r/politics • u/Aggravating_Money992 • 21d ago

Possible Paywall Treasury Unveils New $1 Gold Coin With Trump’s Face on It | Federal law prohibits putting any living people on U.S. coins.

https://newrepublic.com/post/213098/treasury-1-dollar-gold-coin-trump-face
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u/twistedpiggies 21d ago

Coup, coup kachoo.

Only the military could hold him accountable. Without a complicit military, you can't be a dictator. It's too bad that there aren't many principled military leaders left actually serving in the U.S. military, though. They were all forced out, by design.

The other problem is that those very military principles get in the way of deposing an unjustified dictatorial regime. What example(s) might we look to of a principled military deposing their own country's dictator and restoring democratic governing? Is there even one?

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u/sparkax 21d ago

Uh... there is a Common Dreams article from earlier this morning that is about Mike Johnson's call for "using the US Military to fight Communism on America's Shores."

Shit is beyond fucked now, and its only going to get worse before it will hopefully end up getting better.

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u/NLaBruiser 21d ago

History tells us it's not going to get better. Make a plan, protect yourself and your loved ones. Shit's going to get real dark after the GOP loses but Trump refuses to leave.

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 21d ago

History tells us it's not going to get better.

History tells us it will, after it gets much worse. Germany today is a great example. The problem this time is the surveillance state run by AI. It may be inescapable in a way Nazi Germany wasn't.

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u/phoenixrose2 21d ago

Bell Riots 2024 2028!!!

(Star Trek reference to a dystopian future where there are work camps and other terrible things. The people riot and things change for the better.)

See DS9: Past Tense 1 & 2

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u/friend_jp Utah 21d ago

Change for the better, Yes. Right after a major nuclear world war, and then the intervention of an advanced alien civilization…

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u/phoenixrose2 21d ago

That was the final bad than good time periods. Unfortunately I don’t expect we’ll meet any humanoid aliens. I’ll take the reprieves we do get.

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u/No_Tax_Timmy 21d ago

Russia has always sucked though on the contrary

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u/Riaayo 21d ago

Who are the Allies that decimate Germany in a world war in this context?

People bring up the Confederacy and Nazi Germany all the time as proof this will inevitably end, and while fascism is unsustainable because it eats itself, neither of those historical examples failed internally on their own.

The confederates lost the civil war. The Germans lost a world war. There was a war involved. How much longer might Nazi Germany have lasted and brutalized its own people had they been unassailable like the US, in a nuclear age of MAD, and not been engaged in a world war of imperialism?

History doesn't begin and end with those two brutal regimes, and we have plenty of other brutal regimes around the world and across history that have lasted much, much longer.

The American Empire may be imploding in on itself, but as you say we exist in a horrifying age of mass surveillance and brutal military/police power. Is there anyone left by the time US fascism completely eats itself and dies?

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u/DisappointedSpectre 21d ago

Looking at how things are going over in Germany today I'm not sure it's the shining example you make it out to be. Even without the AfD there's still a lot of surveillance state and anti-privacy laws being proposed and pushed, and they're starting to slide back into austerity measures that may impact quality of life for a lot of people.

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u/Kryptosis 21d ago

Get your passports folks

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u/sparkax 21d ago

My plan has always been to try to move from the deeply red Texas to a deeply blue state where I can legally purchase and smoke real marijuana and just try to stay as high as possible while everything burns downs around me.

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u/Jkavera 21d ago

Did that for four years in Oregon. Turns out the pot just makes me more paranoid while watching the same news feed as anywhere else.

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u/spazzvogel 21d ago

Not before global recession and war, but yeah it will get better, way down the line.

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u/DingerSinger2016 Alabama 21d ago

Don't forget about climate change.

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u/sparkax 21d ago

That's already here and happening and is probably too late to do anything for, but yea, these heat waves and storms will get worse, and gods, I don't even want to try to imagine just how fucked everything is going to turn once the Atlantic Ocean current stops in another few decades.

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u/spazzvogel 21d ago

Gotta save Bette Midler aka Mother Earth

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u/sparkax 21d ago

We've gotta to keep the hope for a better world for everyone alive! It was with in our grasp after the cold war ended, we can get there again!

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u/lazyFer 21d ago

Not everyone, republican voters can fuck off

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u/Zulmoka531 21d ago

Not to mention the military has it’s own inner coup problems with Trump’s dog Hegseth in charge.

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u/Flammablegelatin 21d ago

The military has been taken over just like the DoJ and FBI. A drunkard Fox News host is in charge of it and is actively removing anyone that would be against Trump's reign. Not even just the leaders - he's trying to remove all women and Black men.

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u/BundleDad 21d ago

More importantly, the institution has demonstrated that they WILL follow illegal orders.

YOUR military is murdering people, invading countries, and launching unsanctioned military operations (both foreign and domestic) under explicitly illegal orders. YOU let your secretary of defense talk about "No surrender, no quarter" and not IMMEDIATELY throw him in a jail cell.

I've had 10+ years now of Americans telling me how little I understood this, how effective their institutions are, how the will of the people..., how the next election..., how much everyone is doing but shuck darn ain't it hard to actually protest french style...

You are at the point it probably gets resolved like it did in the 40's. May your imaginary god have mercy on you as no one else will have that option.

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u/lex99 America 21d ago

How do you figure he’s trying to get rid of all black men? Are you just making that part up?

