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A Coup Is in Progress in America
- walmartwagie 2y ago[flagged]
- potsandpans 2y agoCould someone please cite for me in plain english what has transpired in the last 48 hours?
- nosioptar 2y ago[flagged]
- bckr 2y agoWikipedia says he’s a citizen.
- epicureanideal 2y agoIsn’t the President able to appoint people to do these things? It’s not clear to me this is not permitted.
- yibg 2y agoDoes the president have authority shut down USAID?
- walterbell 2y agoStatements today to Congress and public, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42926580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42926580
- dole 2y agoCan President Trump Dissolve USAID by Executive Order? According to Just Security, Trump can drastically curtail USAID with executive actions alone; however, he “may not unilaterally override” a statute by executive order. USAID was established by statute as its own agency via Congress in 1998 after first being created by executive order in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. Since an act of Congress established it as an independent agency, an act of Congress would be necessary to dissolve it. - Forbes
- __d 2y agoAs with many such things, the letter of the law doesn't anticipate a determined effort to undermine it. Could the USAID agency could continue to exist, on paper, with a single staff member?
- searke 2y agotl;dr No. If this were permitted, then a president would just be a dictator. And he didn't even appoint Musk. Musk isn't head of any government department. He's just a random guy who has a ton of money.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago>unelected Almost everyone in the government is unelected.
- Clubber 2y ago[flagged]
- throw310822 2y agoAlso shutting down of federal agencies without Congress approval and getting access to their data: "Musk on the call also appeared to claim credit for the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development ... though the executive branch’s legal authority to do so without congressional action is highly in doubt, as the agency’s existence is established in law. Trump on Monday said he didn’t need an act of Congress to shut down USAID. USAID’s homepage has been shut down for days, as is its X account. Dozens of career staff at the agency have been put on leave, and hundreds have been shut out of agency computer systems. Musk aides have gained access to classified USAID information over the objection of agency security personnel, who were subsequently placed on leave, The Associated Press reported."
- walterbell 2y agohttps://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/03/rubio-acting-head-usaid-00202122 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/03/rubio-acting-head-u... > The Trump administration took a variety of steps Monday.. The most dramatic was naming Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting administrator of USAID.. The State Department said in its statement announcing Rubio’s acting role that he has also informed Congress that “a review of USAID’s foreign assistance activities is underway with an eye towards potential reorganization.” .. Rubio explained he was entrusting the duties of deputy administrator to Peter Marocco, the head of the State Department’s office of foreign assistance.. Marocco is also leading the review into USAID activities. State Department tweet: https://nitter.net/statedept/status/1886512412863684802 https://nitter.net/statedept/status/1886512412863684802 or https://xcancel.com/statedept/status/1886512412863684802 https://xcancel.com/statedept/status/1886512412863684802
- readthenotes1 2y ago[flagged]
- maxerickson 2y ago[flagged]
- cf100clunk 2y agoA poet? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42888756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42888756
- binary_slinger 2y ago[flagged]
- hackyhacky 2y ago> Trump and his colleagues are trying to reduce spending by cutting payments to things deemed unnecessary. Some feel the process in which they do this is questionable and opaque. That's not quite accurate. I would say: "some feel the process in which they do this is unconstitutional as the executive branch does not have the authority to dissolve programs." And furthermore: "some feel entrusting these vital government functions to an un-vetted non-employee with no oversight will lead to abuse and conflicts of interest."
- quinncom 2y agoMatt Kiser’s WTFJHT delivers useful daily summaries of all significant actions out of the White House. Here’s yesterday’s edition: https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2025/02/03/day-1476/ https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2025/02/03/day-1476...
- gandalfgeek 2y ago[flagged]
- maximilianburke 2y agoJust becauase you choose not to understand how government works does not mean it isn't transparent.
