To Pro-Democracy Leaders: You Want to Stop Trump's Coup? Stop Underestimating Him!

By Jessie Seigel / May 14, 2025

Donald Trump's regime is not incompetent. Those who moan that Trump and his lackeys do not know how to govern are missing the point. Governing is not their goal.

Making it impossible for the government to function is their goal.

Preventing the government from getting in the way of their greed and quest for power is the goal.

Destruction of the United States of America for the benefit of Putin and their own profit is the goal.

Those goals do not require one to know how to govern. Indeed, they require the opposite: knowing how to destroy. And at that, this administration is proficient.

If you want to destroy the military, what better way than to appoint as its head someone (Pete Hegseth) who is vainly oblivious to his own incompetence, who will wantonly use unclassified communication tools that expose classified information to the world? Who will also willingly fire and replace experienced generals and others who know their business and would perhaps refuse to follow an illegal order.

If you want to aid America's enemies and destroy the nation's ability to defend itself against them, what better way than to destroy the nation's relationship with its allies, whether by threatening to take them over (e.g., Canada and Greenland) or through arbitrary tariffs and other acts that alienate them?

What better way to isolate the United States from the rest of the world than to detain foreign visitors, students, and legal residents with green cards? Add to that making citizens leery of traveling outside the country for fear of being themselves detained on their return.

What better way to destroy the country from within--and profit from it along the way--than to fire any civilian government official doing his or her job and replace them with cronies as corrupt as oneself? And make oneself the head of every governmental organization--the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, etc.--that might preserve the portions of history or culture one wants to eviscerate.

Trump is firing people at agencies over which he, as president, has no authority. But his lack of legal authority does not matter, because he is taking the power. And most of the leaders who favor democracy are not defining and fighting it effectively.

Yes, citizens are protesting all across the nation.

Yes, citizens are showing up to complain to their mostly absent Republican representatives at town hall meetings, and pushing their Democratic representatives to take stronger action.

And yes, community members are showing up to protect those among them who have been illegally rounded up by thugs working for Immigrantion and Custom Enforcement (ICE).

I do not use the term "thugs" lightly. It is an accurate term for those who kidnap people off the street without so much as a warrant giving them authority to do so--or even the flash of a badge--and spirit them away without permitting them to contact family or a lawyer. Furthermore, legitimate law enforcement does not need to come for one while hiding its identity behind a mask.

The body politic is doing its part to challenge this. But if the country's leaders do not stand up--firmly and together--against this regime's quick march into kleptocratic totalitarianism, the nation's democracy will be irretrievable.

Some senators and congresspersons are taking a strong stand. But others, hiding their heads in the sand, wish those speaking out would, like them, pretend we are still living in a democracy where moving to what they deem a "centrist" position might win over Republicans and moderates in an election. One must wonder--even if the Democrats took the House and Senate in the next election--whether centrist Democrats would have the stomach to take the actions necessary to stop the completion of Trump's coup.

In any case, if Trump's dictatorial putsch is not loudly and continuously denounced by national and local leaders alike, it is conceivable that there may be no next election. After all, Trump's henchman, Stephen Miller, is even now promoting the notion that illegal immigration is a so-called invasion, and that during an invasion, the administration can suspend Habeas Corpus. That is, suspend the right of people who believe they are being unlawfully detained or imprisoned to petition for their release in court.

Can an attempt to declare martial law and suspend elections be far behind?

And forget facts or the Constitution. Because Trump and his Department of Justice (DOJ) don't care about either. His regime is brazenly defying court orders requiring the return of the human beings he unilaterally shipped off to an El Salvadoran prison without due process.

Due process is the application of law before any person--not just a citizen but any person--can be deprived of life, liberty, or property. That is, one should not be able to bury people in a prison by simply claiming they are criminals. One must first prove they are criminals in a court of law.

Although courts consistently have found against the Trump administration on this issue and ordered return of deportees denied due process, they appear afraid to hold in contempt those in the administration who keep violating their orders. Instead, each time the administration ignores a compliance deadline, the courts give it more time and more time to comply. This may be because the judges are afraid they will not be able to get the Marshals Service to enforce a contempt order against those in the Trump regime. But that is not a reason to avoid holding them in contempt.

In our democratic system, courts are the final arbiters of the law. Whether the Marshals Service will obey the courts or the illegally defiant Trump administration is the ultimate test of our democracy. If the courts' decisions and orders are not obeyed and enforced, then our nation's democracy and the rule of law on which it sits is non-existent. And if courts refuse to act for fear that they cannot enforce, they are capitulating in advance, conceding a lack of power.

Only by vigorously asserting their authority can courts affirm the supremacy of our nation's rule of law and thus, our democracy. They should not hesitate based on fears that the Marshal's Service or other law enforcement under the purview of Trump's DOJ will obey an illegal DOJ command rather than do its legal duty as ordered by the courts.

And if the Marshal's Service chooses the illegal, dishonorable action? Well. It is better to see clearly how the nation stands than to hide from it.

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