Expert says Trump is currently attempting a ‘self-coup’ in the US

US President Donald Trump arrives in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025, ahead of the Super Bowl. (AP/Yonhap)

For the rest of the world, the first 100 days of the second Trump administration have been about America putting itself first. But within the US, many say that the real driving force of the administration is Trump putting his own interests first. 

The attitude from the administration seems to be that a president who has been elected by the people should not be checked in any way. Armed with the posture of an “elected dictator,” Trump has issued a series of extrajudicial executive orders and begun openly ordering the suppression of those who oppose him — whether they be universities, activist groups, the press or law firms. He has gone so far as to infringe upon the authority of the legislature several times and is ignoring orders from the judicial branch, developments that have some arguing that the US is in the throes of a constitutional crisis. 

Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University, says that the US is currently undergoing a sort of an almost “textbook definition” of a self-coup, where the executive branch is usurping the judicial and legislative branches. 

Last year, Brettschneider published his book “The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It,” in which he accurately predicted the dangers of the second Trump administration. On April 23, he spoke with the Hankyoreh on the phone. 

Corey Brettschneider, a professor of political science at Brown University. (courtesy of Brettschneider)

Trump embodies all the characteristics of presidents who’ve brought about constitutional crises

Brettschneider looks at the deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia as symbolic of the US’ constitutional crisis. Garcia is an El Salvadorian national who was living in the US with his wife, a US citizen, and raising three children. Garcia was identified as a gang member by the Trump administration and deported to an El Salvadorian prison within three days. Afterward, the administration acknowledged that his deportation had been the result of an “administrative error,” but ignored a decision from the Supreme Court to have him returned. 

Brettschneider argues that ignoring the judicial branch, deporting foreign students, and attacking universities represent violations of freedom of speech, the cornerstone of democracy, and that these violations are bringing about a constitutional crisis. 

“The administration’s claim that non-citizens really have no free speech rights and that they can be deported if they say things the administration doesn’t like,” represents a constitutional crisis, the political scientist said, referring specifically to the case of students being targeted for deportation at Columbia University. “If you can’t criticize the leader, if we can’t even hear what people have to say, there’s a sense in which democracy itself is certainly being threatened or maybe even destroyed.” The Trump administration’s attacks on universities, which Brettschneider says are “home to critics of the president,” are dangerous for the same reason.
 
Brettschneider argues that the US is currently witnessing an attempt at a self-coup.

“I think it’s not an exaggeration to describe this as a kind of attempted self-coup, because once you’re ignoring orders [from the judicial branch], it’s almost the textbook definition of what’s happening,” he said. In consideration of the executive branch usurping Congress and “destroying the powers of Congress to create departments to allocate funds,” the professor said, it “certainly resembles an attempted self-coup.”

Brettschneider explained that Trump is a very unique president. He talked about John Adams’ hostility to opposition, Woodrow Wilson’s push toward white nationalism, and Richard Nixon’s paranoia, and about how all these traits presented a threat to the Constitution. He went further to claim that Trump possesses all these traits. 

Presidents who threatened the Constitution disappeared after losing power, but Trump returned, which sets him apart. The American people voted him out of office, but Congress failed to impeach him and the judicial branch failed to punish him. Brettschneider thinks these failures are what allowed him to stage a political comeback. 

A loaded gun: Presidential rampage, only the people, not the system, can stop it

Trump’s view of the presidency is a key to understanding his method of governance. His ethos appears to be that the fact of his election empowers him to do as he will. The perspective is that elections, rather than the Constitution, are what afford a president his or her particular authority. Brettschneider said that Nixon was similar in temperament but that Trump has taken it to “an extreme.” 

Brettschneider has described the presidency as a loaded gun. He argues that the predictions of early US historians turned out to be right, that if a president does not act in good faith, the system will not be able to stop him. What they did not predict, Brettschneider argues, is the ability of the people to utilize non-violent means to resist and find a way to recover the Constitution. 

“The traditional checks have not been working,” he said. “I impeachment didn’t work, and there was a failure to indict the president. What does work is this history of political citizens defending the Constitution through their own voices. That’s what I think has to happen in order to have a recovery.”

By Kim Won-chul, Washington correspondent

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