from Hacker News

A Coup Is in Progress in America

by maximilianburke on 2/4/25, 12:48 AM with 170 comments

  • by tbatchelli on 2/4/25, 1:36 AM

    People seem to think that:

    1. Auto-coups don't exist 2. Coups require tanks on the street 3. Once a coup is started it will succeed.

    This is a an auto-coup, where the president is trying to seize power that is not granted by elections, and trying to make the legal system irrelevant. All in the name of urgency and saving the country (we call them "salva patrias" in Spain for a reason). No one can vote for this. Voting a president does not make the president all powerful.

    Also, this coup does not need to succeed. We saw this recently in South Korea. This will only succeed if people don't oppose it. Don't believe them when they make you feel like you already lost.

    Finally, the game has changed for the supporters of democracy. This is no longer about writing stern worded letters, if you catch my drift.

    (references: I was born in a dictatorship and I lived through a failed military coup)

  • by Kim_Bruning on 2/4/25, 2:06 AM

    Some might react too strongly to the word "coup," but another term might be more accurate: "Orbanization."

    Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán didn’t take power through a military coup—he systematically dismantled democratic systems while maintaining the outward appearance of democracy. Over time, his government:

    * Purged independent civil servants and replaced them with loyalists.

    * Gained control of media platforms to shape public discourse.

    * Undermined legal checks on executive power through judicial and procedural manipulation.

    * Shifted state functions into private hands, where oversight is weaker.

    We may be seeing similar patterns emerging in the U.S.—not with tanks, but through institutional capture and elite influence.

    The good news? Unlike military coups, this type of democratic backsliding can still be resisted peacefully. But the window for effective resistance does close with each passing institutional change.

  • by soerxpso on 2/4/25, 6:08 AM

    What is the valid democratic process to use if the public doesn't like the unelected officers of the institutions of the executive branch? Is the claim being made that these people have a constitutional right to run the FBI, USAID, etc forever, and the public is not allowed to elect someone to fire them? From what I can tell, it does look a lot like a coup, of an unelected bureaucracy trying to prevent the elected president from fulfilling his campaign promises that the public elected him for.

  • by potsandpans on 2/4/25, 1:30 AM

    Could someone please cite for me in plain english what has transpired in the last 48 hours?

  • by oxley on 2/5/25, 10:16 AM

    This is not a drill, folks. It is happening in front of our eyes.

    Call your congressperson today.

  • by Kim_Bruning on 2/4/25, 1:46 AM

    point of order: I don't think you can vouch for a flagged submission, right? Only for flagged comments.

  • by cornhole on 2/4/25, 8:50 AM

    as someone who disagrees with this, what can i realistically do short of sacrificing bullets and blood

  • by throwarayes on 2/4/25, 1:41 AM

    I disagree with the Coup framing.

    It’s not clear that reorganizing US foreign aid agencies is in violation of statute. As I understand it statute allocate $X to US foreign aid. And instructs the State dept to organize this aid.

    The EO to pause all payments was challenged in court and halted

    A lot of bad crap has happened, and I disagree with what DOGE is doing, but it’s not a coup.

  • by tim333 on 2/5/25, 12:08 AM

    Musk's take - in response to Chuck Schumer making similar criticisms:

    >He’s mad that @DOGE is dismantling the radical-left shadow government in full view of the public.

    >This is our ONE CHANCE to return POWER to the PEOPLE from an unelected BUREAUcracy back to DEMOcracy!! ...

    https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886840365329608708

  • by walterbell on 2/4/25, 1:35 AM

    DOGE progress bar, https://doge-tracker.com/

      515 Days until July 4th, 2026
  $1.82B Taxpayer Dollars Saved of $2T Goal
    For maximum transparency, this could be converted to an OSS repo with source code and vetted citations.

  • by iJohnDoe on 2/4/25, 4:34 AM

    It’s getting really old these are getting flagged. @dang can you do anything?

    Also, unfortunately, the HN crowd are not the type of people that will do anything in the physical world. We’re too busy sitting back thinking, “There is no way anyone is stupid enough to vote for Trump.” Then we all act shocked, and mainly disappointed people are actually stupid enough. We obviously solve nothing.

    Democrats don’t get out and vote. Women don’t get out and vote. If they did, Harris would would have been elected. If anyone watched her convention, they would have seen she is a good human being and would have been good for this country. It’s a damn shame where the USA is now.

    Republicans get out and vote. Bush Jr. was re-elected twice. During his first term he was already being called one of the worst presidents in history. He had the devil himself Chenney as his VP for crying out loud. Republicans get out and vote. Remember this the next election.

  • by lostmsu on 2/4/25, 7:42 AM

    > The president openly declares he won’t enforce laws he dislikes, while Congress watches in complicit silence.

    I voted against Trump, but this failed me right there. Does the author of this BS genuinely not know any instances of this from the dems and therefore is ignorant, or he does but unable to recognize hypocrisy?

  • by tlackemann on 2/4/25, 1:38 AM

    So what does action look like? Half the country voted for this, we can't act surprised this is happening. We heard Trump's words loud and clear and half the country pretended to not listen or not care because "the liberals were ruining our country".

    What can we do, truthfully? I've wrote to elected officials who I haven't heard a peep from. Why aren't the people in charge taking lead to stop this? Genuine question. What can we do? Because the last paragraph in this article makes it sound like violence is the next step which is not something I personally advocate for myself.