Coup or counterrevolution?

Earlier this year, I read many suggestions that we were witnessing a “slow-motion coup” as the Trump Administration launched successive attacks on the legal and political system that they had inherited. I find myself thinking now that perhaps what we are seeing is better understood as something larger in scale: the culmination of a counter-revolution against the legal, political, and social changes of the last 70 years.

If unfolding events only reflected an attempted coup by the Trump Administration and their immediate associates, I think we would be having far more success in pushing back against these events. Much of what has made effective resistance so difficult in 2025 is that the Administration is supported by a wide variety of other players who share most of its ethos, if not all of its specific goals, and which have been seeking for a long time to reverse many of the changes that we have seen since the 1950’s: Republicans in Congress, a majority of the Supreme Court, more than 20 GOP-controlled State governments, many in the business community, and tens of millions of “average Americans” who resent the gains that have been made since then by racial minorities, immigrants, women, LGBTQ communities, the unchurched…

I am fearful that if this is broadly true, then even plausible short-term developments that would be favorable to liberal society may have a limited effect on longer-term trends. Trump may well pass from the scene soon, but his allies and followers will still be with us; Democrats may regain control of the Presidency and of at least one house of Congress, but Republicans are still likely to control the Supreme Court and many State governments into the indefinite future. And the results of the 2024 election suggest that there are many voters who will again vote “against the incumbents” if they are dissatisfied without regard to the nature of their opposition.

I have seen some suggestions that a transition to non-Trumpian governance should be accompanied by something analogous to “de-Nazification” or “de-Baathification.” However, those occurred in countries that had been decisively defeated in war. It is hard for me to imagine a similar course being followed in this country by a democratically elected government that would likely require support from at least some voters who would remain sympathetic to at least some elements of the Trumpian message. Even after the United States had an all-out Civil War in the 1860’s, the advocates of Radical Reconstruction were ultimately defeated by political forces that were more sympathetic to or at least more accommodating of the post-war agenda of the “defeated” Confederates. And I also fear that any post-conflict government that was actually zealous enough to pursue a serious program of de-Trumpification would likely have to take on authoritarian characteristics of its own in order to be successful.

So, is there no hope of lasting positive change? Well, first of all, some of what I have suggested above may turn out to be wrong (indeed, I hope that it is.) Second, even if Trumpism cannot be decisively defeated by liberal opposition, it may be discredited by the consequences of its own actions—e.g. if Trumpian policies lead to severe economic reverses or a bloody and pointless war. Third, there may be possible outcomes that would not represent either all-out triumph or all-out defeat for Trumpism, such as a voluntary partition of the country into “Red” and “Blue” successor states, or a transition to a different structure of government that would compel some degree of compromise between more radical and more moderate forces rather than fostering ever-worsening polarization…..

As I have written before, I have little confidence in either my own ability as a seer or anyone else’s. But I think it would be dangerous for us to believe that the challenge of Trumpism and of the forces behind it are likely to be solved by one or two favorable events…