Newsweek: Bill Maher Is Right. There Is a Slow-Moving Coup
Newsweek
Bill Maher Is Right. There Is a Slow-Moving Coup | Opinion
Thomas Moukawsher
Published
Aug 26, 2025 at 06:00 AM EDT
HBO’s Bill Maher doesn’t like today’s Democrats. He has repeatedly thrashed them for being clueless about the concerns of most Americans. He even had dinner with President Donald Trump. So, when he issues a dire warning about the fate of the nation, people should take it more seriously than they do the usual complaints about the president.
Maher warns that Trump is mounting a “slow-moving coup” against American democracy. He says it started with getting Americans accustomed to seeing things as routine that they ought to see as ominous: a masked police force, people being snatched off the streets, large and increasing numbers of troops in the streets of Washington, D.C., talk of crime, and talk of election fraud. Maher then tells us where it will lead. There will be a congressional election in 2026. If Democrats win control of the House, the Senate or both, he claims that they will never take power.
He may be right. With masked men making people disappear and troops marching around Washington getting handed pizza and hamburgers by the president, Trump is doing what he is supremely good at: misdirection.
Trump says the whole thing is about crime. That’s a serious public concern, and Democrats should admit it. They should stop talking about falling crime rates and do something about the fact that they’re still too high. But they haven’t, so Trump owns the Democrats again on a topic most Americans are concerned about—crime—just like he owned them on immigration and homeless encampments. The public is with him on these issues, and he is exploiting it masterfully.
And that’s where the misdirection comes in. America hasn’t noticed that Trump only cares about certain kinds of crime. While railing against the crimes of America’s working class, he is happy to let the big criminals skate free—particularly himself as he takes bribes hand over fist while protecting convicted fraudsters like reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley and accused grifters like New York Mayor Eric Adams.
But that’s not the really dangerous part. While some Americans cheer the short-term images of supposed crime-fighting forces parading around D.C., they’re being blinded to the long-term danger of the militarization of mainstream America.
Yes, Trump has the power to take over the D.C. police temporarily, if they are failing. But why troops? If he’s concerned about crime, why doesn’t he fund more police for Washington? Why is he summoning troops from the states instead of police officers?
It’s for the show. The most dangerous show on the planet. Americans should recognize it. The danger of troops on American streets is in the nation’s DNA. In 1768, the British cracked down on crime against tax collectors in colonial Boston by sending troops into the city. They forced the locals to provide these soldiers with room and board. This military incursion sparked the American Revolution and led to the Constitution’s Third Amendment, forbidding troops from being quartered in homes during peacetime.
And since the Insurrection Act was first passed in 1807, it has been clear in law that the president should use the military, not for routine law enforcement, but only in emergencies where law and order has broken down utterly, when we have been invaded, or when there’s a rebellion.
Our aversion to troops in law enforcement was made even more clear after passage of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which made it a federal crime to use the military to “execute”—enforce—the law. Yes, troops have been used infrequently during riots and natural disasters, but that doesn’t justify using them for routine law enforcement.
So, how can Trump get away with it? It shouldn’t be enough, as he claims, that the D.C. National Guard is always under federal control. Guard units under federal control are covered by the Posse Comitatus Act.
But Trump will get away with it unless Americans pay attention. If you’re concerned about crime in the cities, demand police, but condemn sending the military. If you don’t, sooner or later—maybe next year—we’re going to hear more lies about “stolen” elections, and this time the people storming the Capitol won’t be radicals waiving Trump flags, they’ll be soldiers waiving bayonets.
Thomas G. Moukawsher is a former Connecticut complex litigation judge and a former co-chair of the American Bar Association Committee on Employee Benefits. He is the author of the book, The Common Flaw: Needless Complexity in the Courts and 50 Ways to Reduce It.