- piva00 2y agoIt's quite disheartening how the messaging is regurgitated like GP's comment. It's the fourth or fifth comment that I've read in the past day on HN repeating the same empty platitudes. I said before and I'll keep repeating: if even what was supposedly the well-educated cohort of the American population, the ones accessing this forum, are falling for this then I've lost the vast majority of hope I had for the USA. Even the ones with full access to education, and knowledge are choosing to be this stupid... I can't imagine how it is for the uneducated. Carl Sagan was absolutely right, it came a time for his children and grandchildren to experience the darkness of anti-intellectualism.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoSince Trumpers only seem to care about theirs and what they can get. In simple terms if Trump is successful it means we are not a nation of laws but a nation of dictates from on high. That is not a stable nation. No one will invest in that nation's stock markets. No one will buy their bonds. No one will use their currency as a reserve currency.
- hunglee2 2y ago[flagged]
- nonchalantsui 2y ago> Trump was voted in to blow up the entrenched bureaucratic state None of the exit polls makes this claim.
- big-green-man 2y agoThe fact that he campaigned on it, brought Musk along and put him on stage to make speeches about it, and even named the "department" before the election and then won seems pretty compelling to me. Open and shut case I'd say.
- nonchalantsui 2y agoIf any of those were reasons for them voting, it would have shown in the exit polls when they were asked. It was not.
- bentt 2y agoYeah this is my read too. This is what people asked for. Elon has shown an affinity for creative destruction of entrenched bureaucracies. Curious what the red line is for congressional republicans.
- walterbell 2y agoDOGE progress bar, https://doge-tracker.com/ 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.
- searke 2y agoYou can't claim to have "saved" money by destroying programs funded by congress that you have no authority to destroy. Especially when the long term costs of destroying those programs are going to be enormous.
- walterbell 2y agoIf DOGE will document their claimed savings publicly, those claims can be tracked and challenged publicly. According to their claimed schedule, this will continue for the next 2 years. There can be case-by-case reviews by journalists, lawyers and courts.
- searke 2y agoYou are the one who is claiming that they've saved $1.82 Billion dolars by posting some random website that thinks illegally destroying a federal agency is fiscally responsible.
- walterbell 2y ago[flagged]
- zmgsabst 2y ago[flagged]
- invalidname 2y agoI'm not a fan of DEI so this isn't in defense of that policy. But are you really comparing it to the KKK? Seriously?
- tbatchelli 2y agoPeople 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)
- epicureanideal 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- highasfcuk 2y ago[flagged]
- tbatchelli 2y agoYou are the only person advocating for violence here. Bringing my wife and kids here is very brave of you.
- epicureanideal 2y ago[flagged]
- highasfcuk 2y ago[flagged]
- tlackemann 2y agoSo 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.
- redleggedfrog 2y ago[flagged]
- scarface_74 2y agoNot when his supporters literally think he was sent by God.
- Mountain_Skies 2y ago>What can we do, truthfully? Put up a better candidate through a transparent process next time and stop the hysterics that alienate the majority of the population. Denying the reality of the poor quality of the candidate and continuing to be loud about things that only are believed in extremist bubbles is how you get even more of what you do not want. Remember, impressing people who think just like you isn't outreach, it's insulating and isolating. Oh, and banish "Latinx" from existence. It's crazy how much damage that one little letter did and how tone deaf those who use it continue to be.
- tlackemann 2y ago[flagged]
- big-green-man 2y agoDon't listen and keep losing and pontificating as to why seems to be the chosen path for many people right now.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- throwarayes 2y agoI 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.
- slowmovintarget 2y agoUSAID is not a US foreign aid agency. It is a US propaganda and soft power agency, opposite China's Belt & Road initiative. President Trump has named Marco Rubio as temporary head (so Secretary Rubio has two roles). The President does have the authority to stop the agency's actions, and make it answer to the Secretary of State. Dissolving it altogether or making it part of the State Department likely requires Congressional approval.
- Blackstrat 2y agoExactly. Too many here oppose eliminating the militant, left wing, anti-Americanism from the US government. Restoring it to a more rational and Constitutionally based framework is what's happening. It's not a coup. The government wastes and launders incredible sums of OUR money. Example, some $100B of the aid to the Ukraine is missing, if you believe Zelensky. In all likelihood, Zelendsky pocketed some of it and routed other to Biden and other affiliated NGO and back into the hands of the globalist faction. Resisting illegal immigration is likewise not a coup. It's the restoration of sovereignty and the rule of law. Nor is eliminating DEI/woke propaganda a coup. It is a restoration of common sense and science. Trump isn't the problem. The problem is all of the folks out here that are willing to surrender their lives to government and left wing utopian fantasies. They don't exist.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mikrotikker 2y agoYou need to read more instead of repeating Russian propaganda. The $100bn didn't "go missing". Zelensky is never seeing that money because it is not for him, it is for replenishing the US military stocks given to Ukraine with newer equipment. https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/ https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/
- Kim_Bruning 2y agopoint of order: I don't think you can vouch for a flagged submission, right? Only for flagged comments.
