Is Trump Planning a Coup?
Over the last two weeks, two pieces of interesting news have been buried under the continuous coverage of the election. The first piece was the dismissal of Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration. While this is a relatively unknown position within the federal government, the head of the agency safeguards the entire US nuclear arsenal. The second piece of news was the replacement of Mark Esper with Christopher Miller as the secretary of defense. These might seem like normal transitions in the federal government, but why would Trump make them now? He has lost the election, and he has slightly more than two months before his term expires.
To answer that question, I will briefly describe the background of Christopher Miller, the new secretary of defense. Christopher Miller has a long history in special forces and counterterrorism:
Why is all of this significant? During the period when Miller was commanding special forces in Iraq, large groups of Sunnis were forming militias and working with US forces to combat insurgent and terrorist forces, especially Al Qaeda in Iraq. This was known as the Anbar Awakening. Combined with Miller’s earlier work in Afghanistan with Afghan militias, Miller has extensive experience coordinating US commando and counterterrorism forces with the efforts of irregular forces and militias. Miller lacks the usual policy and political experience necessary for this position, so Trump would have no other reason to appoint him unless he was interested in his special forces background.
Trump would want this experience from a secretary of defense if he were to launch a coup against the government. Trump has emphatic support from far-right militias and other armed groups. If Trump were to seize power in a coup, he would need support from guerilla and militia forces in addition to support from the military. The United States is a very large country, both in terms of population and land area. Trump would need militias to supplement his military forces. Trump could use these militias to attack any dissidents while maintaining plausible deniability (at least for the worst atrocities), and he could also use militia forces for covert operations, including false-flag operations. The immense value of militia forces have been proven in conflicts in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and of course Iraq and Afghanistan.
What is the significance of Gordon-Hagerty’s departure from the National Nuclear Security Administration? Trump is president, and he already has the nuclear launch codes, right? If Trump is planning to seize power, he would want to secure the most powerful and deadliest weapons in the military’s arsenal, and he would want to ensure that someone completely loyal to him, not the nation, holds such a position. The NNSA is a “semi-autonomous agency,” and Trump would want to ensure that the NNSA along with the nuclear arsenal itself could be brought under his complete control in the event of a constitutional crisis.
How might such a scenario unfold? If Trump contests the election, he would bring allegations of voter fraud to the US Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court sided with Trump, Trump could win the election via the courts, but this would cause a massive public outcry. There would be a return of mass protests across the country, but these protests would likely dwarf the size and scale of the George Floyd protests. As mass unrest grows, Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, which Esper refused to do during the George Floyd protests, and he would deploy the military combined with pro-Trump militias to crush any protests with extreme brutality. If Trump were successful at seizing complete control of the nuclear arsenal and coordinating the military’s counterinsurgency campaign with pro-Trump militias, he would be unstoppable, and he could seize complete control of the country.
Trump supporters are holding two rallies in Washington, D.C. tomorrow to protest the debunked claims of systemic voting fraud. I am worried that these rallies could be the pretext for a seizure of power, similar to Mussolini’s March on Rome.
Ever since Election Day, Trump has tweeted accusations that the election was “stolen” from him. Mike Pompeo created controversy earlier this week when he said that Trump would be serving a second term. George Papadopoulos, whose contacts with Russian intelligence operatives when he was working for the Trump campaign started the Russian interference investigation, has made some interesting Twitter posts over the last twenty-four hours.
Could he be signaling to Trump supporters? During the last debate, Trump told the Proud Boys and other far-right extremists to, “Stand back and stand by.” Thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands, of those people could be in Washington tomorrow.