ROSS DOUTHAT: “The Egyptian deep state’s sabotage of Morsi culminated in a coup. This is not my prediction for the Trump era.”

But:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, the ascent of populism also creates an unusual level of solidarity among elites, who feel moved to resist on a scale that they wouldn’t if similar policies were pursued by normal political actors. Thus Trump, not even two weeks into his presidency, has already faced unusual pushback from the intelligence community, the Justice Department, the State Department and other regions of the bureaucracy, even as the media-entertainment complex unites against him on a scale unseen even in previous Republican administrations, and the Democratic Party is pressured into scorched-earth opposition before policy negotiations are even joined. These tensions ratcheted up over the weekend; it’s difficult to see how they ratchet down.

The more they try to denormalize Trump, the more they denormalize themselves, and the more they undermine the notion of civil society. Which makes either a coup (hint: they won’t like the result) or successful authoritarian rule by Trump or, more likely, a Trump successor, far more likely. But they don’t care because they’re spoiled children with no self-discipline.

Meanwhile, I’ve got this paper on military coups, but my other observation is that with a cabinet heavy with highly-respected generals, Trump has ensured that there won’t be a coup — unless they lead it, in which case he’s ensured that it will be successful.