Coup Attempt

"I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve."
--Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Tora! Tora! Tora!)

Since Donald Trump's election, a coalition of statists from both left and right in tandem with a complicit media have been engaged in activities that can readily be seen as an attempt to undermine and overthrow a sitting US president. Regardless of whether this perception is accurate or not, I wonder if this coalition realizes that a growing group of US citizens sees what is going on as an attempted coup.

This is on my mind because it seems to me that the coalition is so desperate to get rid of Trump that it does not fully grasp the potential consequences of its actions.  The longer the perceived coup attempt endures, the greater the likelihood that any future president--particularly those who statists prefer--will face 'resistance' from the other side far greater than what we've seen in the Trump administration's case.

Stated differently, the coup attempt might poison the well of bipartisan cooperation for any future administration. Future calls for 'coming together' will almost certainly fall on deaf ears.

And should the coup attempt be successful in taking Trump out, well, I shudder to think what might occur.

There are those who believe that this is precisely the goal of this coup attempt--to tear down constitutional impediments to 'progress' so that new institutions can be erected for a greater good. But a strategy of disruption ignores the fact that it has been precisely the opposite strategy--one of gradualism facilitated by democratic process--that has lulled many to sleep while their liberty has been slowly expropriated in favor of the statists' agenda.

It also ignores the likelihood that a successful coup would awaken those sleepers to the reality that they have lost their liberty, and that they would be willing to engage in a revolution to reclaim it.

Were I a statist, I would not at all be confident that a coup that sparks a revolution against committed freedom fighters would be a winnable proposition.