A Coup Is In Progress In Americafrom the wake-up deptMon, Feb 3rd 2025 12:07pm - Mike BrockA coup is underway in the United States, and we must stop pretending otherwise. The signs areunmistakable and accelerating: in just the past 48 hours, Elon Musks DOGE commission has seized control of Treasury payment systems and gained unauthorized access to classified USAID materials, while security officials who followed protocols were removed. Career civil servants across agencies are being systematically purged for having followed legal requirements during previous administrations. The president openly declares he wont enforce laws he dislikes, while Congress watches in complicit silence. This isnt happening through tanks in the streets or soldiers at government buildingsits occurring through the systematic dismantling of constitutional governance and its replacement with a system of personal loyalty to private interests. Those who resist are being removed, while those who enable this transformation are being rewarded with unprecedented control over government functions. The time for euphemisms and careful hedging has passed. We are watching, in real time, the conversion of constitutional democracy into something darker and more dangerous. To pretend otherwise isnt prudenceits complicity.I understand why many Americans are hesitant to accept whats happeningacknowledging the reality of a coup in progress is frightening. But we must confront the facts before us with clear eyes: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are systematically seizing control of the federal governments machinery through plainly illegal means. They are violating civil service protections established by law, shuttering congressionally mandated agencies without authority, and subjecting career public servants to ideological purges.When security officials are removed for following classification protocols, when private citizens gain unauthorized access to Treasury payment systems, when civil servants are punished for having participated in legally required trainingthese arent isolated incidents or normal policy changes. They represent the coordinated dismantling of constitutional governance and its replacement with a system of personal loyalty.The machinery of governmentthe actual systems and institutions through which public authority flowsis being captured by private interests operating outside constitutional constraints. This is precisely what the Civil Service Reform Act was designed to prevent. These arent abstract concerns about democratic normsthese are concrete violations of specific laws designed to prevent exactly this kind of authoritarian capture of government functions.This is an emergency, and it demands emergency response from every American with power or influence. The window for effective resistance narrows with each passing day. History will judge harshly those who had the capacity to resist but chose instead to wait and see how things develop. The time to act is now, before the mechanisms that would allow effective resistance are completely dismantled.The American Constitution represents more than just a system of governmentit embodies humanitys greatest experiment in self-governance through reason and law rather than force and will. When the Founders established our constitutional republic, they created something unprecedented: a government bound by law rather than personal authority, where power flows through democratic institutions rather than individual whim. This inheritance, paid for with the blood of patriots from Lexington to Normandy, gave birth to the very idea of modern liberal democracy.Now we watch as this precious inheritance is being systematically subjugated to the personal authority of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The constitutional firebreaks designed to prevent the concentration of powerchecks and balances, civil service protections, congressional oversightare being dismantled not through revolution but through a calculated strategy of institutional capture. When private citizens gain control of Treasury systems, when security officials are removed for following classification protocols, when Congress abandons its constitutional duties, were witnessing the subordination of constitutional governance to personal power.This isnt just another political crisisits an existential threat to the constitutional order that has secured human liberty for over two centuries. Every American who understands the value of this inheritance has a duty to resist its destruction. The Constitution doesnt defend itselfit requires citizens willing to stand for the principles of democratic governance against those who would replace the rule of law with the rule of men.There is a fundamental difference between partisan policy debates and what were witnessing now. When Republicans pass legislation on immigration, when they reform tax policy, when they push back against progressive cultural initiativesthis is the normal, healthy function of democratic governance. Elections have consequences, and the party in power has every right to advance its policy agenda through legal channels.But whats happening now exists in a different category entirely. When private citizens gain unauthorized access to Treasury payment systems, when security officials are removed for following classification protocols, when congressionally established agencies are illegally shutteredthese arent policy changes. They represent the systematic dismantling of the constitutional framework that makes policy debates possible in the first place.Consider the profound difference: Opposing Democratic policies on taxation or immigration is legitimate political disagreement. Refusing to execute laws passed by Congress, removing civil servants for following legal requirements, and allowing private citizens to seize control of government functions represents an attack on constitutional governance itself. The former is about what policies we should have; the latter is about whether well maintain a system where policy debates matter at all.To conservatives who value our constitutional inheritance: This isnt about advancing Republican policies or opposing Democratic ones. Its about whether well preserve the constitutional system that allows these debates to occur through democratic processes rather than personal decree. When we replace professional civil service with personal loyalty systems, when we ignore congressional mandates, when we allow private interests to seize control of government functionswere not winning political battles, were destroying the arena where those battles are meant to occur.The voices of history echo through our present crisis with devastating clarity. Each American who gave their life to preserve constitutional democracyfrom the blood-soaked fields of Gettysburg to the beaches of Normandydid so with the faith that future generations would guard the precious gift of self-governance. They died not just to defeat specific enemies, but to ensure that government of the people, by the people, for the people would not perish from the earth.Now, as we watch the systematic dismantling of constitutional governanceas private citizens seize control of government functions, as career civil servants are purged for following the law, as Congress abandons its dutiesthese sacrifices demand action from every American who understands whats at stake. The transformation happening before our eyesfrom a government bound by law to one bound by personal loyaltyis precisely what generations of Americans gave their lives to prevent.This isnt about partisan politics or policy preferences. This is about preserving the constitutional inheritance that makes American democracy possible at all. When we see security officials removed for protecting classified information, when we watch congressionally established agencies illegally shuttered, when we witness the machinery of government being captured by private interestswere seeing the unraveling of everything our fallen heroes died to protect.The dead speak to us now with urgent clarity: The time for comfortable illusions has passed. Every American who values constitutional democracy must act to preserve it. Not tomorrow, not after the next election, but nowwhile the mechanisms for democratic resistance still exist. Our ancestors paid for our freedom with their blood. We dishonor their sacrifice if we surrender it through inaction.Mike Brock is a former tech exec who was on the leadership team at Block. Originally published at his Notes From the Circus. Republished here with permission.