His first coup attempt did not succeed, but that’s not to say the one now underway won’t.

As Donald Trump executes his philosophy of flooding the zone so the news media – much less the public – can’t connect the dots, each action, each overreach, each grievance, and each executive order is reported as an isolated news report, missing the larger point that taken together, they paint the picture of a federal government under siege.   

This time, the coup is from the inside.  Like so many times in so many countries in history, it is taking place while people of good will fail to see it for what it is – authoritarianism, a cancer free to consume its host and spread with no resistance when elected officials in Congress yield their Constitutional responsibilities to stay in good graces with the new order.

All in all, it asks the question: can it really be said with evidence that decisions being made right now by Trump and his oligarchs reflect the values and traditions of our democracy? 

Anti-Democratic Actions

Trump executive orders erode the authority and role of Congress but its majority looks the other way, even as the unelected disciples of Elon Musk take control of email systems and payment systems of the U.S. treasury with its confidential personal and national security information.

In the new Washington, money is tantamount to power and billionaires have lots of money so the talking point is that the more than 13 who are Trump appointees must surely be the smartest among us, even when they have no idea – or respect – of the basic structures, policies, and checks and balances built into our system of government.

Rather, they see the purpose of government as blindly serving capitalism in ways that make them more wealthy and as they attack agencies charged with protecting consumers and serving working Americans.  It’s the Gilded Age 2.0.

Musk in particular is blatant in his belief that the $300 million he spent to buy this administration must now accrue to his own financial benefit. The lack of transparency about what he and DOGE are doing – one aide said on X they have already cut billions from federal agencies but offer no details about where and how – is the anathema of democracy. 

Meanwhile, there are also no details about whether Musk and his minions have cleared national security background checks as they rummage around digital files about all of us. 

Just like when Musk tore apart Twitter without learning how it was structured, there’s little reason to believe he is acting any differently with the United States government.   Cities have seen him ignore regulations as he likes, daring officials from San Francisco to Austin to Memphis to call him down.  Most troubling of all is as he now takes his South African sensibilities into his work to devastate the federal government, Memphis will be a major bulwark of his empire and fuel the AI and social media disinformation that he has turned into a weapon against the government of the country that made him a citizen, not to mention the country whose public agencies have contracts putting billions of dollars into his pockets as he strips the confidentiality of rivals’ information in federal files.

The disrespect for scientific fact, data, and research shows his comments to be relentless propaganda that holds together his grip on right wing politicians readily remaining silent, ignoring their Constitutional responsibilities, and turning our governmental heritage on its head in exchange for their thirst for power.  Musk hyperbolically eviscerates any elected official who disagrees or criticizes him and in keeping with the attitude of the day, it’s all about winning at any cost and engaging in political theater that substitutes for political leadership. 

Rampant hypocrisy

Just imagine the headlines of the news media if similar events were underway in a foreign country drifting toward autocracy with a private junta pulling the strings of government to the point that it is difficult to tell who is making decisions – the elected leader or the oligarch.  

If history proves anything, it is that the power of the Big Lie still works.  The long-held mantra of personal responsibility preached by conservatives for generations is tattered and torn, replaced by a philosophy that blames all failures on DEI, wokeness, immigrants, and the libs.  Personal responsibility has given way to victimization anchored in rage, recriminations, and resentments.

Millions and millions of dollars are spent daily to drive home the divisive messages that vilify the immigrant by a president who has married three of them, a vice-president whose wife fits the definition of birthright citizenship, and a billionaire advisor whose own U.S. citizenship involves time as an undocumented immigrant.   

Meanwhile, even religious faith becomes just another way to divide us while the values from all great religions are warped.   Gone are the Christian Biblical mandates to welcome the immigrant, serve the poor, and respond to those in need and in its place is the “what’s in it for me” self-justifying and judgmental gospel for many.

Ends Justify the Means Behaviors 

Lies are the coin of the realm in the new Washington.  Remember Trump’s promise that he had no interest in Project 2025 but executive orders are lifted straight from its pages.  Remember candidates for cabinet offices who said they were not interested in retribution but upon confirmation immediately set out to fire federal employees simply doing their jobs.  Remember the vice-president saying the cases of January 6 criminals would be reviewed on a case by case basis and then every one of them, including those who wore bullet proof vests and carried weapons to attack police, was released or pardoned and praised for their patriotism by the president.  

It’s the ultimate exercise of the ends justifying the means but with an added dose of rage and fury, blending Machiavellian manipulation and Darwinism.

No longer is it a government purpose to right wrongs, particularly those it caused itself.  For example, there is no interest in how redlining blocked Black wealth and produced generations of disparities between White and Black families.  Rather than programs that mitigate the damage done by government itself, today right wing government simply writes this out of histories taught in schools and obliterates any emphasis on diversity and equity that aimed to level the playing fields for every American. 

Suddenly, the days of “Whites only” and “Only Whites apply” don’t seem relegated to the past.

The Test of our Times

The erosion of the world’s oldest democracy did not come suddenly.  It has resulted from decades and decades of intentional actions that drip by drip were designed to push our 250-year-old system of checks and balances over the cliff.  It is no overstatement to say that if Project 2025 is executed, the country as we know it will be unrecognizable and more akin to the autocracies MAGA world reveres like Hungary and Venezuela. 

It is not as if the authoritarians have been bashful about articulating their desires to undermine democratic rule.  After all, we even see this impulse in the blatant actions of the White supermajority of the Tennessee Legislature to take away the right of self-governance from African American Memphis. 

But at the federal level, when you add in zealots like Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, et al, bolstered by the deep-pocketed brigade of billionaires and dark money, it takes the risk of autocracy to a whole other level with a nationalistic, corporatist agenda mocking the rule of law, equal justice, and protection of fundamental rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Fueled by the “unitary executive theory” that is bolstered by the Supreme Court, separation of powers evaporates with an imperial president’s complete control as its replacement.  That said, today’s unitary executive theory far exceeds anything espoused by President Reagan when he first suggested it.  Once loyalty to pro-democracy norms are stripped away, all that is left is what we are witnessing today – a reflexive loyalty to decisions made for the personal and financial benefits of the wealthiest among us.

When we see the checks and balances built into our system of government fail, the independence of independent agencies ignored, civil service employees replaced with political cronies, freedom of the press attacked and weakened, the Insurrection Act used to attack legal protests, and Congress’ power to decide how to spend federal money is ignored, there can be no serious argument that we have entered an era unlike any seen in 150 years.

Ultimately, the risk is that the United States democracy is fundamentally changed for the worse.  If it can still be called a democracy.

This is the test of our times.  Democracy is at stake. We cannot afford to be silent. The verdict is out.  We cannot afford to fail.

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