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Comment by navane | Hacker News Reader

Many dictators, including the famous great, started out by being elected into government.

In my mind democratically elected and coup are antonyms. If you are against trumps style of cleanup then I would probably stick to illegal, although that is TBD, radical or destructive.

I would encourage you to check your priors wrt definitions. Ergodan was democratically elected, then staged an auto-coup and now Turkiye is a weakened democracy. Who knows if Erdogan will stand down if he loses election. Many dictators start with elections then seize powers they are not granted through election.

Self-coups are common and widespread in the last hundred years. If you cannot list at least a few, your history lessons have failed you.

And no, being elected to a public office is no blank cheque to dismantle checks on that office by other branches of government.

I understand that a self-coup could happen but to describe it as already happening seems premature... there are some things that will go to the courts sure but even democrats agree the courts are likely to find in Trump's favour.

Does that mean that the real coup happened when Trump picked the supreme court justices? Perhaps, but again it was very legal, and not particularly out of step from previous norms.

If you compare that to germany in the 1930s, a common example of a self-coup, you'll see some similarities but also large differences...

> The Reichstag building... caught fire... Hitler immediately accused the Communists of being the perpetrators... Using this justification, Hitler persuaded Hindenburg to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree. The decree abolished most civil liberties, including the right to speak, assemble, protest, and due process... the Nazis declared a state of emergency and began a violent crackdown against their political enemies... Hitler submitted a proposal to the Reichstag that if passed would immediately grant all legislative powers to the cabinet... allow Hitler's government to act without regard to the constitution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 (Edited for brevity)

Hungary, Turkey. Both have democratically elected leaders that aren't going anywhere soon. They did it softer than Hitler, but once they control the media, they're set. Of course Trump isn't there yet. But he isn't not trying it either.

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