Source: Liberal Currents
by Alex Norris
“I study coups. I fielded the ‘is it a coup?’ question in 2021 and have been fielding it now as well. I think it’s worth specifying how political science answers the question and what the implications are of a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer. What we are seeing from the Trump administration is usually called a ‘self-coup’ or autogolpe, which has a specific set of risks and possible responses within the state apparatus. Sometimes ‘is it a coup?’ gets used as a stand-in for ‘is it bad and/or illegal?’ I want to be clear that it is definitely bad and definitely illegal. What we want to know beyond that is what is happening, how does it succeed, and what can we do?” (02/13/25)