Will There Be a Coup In The US? Trump Seen As Possible Victim and Perpetrator Of Military Takeover

As sections of the Turkish military briefly battled to overthrow the elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last July, most Americans watched on from afar the events that will have appeared somehow exotic and unquestionably foreign. But what for long has been seen as the preserve of fragile democracies in the Middle East and Africa is now being talked about in the United States.

Indeed, the controversial and erratic early actions of President Donald Trump have prompted discussion both of Trump being victim and perpetrator of a coup d’etat. One former official in President Barack Obama’s administration attracted much attention and criticism in the right-wing media for the mere mention of a coup as a possible way to remove Trump before his first term is up.

Rosa Brooks, a one-time Pentagon official, wrote in a column for Foreign Policy Monday that “For the first time in my life, I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: ‘No, sir. We're not doing that,’ to thunderous applause from the New York Times editorial board.”

Actor and comedian Sarah Silverman went a step further, albeit in lighthearted fashion, on social media.

"WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE,” she wrote on Twitter. “ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE.”

Trump has already taken a tough stance on dissent within supposedly independent departments of the government, removing acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to carry out his executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim nations.

The military is beholden to defending the Constitution, not the president. And Americans may not be as opposed to a coup as might be imagined. A YouGov poll from September 2015 indicated that while only 29 percent could imagine supporting a military takeover, the number increased to 43 percent when asked about a hypothetical scenario in which the civilian government is beginning to violate the constitution.

The idea of Trump mounting his own coup has also been mooted. Following the removal of Yates and reports that Trump’s chief strategist and former publisher of Breitbart, Steve Bannon, has been given a major role in on the National Security Council usually reserved for generals, filmmaker and activist Michael Moore claimed that a coup was already taking place.

“If you're still trying to convince yourself that a 21st century coup is not underway, please, please snap out of it,” he wrote.

He is not the only person to make such a statement. Professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and author of “Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, also claims that she sees signs of a takeover being afoot.

“From their actions and pronouncements, we cannot exclude an intention to carry out a type of coup,” she wrote in an op-ed for CNN Wednesday.

She continued: “Trump gained power legally but this week has provided many indications that his inner circle intends to shock or strike at the system, using the resulting spaces of chaos and flux to create a kind of government within the government: one beholden only to the chief executive.”