Article by Phil d'Agostino in "The American Thinker":
Lately,
it's been convenient — and self-serving to some — to call what is going
on with the Trump administration a coup. It's a "soft coup" or a
"silent coup" or a wish-it-were-a-coup.
Let's
take a look at what that means. According to all definitions I can
find, a coup is a sudden, often violent overthrow of a
government. Every time I look up the definition of a coup, I get
something like this from Merriam-Webster: "a sudden decisive exercise of
force in politics." But there is nothing sudden about this.
Have
you ever thought, "What would a modern civil war look like?" Tanks
rolling down the streets of Washington, D.C.? Missiles targeting the
Congress? Armed forces storming the White House or Capitol
Building? None of these would accomplish anything. So what would a
modern-day civil war look like?
At
least since the 1960s, a faction of people have been looking for a
chance to make our government conform to what they think it should
be. This faction has identified itself in many ways, and its members
always embrace Marxist ideals with a top-down government run by a
few. A "law-based" government, on the other hand, would have a
constitution to protect the rights of the minority from the "tyranny" of
the majority. That is what the United States of America is: a
law-based government founded on the belief that those working in
government are employees of the people, and not that the people are
subservient to them. And all decisions are to be based on our agreement
to form such a government — that is, as spelled out in our
Constitution.
When
a group, no matter how large or small, decides it wants to step beyond
the constitutional means for changing the government and change it to
fit their own ideals of government, and superimpose those ideals on
everybody else, we have a true conflict. If that conflict cannot be
resolved to their satisfaction through the instrumentalities of the
provisions to do so, and so they decide to overthrow it and replace it
with their own views or ideas, we have a war. We have those
circumstances playing out before our eyes (and ears).
We
can define a civil war as a conflict or competition between political
factions or regions within the same country to take over the reins of
governance without due process. A careful look at what some call the
"Deep State" would tell us we have that here in the USA. Further, we
have had that state of conflict for many years.
As
evidenced by the statements of many current players behind the scenes
who have been actively trying to fundamentally transform America, it
would seem that in the 20th century, it was determined by those
committed to this transformation that the people of the USA would never
willfully throw away their own freedoms and embrace some form of Marxian
socialism. Therefore, in order to effect this change, there needed to
be an internal use of the system itself to subvert it through
legislation and regulations to become a de facto state of Marxian
socialism without ever calling it such, nor voting for such.
Ever
since, there have been bureaucrats and presidents who have worked
against the will of the majority in order to "overthrow" the duly
elected government and replace it with their own view of what the USA
government "should" look like. It is a war, not a coup. They are
relentless. Indefatigable. They will never stop. What we are seeing
with Mr. Trump is an "Antietam" or a "Gettysburg — a bloody battlefield,
but just another battlefield.
It
isn't a coup. Not soft. Not silent. And if we don't see it as a war,
we lose. Why? Because we then think it's about Mr. Trump or his
administration. It isn't.
Any
conservative or any Republican who embraces the ideals of small
government, personal freedom of choice, personal property rights, and
the ability to defend our ownership of what we've created or accumulated
will be the next target. A relative handful of people would
superimpose their views as a minority onto the will of the majority
because they believe themselves to be smarter, better, and more correct.
Note
that the purpose of the Constitution is to limit the power of
government and the tyranny of the majority. But it also makes us a
nation of laws, not votes alone. A majority cannot vote to expel all
people who are from a certain nation or of a certain religion. Majority
alone does not rule. A majority must first conform to the rule of
law. These civil warriors seek to negate that premise and foist upon us
their own view, whether we like it or not.
Tyrants,
dictators, and their minions are very clever when it comes to using the
rules you agree to play with against those playing by the rules. This
is war. When Trump leaves office, the war shall continue.
This
is about who will run our government. Will it be those duly elected by
the people and states, or will it be by the fiat and caprice of those
who see themselves as smarter and more relevant than the rest of us?
Again,
think of what a modern civil war would look like. There is no way a
modern civil war would ever be fought against the most powerful military
force in the history of mankind. No, it will come from within. As
Khrushchev said, our nation will fall from within ("Your own working
class will bury you," 1963), and communists will prevail as a
result. That is what we are witnessing: a civil war, not a coup.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/12/its_not_a_coup_its_a_civil_war.html