The slow-moving coup against President Trump
In 1964, a film called Seven Days in May raised a frightening prospect: A military coup in the United States, unseating a president who had negotiated a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union.
Seven Days in May is based on a bestselling novel by two journalists, Fletcher Knebel and Charles Bailey, published in 1962. The movie is taut, smart and chilling. Shot in black and white in and around a dark, imperial Washington, it stars Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Fredric March.
John F. Kennedy thought the novel so persuasive that it was plausible; he believed a military coup could happen in America.
When JFK gave his “Peace Speech” at American University on June 10, 1963, he did something subversive: First, he saluted the humanity, courage as well the industrial success of the Soviets, then he proposed a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. No wonder his address was written in secret.
At the height of the Cold War, the idea of a conservative military overthrowing a liberal president was unlikely — but not unthinkable.
Today, at the nadir of Donald Trump’s presidency, we can imagine a different kind of coup, wholly contrarian and peculiarly American, in which a patriotic military moves against an authoritarian president it considers a danger to the Republic.
In a sense, this is already happening. Over the last few weeks, in an extraordinary succession of statements, military leaders, serving and retired, have broken publicly with the president. Tacitly, they affirm the House of Representatives, which impeached Trump last December as “a threat to national security and the Constitution,” who “betrayed the nation by abusing his high office.”
They have attacked his competence, questioned his judgment and contributed, no doubt, to his plunging popularity.
This is not a coup in the traditional sense. There are no tanks around the White House or soldiers seizing television networks. This is a moral repudiation of the commander-in-chief, stripping him of credibility, authority and honour. Consider their words.
James Mattis, former secretary of defence and four-star general, issues a blistering letter blaming Trump for “making a mockery of the constitution.” This follows his harsh letter of resignation a year ago.
Admiral Mark Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, writes an essay in The Atlantic denouncing Trump, warning “we are at an inflection point.”
Gen. Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs, apologizes for attending, in battle fatigues, Trump’s appearance in front of St. John’s Church.
Milley knows that sending thousands of soldiers into the streets to showcase Trump as a strutting, tinhorn strongman, was excessive. There was no apprehended insurrection. Most of all, he understands the primacy of civilian authority.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper also disagrees with troops in the streets. He, too, knows that clearing Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters, using low-flying helicopters as an intimidation tactic, and marshalling unprepared units of the National Guard, represent an abuse of power.
So now, in smart formation, they are turning on “Cadet Bone Spurs,” as Trump is known, for dodging the draft.
The generals are joining public opinion, the media, the intelligence services, the civil service, the Democratic House of Representatives, renegade Senate Republicans and the courts in frustrating — and sometimes thwarting — his administration.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court had its star turn. It expanded rights for gay and transgender Americans, which Trump, playing to his base, had opposed. Ironically, the majority opinion was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump appointed. Now Gorsuch is “a traitor” to conservatives; you will no longer hear Trump speak his name.
Slowly, methodically, the unseating of Donald J. Trump continues. What the Senate would not do in February, the public, the media, jurists, Democrats, the Deep State — and now the military — are doing.
By November, their work will be complete. Andrew Cohen is a journalist, a professor and author of Two Days in June: John F. Kennedy and the 48 Hours That Made History.