I promised myself that I wouldn’t write anything about Donald Trump. After all, what could I possibly add to any commentary about that man and his MAGA movement?
So far I’ve managed to steer clear of anything to do with the guy, and that’s saying something, since he’s talking about absorbing Canada into the United States, which on most days would filter its way into the pile of things that might grab my attention.
It’s January 20th, and I’m watching a home-building show on Global, totally because every single other channel is covering the gong show that Trump has managed to morph the presidential inauguration into. I understand that, sometimes, it’s okay to stray a bit from the iron rigidity of tradition. But to turn something like an inauguration into another form of a Trump MAGA rally is tough to watch. Elon Musk, as well, is entirely difficult to watch.
But this is just another example of how this guy has turned everything on its head, and created an environment where things that would be unheard of a decade ago are either now common place or no longer shocking.
So, does this mean that there’s no limit on the types of things that could happen moving forward? Will he go after political opponents? Will he go after Dr. Anthony Fauci? Will he gobble up Greenland, Panama, and Canada? Is nothing sacred anymore?
If this is to be the case, I’ve got a notion that would fit right in with all the things that never happen, would never happen, but now could happen because anything can happen.
A military coup d’état in the United States.
America has a long history of generals running things. Generals like Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Pierce, Harrison, another Harrison, Hayes, Johnson, Grant, Arthur, Roosevelt and Eisenhower have all held the keys to the executive mansion, although they were all elected. Some others, like McArthur and Haig, would have loved to, but things, events, and good fortune for the nation at large intervened.
So, are there any circumstances by which a military leader, or leaders, would overthrow a president? Especially if the person being president was violating the Constitution with impunity?
We’ve never seen it, at least not that we know of, or are aware of, but junta take-overs are usually the sole purview of third-world generals in sun glasses who wear medals on their pant legs for lack of room on their tunics. Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America come to mind. Not Washington, D.C.
But why not?
We almost had a coup of sorts recently in South Korea, although it was the president himself who was attempting to get rid of the opposition. And it didn’t work because the democratic institutions of that nation held firm and sent the soldiers back to their barracks. In America, we’d be looking at it from another point of view, where the military would come marching in to defend and protect democracy, and the constitution, from those who would seek to trample it with impunity.
Can the American military be assumed to have such noble motivations as that? It’s not often that military governments come to power and are greeted as the good guys. I guess it depends upon how many bodies are lying in the streets after its done. MAGA is perhaps the most heavily-armed political movement on the globe simply by virtue of the fact that it’s an American political movement blessed with their over-arching Second Amendment rights. It may well be that the military is the only entity out there who could go toe-to-toe, bullet-for-bullet, with the Red Hats
Still, I’m talking about the United States here, so that has an impact on the credulity of the idea. But a lot of conspiratorial types would suggest the Kennedy assassination was, in fact, a coup d’état. That perhaps the assassination of his brother Robert was just another act in that same coup.
The Trump folks themselves referred to Kamala Harris taking over from Joe Biden as, in essence, a coup of its own, having the effect of shoving a sitting president aside as a presidential candidate in favour of another last-minute candidate. If correct, it wasn’t much as far as coups go, and it sure didn’t work out so well.
To be completely up-front, I’m not proposing a military coup against Donald Trump. Although as I listen to his speech, and watch him sign his first executive orders in front of a Roman Coliseum-type mob of MAGA sycophants at a hockey arena, it’s not an idea that’s completely out-of-mind. It’s probably a reality that harbouring such a thought would be considered treasonous by some, although I’m not an American.
At least not yet.
Perhaps Joe Biden can pre-emptively pardon me.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 