We are entering truly dangerous territory when this becomes a mainstream hope of the American Left:
When the Leftist, minor comedienne Sarah Silverman tweeted that she hoped the US military would mount a coup against President Trump, almost everyone else on the Left chuckled and said, "That Sarah! What a card!" What they didn't do is denounce the idea of a coup to take over the government of the United States.
Maybe they didn't because they knew that the hope for a coup was actually mainstream thinking on the Left and that Sarah merely said it aloud.
And hoping for a coup can now be said to be definitely mainstream on the Left. I give you a business journal of the American foreign affairs establishment, Foreign Policy. On Jan. 30 FP published, "3 Ways to Get Rid of President Trump Before 2020," by Rosa Brooks, "law professor at Georgetown University [who] served as a counselor to the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy from 2009 to 2011."
Note the phrasing: "Get rid" of Trump, not oppose, foil, minimize.
To the point: Brooks proposes a military coup:
The fourth possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.What would be the result of a coup? Civil War inside the United States, that's what. (Well, heck, we are already in an actual, not metaphorical, civil war now, so what's one more to the Left?) It would start inside the US military. Brooks seems to think that just because a handful of four-stars decide to make the Oval Office their own that the rest of the military's officer corps would just click their heels and respond, "Jawohl!"
On the contrary, troops hostile to the coup plotters would be armed and on the streets within an hour. Unless the coup generals had done very extensive planning and organizing for the coup and had convinced in advance enormous numbers of combat forces to support them, there is no hope, no chance of success. There are thousands of active, reserve and especially National Guard officers who would oppose such a coup by lethal force. Not to mention retired officers like myself who would do so, also. And if they did do such planning and organizing, they would be found out, because officers who would have to be included would refuse and make it public.
The cost to America in lives, treasure and political destruction of the Constitution would be deep, enduring, and probably permanent in the latter.
The Trump derangement of the American Left is now complete. Dangerously so.
This, by the way, is Rosa Brooks' portrait on her FP page. She apparently wants the Republic to fall. Minimally, she is comfortable with the idea. And she is not the only one.
Her email address is rosa.brooks@law.georgetown.edu.
Update: John Hinderaker at Powerline piles on: I'm so old I remember when liberals opposed military coups.
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