VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: ‘Coup’ Concerns Suddenly Don’t Seem So Far-Fetched.
For most of the last three years, Donald Trump’s critics have scoffed at supposed “conspiracy theories” that claimed a “deep state” of bureaucrats were aborting the Trump presidency. We have been told the word “coup” is hyperbole that reveals the paranoid minds of Trump supporters.
Yet oddly, many people brag that they are proud members of a deep state and occasionally boast about the idea of a coup.
Recently, former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin proclaimed in a public forum, “Thank God for the deep state.” Former CIA director John Brennan agreed and praised the “deep state people” for their opposition to Trump.
Far from denying the danger of an unelected careerist bureaucracy that seeks to overturn presidential policies, New York Times columnists have praised its efforts to nullify the Trump agenda.
Nearly all coups maintain at least a pretense of legality, and claim misconduct by the leader being removed.
Plus:
Taylor and Kent cited their anguish with Trump’s foreign policy toward Ukraine — namely that it did not go through official channels and was too unsympathetic to Ukraine and too friendly to Russia. If so, one might have thought the anguished bureaucrats would have similarly gone public during the Obama administration.
After all, Vice President Joe Biden took over the Obama administration’s Ukrainian policy at a time when his son Hunter was knee-deep in Ukrainian affairs. As a consultant for a Ukrainian natural gas company, Hunter Biden made a reported $80,000 a month without expertise in either the energy business in particular or Ukraine in general.
Also, Trump’s policies have been more anti-Russian and pro-Ukrainian than those of the Obama administration. Trump armed the Ukrainians; Obama did not. Trump imposed new sanctions against Russia, used force against Russian mercenaries in Syria, beefed up NATO defenses, pulled the U.S. out an asymmetrical missile treaty with Russia, and pumped more oil and gas to lower world prices — much to the chagrin of oil-exporting Russia.
In contrast, Obama was the architect of “reset” with Russia that reached its nadir in a hot mic exchange in which Obama offered a quid pro quo, vowing more flexibility on issues such as U.S.-sponsored missile defense in Eastern Europe in exchange for Russia giving Obama “space” to concentrate on his re-election.
That’s different because shut up. Finally: “Trump’s critics have also radically changed their spin on ‘coups.’ To them, ‘coup’ is no longer a dirty word trafficked in by right-wing conspiracists. Instead, it has been normalized as a possibly legitimate means of aborting the Trump presidency.”
For people who claim that Trump is trampling norms and the Constitution, they’re doing an awful not of trampling of norms and the Constitution. But, then, they’re hypocrites who’ll do anything — and wreck anything — in the pursuit of power.
last night. Really well done, and left me waiting impatiently for the next book.