- throw310822 2y agoYes you can.
- defrost 2y agoI'm fairly sure you can only vouch submissions once they've progressed frm [flagged] to [dead].
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoYou can only vouch for [dead] things, regardless of [flagged].
- Timshel 2y agoYes as far as I understand it's a big issue. Since you can only vouch once it's dead and usually too late. Additionnaly you might loose the ability to vouch ...
- nerdright 2y ago[flagged]
- throwarayes 2y agoI don’t think you can have any impact on US spending without entitlement reform - almost all medicaid/medicare - or decreasing the defense budget All these other agencies are small potatoes.
- scarface_74 2y agoThat is not mathematically sound. Government employees only make up a tiny percentage of the US budget especially if you don’t include the military. And how is killing the IRS going to help balance the budget?
- Apreche 2y ago[flagged]
- Kim_Bruning 2y agoIronically, the Republican Party was founded as an anti-slavery party in 1854. Abraham Lincoln was the first republican president.
- waltercool 2y ago[flagged]
- piva00 2y agoThe big assumption is thinking nothing else changes and that all consequences of the EOs are immediately reverted when disassembled. You're in for a rude awakening.
- waltercool 2y agoWhile I'm not truly someone who agrees with Democracy, I do abide with the established rules. That means, everything you do as a long term solution, needs to be approved by executive, legislative and judiciary systems. This is how every healthy Democratic Republic works. If you have policies made by executive order, it means only executive power have approved them, which is partially an autocratic policy. This is not new, and constantly abused by Democrats and Republicans over the year. Because USAID was created by Autocratic rule and did not passed by legislative and/or judiciary approval, I think it's fair to be dismissed by any other president, congress or judiciary any time. If the people think the government should keep growing up and spending lot more tax payer money, sure, but make it approved by the people, not by the president (or prime minister at other countries).
- binary_slinger 2y ago[flagged]
- archagon 2y agoWho in the Trump administration is professional?
- soupfordummies 2y agoMy cynical take is... Trump admin doesn't care and his base doesn't even know the extent of what is going on. Spend some time in the Fox News & co. echo chamber and it's really astounding how much they just DON'T report on at all.
- walterbell 2y ago> his base doesn't even know the extent of what is going on Twitter has realtime status updates and feedback from said base—and others.
- latentcall 2y agoThe MAGA people in my family don’t have Twitter. They’re over 60 and watch Fox News. Fox News is not reporting on a lot of this stuff.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago> P.S. Only cowards downvote. I downvote obvious shills, deliberately pretending to not understand peoples' point, putting words in others' mouths, personal attacks and abuse, and blatant incivility (and maybe a few others that don't come to mind right now). I don't think that makes me a coward.
- IamLoading 2y agoIf you realize the amount of one-sided misinformations the older administration was sharing. I find it very disingenious that they are taking a high-road during the current fiasco.
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- Kim_Bruning 2y agoSome 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.
- java-man 2y agoHistory of a certain European country disagrees with such an optimistic view. I hope you are right though.
- tim333 2y agoWe've had four years of Trump before and there wasn't anything along the lines of Hitler or Orban. This time maybe a bit Orban like.
- weare138 2y agoThere were some adults in the room during his first administration that prevented his worst inclinations. It wasn't from a lack of trying. Now the GOP controls all 3 branches of government and stacked SCOTUS who have already ruled in favor of autocracy by granting presidents blanket immunity while in office. Now Trump is solidifying power and installing loyalists in every key position of power possible. They are violating the Constitution and rule of law. This is a coup. There's no other way to put it. The Nazi's took control of Germany without firing a shot. They were elected.
