Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey Brainstuff.
Speaker 1: Lauren Boglebaum here. On February one, the Myanmar military seized
Speaker 1: control of the country's government, ousting it's democratically elected civilian leader.
Speaker 1: The event sparked widespread resistance from the pro democracy electorate,
Speaker 1: many of whom took to the streets to march in
Speaker 1: peaceful protest. They were met with violence from the military regime.
Speaker 1: To date, more than six hundred people, including women and children,
Speaker 1: have been killed. Political turmoil like what's happening in Myanmar
Speaker 1: is not new, but what occurred in the United States
Speaker 1: at a Q and On affiliated event on mate a
Speaker 1: Memorial Day was new. At the Four Godden Country Patriot
Speaker 1: round Up conference in Dallas, former National Security Advisor Michael
Speaker 1: Flynn suggested a coup should happen in the US When
Speaker 1: responding to a question from an audience member who asked,
Speaker 1: why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here. A former
Speaker 1: U S National security advisor implying that the U S
Speaker 1: military should overthrow the government, shocked and concerned many, including
Speaker 1: Republican Representative Liz Cheney, who condemned Flynn's comments. The French
Speaker 1: phrase coudta literally translates to blow of state in English,
Speaker 1: a likening forced political seizure to a physical strike against
Speaker 1: the government. It didn't enter the English lexicon until the
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds, coinciding with several major political upheavals in France.
Speaker 1: Who's differ from other forms of civil unrest like war, rioting,
Speaker 1: and revolution in several ways. For example, unlike civil wars,
Speaker 1: which can draw out for years, who's usually take place
Speaker 1: in a single day, And unlike revolutions, which tend to
Speaker 1: have broad majority support, coups are usually spearheaded by a
Speaker 1: small group seeking political power. Finally, they also tended to
Speaker 1: focus on an executive power, such as a president or
Speaker 1: a prime minister, rather than the entire governmental apparatus. When
Speaker 1: most people think of a coupa, they picture a violent
Speaker 1: military uprising, something like Chile's bloody overthrow of President Salvador
Speaker 1: Alliende in ninety three for revolt that cost an untold
Speaker 1: number of lives in Mali. And although the majority of
Speaker 1: these events do skew towards violence, not all coups involved bloodshed.
Speaker 1: Napoleon's seventeen ninety nine capture of Paris for instance, reportedly
Speaker 1: went off without a single death. So what leads to
Speaker 1: a coup it depends from country to country. For the article,
Speaker 1: this episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke by
Speaker 1: email with Brian class, An associate professor of Global politics
Speaker 1: at University College London and host of the podcast Power Corrupts.
Speaker 1: He said the drivers of a coup in a place
Speaker 1: like Madagascar are very different from those in Thailand, for example,
Speaker 1: but political chaos and dysfunction make coups more likely, and
Speaker 1: the best coup predictor for any given country is whether
Speaker 1: that country has a history of them. For example, after
Speaker 1: gaining independence from Britain, Myanmar enjoyed fourteen years of democracy
Speaker 1: before its first military coup in nineteen sixty two. A
Speaker 1: procession of military leaders followed until eleven, when the country
Speaker 1: transitioned back to a representative quasi democracy. However, the military,
Speaker 1: evidently dissatisfied with the most recent election results, snatched power
Speaker 1: back earlier this year. Another predictor is a country's economic status. Generally,
Speaker 1: poorer countries tend to have more political unrest, which can
Speaker 1: lead a small radicalized group to seek power. Four of
Speaker 1: the current top five most poverished countries in the world
Speaker 1: by gross domestic product being Burndi, South Sudan, the Central
Speaker 1: African Republic, and Malawi have all experienced coup attempts in
Speaker 1: the last decade, but it would be arnist to assume
Speaker 1: that only poor nations are susceptible. After all, one of
Speaker 1: history's most famous attempted coups, the assassination of Julius Caesar,
Speaker 1: occurred near the height of the Roman Empire's power. Deep
Speaker 1: political polarization can also precipitate a coup, especially if one
Speaker 1: group feels that their interests are being excluded in the
Speaker 1: election process. So with that in mind, could a coup
Speaker 1: happen in the US? Experts say it's improbable, though not impossible.
Speaker 1: Coups rarely happened in what political scientists have termed consolidated democracies,
Speaker 1: where democratic institutions are deeply and firmly entrenched. Klaus said
Speaker 1: the United States is a consolidated, albeit severely flawed democracy.
Speaker 1: Three major factors contribute to the United States coup proofing.
Speaker 1: The first is an independent court system. By and large,
Speaker 1: U S courts are nonpartisan and beholden to judge, jury,
Speaker 1: and legal president rather than a particular political party. This
Speaker 1: holds true even for Supreme Court justices, who may be
Speaker 1: appointed directly by a sitting president. Second is a military
Speaker 1: chain of command. The president holds the highest rank in
Speaker 1: the military as commander in chief. Every general answers to them,
Speaker 1: and as an institution, respect for authority in the military
Speaker 1: runs deep. But if corruption enters the hierarchy, there are
Speaker 1: still checks in place. The soldiers have the right to
Speaker 1: refuse orders that strike them as palpably illegal. Furthermore, U
Speaker 1: S military personnel are not a completely homogenized group, as
Speaker 1: people of any gender, racial background, sexual orientation, or political
Speaker 1: persua Asian can and are encouraged to serve together. These
Speaker 1: theoretically ensure that one political actor or party does not
Speaker 1: achieve an unbreakable stranglehold over military power. Finally, there's the
Speaker 1: sheer byzantine sprawl of the United States government. How stuff works.
Speaker 1: Also spoke with Scott Anderson, a senior fellow with the
Speaker 1: National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He said,
Speaker 1: we have a highly decentralized system. It's actually fairly difficult
Speaker 1: to hijack the system because you would need to hijack
Speaker 1: lots and lots of parts. Some political scholars have argued
Speaker 1: that the twenty fifth Amendment, which allows a sitting vice
Speaker 1: president to take over for a president who has deemed
Speaker 1: unfit for office, could amount to a non military coup
Speaker 1: under the right circumstances. Other individuals have argued that the
Speaker 1: Insurrection Act of eighteen o seven somehow provides a legal
Speaker 1: loophole that would authorize the former president to command the military,
Speaker 1: claim that Anderson calls complete nonsense. But democracy always needs
Speaker 1: to stay vigilant. Once the ideas in the air, a
Speaker 1: coup becomes marginally more possible, feeding the fears and false
Speaker 1: beliefs of a small group of extremists. That's why, as
Speaker 1: Claus says, quote Flynn's statement was extraordinarily dangerous. Today's episode
Speaker 1: is based on the article what is accupata and is
Speaker 1: the U S Coup Proof? On house to works dot
Speaker 1: com written by Joanna Thompson. Brain Stuff is production of
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