American coup d'etats other than The Business Plot

Since there have been alot of discussions on American fascism in the 30s involving the Business Plot which I've been in on here lately, I was wondering if anyone knew of some other possible coup situations, other than that one.

Off the top of my head, I can remember the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Lemay I think threatened JFK with one during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy felt threatened enough by the possibility to let a movie about it, 7 Days in May film at the White House and leave for Hyannis so they could get it done.

Other one was I read Nixon planned to have armed troops surround the White House and barricade himself in to stop himself from being removed from office after Watergate.

Any others?
 
Since there have been alot of discussions on American fascism in the 30s involving the Business Plot which I've been in on here lately, I was wondering if anyone knew of some other possible coup situations, other than that one.

Off the top of my head, I can remember the Joint Chiefs of Staff or Lemay I think threatened JFK with one during the Cuban Missile Crisis and Kennedy felt threatened enough by the possibility to let a movie about it, 7 Days in May film at the White House and leave for Hyannis so they could get it done.

Other one was I read Nixon planned to have armed troops surround the White House and barricade himself in to stop himself from being removed from office after Watergate.

Any others?

Your problem is that the US military swears an oath to the Constitution, and most of those people take that seriously. Getting enough support to run a (military) coup is difficult. Getting it to last longer than it takes to bring in loyal troops is much harder.

You'd really need a president who was visibly violating the Constitution for this to be believable, IMO. Or maybe have a decades long descent into authoritarianism, where the Constitution is ignored.

I really don't think this is doable with a US that looks anything like OTL's.


Still... let's see...
Have Eisenhower not be president, but rather someone like Douglas MacArthur, or a stooge of McCarthy's. Have the Red scare be even worse, with judges prepared to dispense with most of the Constitution in practice (citing 'public safety', or whatever), and have a decade or more of such Redbaiting presidents (possibly elected with ballot fraud by the end). Then, in the late 60's, say, the people are fed up enough they elect a JFK/Muskie/whatever liberal, by enough of a majority that even the standard ballot box stuffing measures don't suffice to keep him out. Then the Military leads a coup, claiming the election was invalid, and re-runs the election with more ballot fraud.

You'd need well over a decade of Redbaiting authoritarian presidents to be able to pull this off, and this US would be incredibly dystopic.
 
There are all kinds of coup d'etats

An election shows an electoral college split, leaving it all to a single state's EC votes, with a statistical tie vote. And instead of resolving it constitutionally by doing a complete statewide recount of every last ballot and ruling on the recount through the state legislature, it all boils down to being decided by a deeply partisan Supreme Court, issuing a 5-4 decision based not on constitutionality, (1) but rather personal politics and controlling both the timing of their retirements and the the politics of their successors.

1) Because there is none, the Federal Judiciary has zero role in Presidential Elections. For the obvious reason that they would be empowered to control the appointment schedule of Federal judges, Federal Appellate Courts, and the Supreme Court. Representing the grossest violation of Balance AND Separation of Powers.

Nah.:rolleyes: That's ridiculous. Such an ATL would be laughed off of AH.com.:p You'll see army tanks running up Pennsylvania Avenue first.:eek:
 
Perhaps this scenario might involve hanging chads?

Meh, more than anything it was the butterfly ballots in SE Florida. 2000+ votes for Gore lost because people checked Buchanan's box. Even Buchanan himself admitted that he didn't get all those votes, and this was in a heavily democratic district.

At least a judicial coup went in favor of the Republicans. Had SCOTUS somehow ruled for Gore you would have seen Republicans by the thousands pouring into the hills to join the Militia Movement, thinking they were in a remake of "Red Dawn":eek::mad::rolleyes:

Of course, had we a situation where a clearly bogus legal challenge to the results of a POTUS election reach the Supreme Court, and their response (5-4:rolleyes:) was to start "disallowing" votes in a cherry-picked state-by-state fashion specifically to change the winner over to "their guy", IDK. One would hope that the US Congress would say "The Supreme Court has made its ruling, now let it enforce its ruling". But I doubt it. The Dems wouldn't have the guts, and the GOP will go which ever way favors them.
 
I meant more 20th century. I meant to avoid the quasi-fascist shenanigans of Bush II and whatever right wing opposition to Obama nowadays or recently.
 

TinyTartar

Banned
Its possible that a really bad 1912 election with fraud being widespread and results being close, along with nobody gaining a decisive enough majority and the House being paralyzed by indecision and failed votes might lead to some factions in the military lining up with their boy Teddy.

For easier ideas, and the Business Plot, if not utterly fabricated or obscure to the point of irrelevance, does not count, I would look at the Newburgh Conspiracy, which had the power to succeed and the weakness of the Articles Era Govt. to end up working out in the soldiers favor. Another possibility would be if Andrew Johnson goes so far as to annoy the military with his lack of Reconstruction zeal and personally affronts enough senior officers that a soft coup occurs behind closed doors with help from the Radical Republicans. Keep in mind that state governments in the South had this kind of thing happen on both sides, with SC in 1876 basically usurped by the Dixiecrats, and Florida and Louisiana having several stages of unrest that ended in martial law with the (black) State Militia taking control of things temporarily.
 
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I meant more 20th century. I meant to avoid the quasi-fascist shenanigans of Bush II and whatever right wing opposition to Obama nowadays or recently.

Well, depending on how you look at it, the Year 2000 is still the 20th century:p Though it IS more of a "turn of the millennium" story. And Obama's opposition makes Bush II look like a RINO. Though Cheney makes Obama's opposition look like RINOs!:p
 
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