In South America everyone knows there are many types of coup d'état, and there are words for all the different flavors. When it comes to state overthrow, Iberian languages are like that thing that they say about Inuit languages and snow that is not really true: Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, being so familiar with the phenomena, have a bunch of words for them. The United States has traditionally subjected other countries to the coup, rather than experiencing it at home; the English language doesn’t even have one word for it — thus the italicized import from French. In Spanish and Portuguese, however:
First, there is the golpe militar, the classic military coup that is most prominent in the anglophone imagination, and which describes well what happened in Chile in 1973. There is the golpe parlamentar, in which parliamentary action is decisive; this is often the term used to describe the 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. I bet you can guess what a golpe judicial is. (After the 2020 election, some of us noticed that Donald Trump had attempted all three, without much commitment or knowledge of how they work). You can have an intentona or a quartelada or a golpe de oficiais that might even push the country to the left, or closer to democracy than it had been. I could go on.But there is also the autogolpe, or “self-coup.” To carry out an autogolpe, you must already be in power. Traditionally, there are two reasons that you might destroy, ignore, or violate the infrastructure of a state you already control. You might think that your true power is limited by the structures that exist, and you can grab more. Or, you might be desperate, and afraid that you are about to lose your power. So you strike first, seeking to neutralize the forces that threaten you.When Donald Trump this month attempted an autogolpe at the level of the capitalist world-system, what was the reason? Whatever his motivation, this truly shocked European allies who had gone along with imperialist adventures in places like Iraq. The man threatened to wage economic warfare against Western Europe to steal a piece of land; the man threatened to invade NATO. I am pretty sure I have never seen a self-coup tried internationally; but MAGA has seemingly embarked on a torturous and confusing attempt to replace U.S global hegemony with naked domination.
The United States emerged from World War II as the most powerful state in human history. In the years after 1945, Washington oversaw the creation of a set of institutions and relationships that cemented its position at the top of the global system. I am not the only one to argue that this world order has greatly benefited the country that shaped it, and that much blood was shed in its construction and maintenance. I view the coups of Guatemala 1954 (as well as Iran 1953) and the mass murder of Indonesia 1965, Chile 1973 — I could go on forever — as part of this story. But Donald Trump seems to believe that the capitalist world-system is a scam perpetrated against the United States of America? That it sucks money out of our nation, instead of pouring super-profits into the coffers of our corporations? I think he really believes this? Even if he could successfully use threats and violence to extract more benefits for the United States in the short term, what are the long-term consequences? Can you actually pull off an autogolpe imperial?