here’s another possibility:

a well-funded secretive organization buys a couple of nuclear warheads from Pakistan / China, launches them high into the atmosphere, and detonates them, generating an EMP that crashes the power grid and fries many sensitive electrical components all across the country.

19

It’s your revolution, dude-what’s your motivation? Who will join you largely depends on what the revolution stands for…and for the luvva ghod, doen’t say “It’s for THE PEOPLE!!”
Everybody’s a “PEOPLE”.

20

See post #12, and yes, I agree that standing up a new government would be much more difficult.