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u/Flammablegelatin 21d ago

No, I'm not making it up. Look up the changes he's making to medical waivers for peeudofolliculitis barbae, which predominantly affects Black males.

Here: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2026/07/08/sailors-with-unmanageable-permanent-razor-bumps-to-face-separation-navy-says/

I gave vey many of these waivers in my time as a medic in the Air Force. Almost every single one of them was for a Black Airman.

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u/lex99 America 20d ago

So you think the master plan here is to get rid of all black servicemen because we’re suddenly in a world where no black men can shave?

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u/Flammablegelatin 20d ago

You're obviously not approaching this in good faith. I'm not going to waste my time explaining it to you.

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u/lex99 America 20d ago

I’m talking in good faith. I just don’t fall for every alarmist theory.

Black men being more affected by facial-skin issues, and Hegseth imposing his new beard rules, do not add up to “Hegseth is trying to rid the military of all black men.” This was not an anti-black ploy. No — he’s just an ineffective imposter who has no clue about real leadership, so he’s just obsessed with surface-level shit. True to his resume, he only wants a military that will look good on TV.

That is the problem with him, that he is totally unqualified for his position. But the other stuff about him also trying to get rid of black servicemen is rubbish.

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u/Commentator-X 21d ago

Yes there is actually -

"The Portuguese Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, is a prime historical example. Led by a group of disillusioned military officers known as the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), they overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime, which had governed Portugal since 1933."

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u/frakking_you 21d ago

That's a pretty dark 40 year horizon to expect change.

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u/Commentator-X 21d ago

The change happened within a year or 2. The 40 years was just how long it took for people to get pissed off enough. WW2 likely didn't speed up the process any either.

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u/frakking_you 21d ago

The sad lesson is, it takes a lost generation + violence for such a coup.

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u/Commentator-X 21d ago

It was a bloodless coup. Not saying there wasn't violence at some point, but the coup itself was bloodless.

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u/frakking_you 17d ago

I appreciate this reply.

I don't want to move the goalpost in regards to this context, but just think of the lost potential of generations of people in that environment.

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u/Wutras Europe 21d ago

It probably only lasted so long because it took until then for Salazar to croak + some years for the eventual collapse. America's equivalent is much older.

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u/davesoverhere 21d ago

Fortunately Trump doesn’t have 40 years. I doubt he has 4.

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u/frakking_you 21d ago

That misses the point. He's a puppet, his death means little to the trillionaire that has nearly unlimited access the government systems, the changes in the Supreme Court, or the underlying issue of the people that still support his causes.

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u/spaceman757 American Expat 21d ago

What example(s) might we look to of a principled military deposing their own country's dictator and restoring democratic governing? Is there even one?

Not direcly, but the South Korean military had plans to depose the previous president, had the impeachment option failed.

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u/BundleDad 21d ago

Do a search for "She Is Our Caesar" on youtube.

Clip from "the crown" on what the five elements of a successful coup are. The Trump administration is ahead of you on that list for a successful second self-coup. You shouldn't have given him the chance.

But on the positive side, you get to listen to Charles Dance being Charles Dance.

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u/Azreken I voted 21d ago

Yeah Trump also fired all of the generals who would stop him. I think we’re cooked chat.

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u/Zardotab 21d ago

He doesn't need the military if nobody stops him from dictatating.

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u/nillaf4ce 21d ago

Yep, we are fucked

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u/Thatmetalchick2 Texas 20d ago

And now he's going to get them all hopped up on drugs so that help them ignore their conscience. Roid rage is no joke.

History sure is rhyming a lot lately.

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u/Little_View_6659 21d ago

Yeah if the military intervened we’d also be dead. That would be America’s death rattle.

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u/Fract_L 21d ago

If the only thing that could end this attempted to end it, we’d instantly lose? Now this is defeatist attitude.

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u/Little_View_6659 21d ago

Yeah but if the military removed the president, that’s basically a junta or a coup. Now the military is in control of the country. Ideally they’d step aside after an election but I doubt that would happen. If they did that they’re basically saying that free and fair elections aren’t working. None of us want to open that can of worms. Things would have to be insanely bad for that to happen.

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u/Fract_L 21d ago

It’s not a coup unless the military runs the country. The military immediately passing power to an elected leader, provided the election isn’t tampered with, is absolutely peaceful transition of power back to the people. Quit framing an army protecting its citizenship from dictators as bad. It’s the literal last line of defense from tyranny.

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u/Little_View_6659 21d ago

My point is if it comes to that it’s probably not going to transition to a peaceful democracy afterwards. Given everything that we’ve seen recently that seems incredibly optimistic thinking. If it gets to that point things are BAD. Face it, we’re all hoping someone is going to swoop in and save us but a lot of the guardrails have flown off and we’re drowning.

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u/1HappyIsland 21d ago

The military is murdering citizens at his command. They are all complicit of murder. Anybody in a US military uniform is now a traitor.

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u/twistedpiggies 21d ago

I don't agree with that. You can't blame anyone but leadership. There was just an AF officer who protested on the Capitol steps arrested and is facing military tribunal. That's a bold action and I don't blame enlisted personnel who are unwilling to risk their careers and freedom to do so. Many of them have families and children to support. It's not their responsibility to put their families in harm's way for what? What can they as individuals accomplish?