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- honeybadger1 2y ago[flagged]
- mynameyeff 2y ago[flagged]
- iJohnDoe 2y agoIt’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.
- Gollapalli 2y agoA lot of very smart, very technical people voted for the guy. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a free country and people can vote their conscience and speak their piece. The article above is needlessly, wildly inflammatory. Frankly, so is your comment. Not everyone agrees with you, and you’ve made no case beyond cliqueishness as to why they should.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago> Not everyone agrees with you, and you’ve made no case beyond cliqueishness as to why they should. Does this not also apply to your comment? Not trying to be mean, just trying to offer a different perspective. It seems many others agree with the author and it’s similarly unreasonable to dismiss them along with the author as “needlessly, wildly inflammatory” for holding an opinion you don’t agree with.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoDespite the historical significance of current events, it’s not necessarily worth submitting an opinion about them. I suspect this was flagged out of a sort of topic fatigue, possibly even some from those who agree with the author. There will be threads about any new happenings, and those will more reasonably stay up as “news”. Keep speaking truth in those.
- soerxpso 2y agoWhat 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.
- hackyhacky 2y ago> What is the valid democratic process to use if the public doesn't like the unelected officers of the institutions of the executive branch? Mostly they serve at the pleasure of the president, some have to be approved by Congress. > 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? No, the claim is that only Congress can allocates funds to create these agencies, and only Congress can de-allocate funds for them, so the executive branch (and whoever the executive branch empowers, whether or not they are a government employee) does not have a right to shut them down. > 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. The president is not a king. He is the head of the executive branch and has a large degree of control over how the bureaucracy is run, but not total control. Maybe you aren't American or maybe you don't remember elementary school civics, but the US operates on a system of checks-and-balances to prevent any one branch of governement from acquiring too much power. The coup-in-progress is the president apparently subverting those checks and balances.
- derbOac 2y agoNot trying to be sarcastic but everything you're saying is all clearly stated in Article 1 of the Constitution, which branches do what. It feels as if part of what's going on is leveraging of either feigned or real ignorance about how things are supposed to operate.
- 2y ago
- lostmsu 2y ago> 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?
- Clubber 2y agoIt's a hysteria party to sell ads. Here's how I see it: we have a $7 TRILLION budget for 2025 and Musk is trying to cut $2 TRILLION from it. Both the Democrats and Republicans probably want the budget cut, it's way out of control. They're just letting Musk take the heat because he doesn't have to get reelected. If it succeeds, the Dems will just let it lie, if it fails, they have campaign fodder for the next election. Remember, last year we paid more in interest on debt than our entire military budget.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago>Remember, last year we paid more in interest on debt than our entire military budget. https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... National defense 15%, veterans benefits and services 6%, interest 13%.
- Clubber 2y agohttps://www.crfb.org/blogs/do-we-spend-more-interest-defense https://www.crfb.org/blogs/do-we-spend-more-interest-defense According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest baseline, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, spending on interest is projected to total $870 billion, while spending on national defense will total $822 billion. This has never been the case before, going back to at least 1940. Maybe the fed interest rate drop pulled it back.
- cornhole 2y agoas someone who disagrees with this, what can i realistically do short of sacrificing bullets and blood
- dandanua 2y agoYou can't win a war without sacrificing blood against someone who is ready to sacrifice as much blood as they want (not their own, of course). Look at Russia. They simply don't care if millions will die.
- red-iron-pine 2y agothe US Army could walk into DC and shut this down tomorrow. there is a reason why one of Trump's first orders was to dismiss all top generals.
- dragonwriter 2y ago> the US Army could walk into DC and shut this down tomorrow. Yes, a military coup could override a civilian autocoup, and while there are a few (globally) historical cases where that has happened and the military coup leaders quickly worked with civilian leadership outside of either coup to restore something like normal government processes, there are also plenty of cases where that was out of the frying pan, into the fire.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoSkip the bullets and hope they don’t go for blood.
- throwacct 2y ago[flagged]
- tim333 2y agoMusk'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 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886840365329608708
- oxley 2y agoThis is not a drill, folks. It is happening in front of our eyes. Call your congressperson today.