The Incompetent Coup

 

When Adolph Hitler got thrown in jail for his part in the beer hall putsch, shots had been fired and he walked the walk with his storm troopers, until he got whisked away and he hid in a friendly woman's house. He used his trial to denounce Communists and weaklings and he used his brief prison sentence to write Mein Kampf, reputedly the only book Donald Trump has ever (at least partially) actually read.

Read about Hitler's manipulations of the Reichstag, of the reigning leader, a monarchist called Hindenburg, his careful manipulations of the rules of the Weimar Republic and you see he was clever and sly and when he did his coup to seize control of the government, he had a plan and he had armed troops, the Freikorps, a true paramilitary organization.

During the run up to Hitler's seizure of total power, there were 500 assassinations of politicians who opposed him.

When South American, Africa and Asian governments fall to coups, power flows out of the barrels of guns. 

When General Mark Milley contemplated the possibility of a coup emanating from Donald Trump, he correctly observed Trump did not have the "guys with the guns."

Writing in the New York Times, Christopher Caldwell makes one good point: Trump's actions to incite a coup were at best an incompetent effort, and at worse simply the role playing game of a born loser and Caldwell makes several insipid assertions about the role of General Milley, which was, as it turns out, prescient and well intentioned.

Caldwell is scandalized because the General observed that no coup can succeed without guns and that in his role as chief of the Joint Chiefs and knowing the FBI and CIA would not support Trump with their guns, no coup could succeed. Isn't is terrible that General Milley saw his role as crucial to preserving the stability of the Republic?

"General Milley seems to have a grandiose conception of his place in government,"
 Mr. Caldwell says.

Actually, no. The general is simply stating the bare facts. 

Caldwell's main point is Trump was simply too pathetic, too incompetent to have been a real threat for a coup. He was more like those men who do role playing with foam rubber swords in the park. He is to be taken seriously but not literally. As Sidney Powell's lawyer said about her statements about the voting machine company changing Trump to Biden votes, "No one would think she meant that seriously."

But, of course, she did, very clearly, mean that seriously.

If not a coup, did Trump "incite" a riot?

The history of incitement has a very long and sorry history in the United States, the First Amendment notwithstanding, dating back at least to Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous remark limiting the protection of the First Amendment, which he said did not allow any citizen to cry "fire" in a crowded theater when there is no fire, because that speech can be seen as a "clear and present danger" to all those who panic and stampede.

There have been a series of cases which culminated in Bradenberg v Ohio, in which the rule was put forward that speech is  protected unless it can be shown to result in "imminent lawless action."  So you can shout from the stage, "We have to rid our community of these Black vermin! We have to fight for the purity of our white women!" and you are protected. 

But if you point to a Black man in the crowd and shout, "We have to string up that Nigger!" and if the crowd lynches the man, then you are responsible.

The actions of some members of the crowd alone cannot indict you: if 5 Dallas police officers are killed after a rally against police violence, if some stores are burned in Minnesota after protests over a police killing, the speakers who decried the police cannot be held responsible because they did not call for "imminent lawless action."

When Trump shouts his supporters have to "fight like hell," and march down to the Capitol to defend democracy and prevent the big steal and his supporters march down to the Capitol, and at least some of them erect a gallows, bludgeon police and kill some police, is that not the exhortation to imminent lawless action or, at the very least, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater?

It is true, Trump did not say, "Go kill the Capitol police and burn down the Capitol with the Congressmen in it!" 

But, I would submit, he said enough to qualify as provoking or at least facilitating imminent lawless action. 

There are legal questions about whether acting as President, Trump is protected in a way he would not be as a private citizen, but that's all niggling. 

To my mind, his defense, "I didn't mean it literally" is no different than Sidney Powell's defense. He was standing in front of a crowd, many of whom wore T shirts saying, "Civil War Now!" and worse. He had the Proud Boys, proud white nationalists who want to fight a race war in front of him. If he didn't know this crowd, like many crowds at his rallies could be expected to react in a Kristallnacht manner, he should have known.

So, I would leave the coup talk out of it.

I'd simply say, the man cried fire in a crowded theater; if he did not shout "To arms! It's time to hang some Congressmen and the Vice President!" he still urged upon the crowd he had called together to commit imminent lawless action.

He should serve prison time for that. And long enough so that if he does write a Mein Kampf or manage to get on Twitter or some social media, he's so old by the time he gets out, he'll no longer be a danger.