Imagine if the generals of the Tatmadaw were advising Trump. After arresting Myanmar legislators and closing the parliament, they stated that their reason for invoking the emergency provisions of the Myanmar constitution as justification for the intervention was the pandemic and election fraud.

Trump would have difficulty maintaining that the pandemic was an emergency after denying it for so long. Not even his own infection with the disease changed his mind. But he could have claimed that election fraud required the arrest of Democratic leaders and the imposition of martial law. Who in the military would have stood up against the CinC? A few, of course, but their colleagues would put them in cells alongside other protestors.

It turns out that the greatest defense against a coup in the United States was Trump’s own mediocrity.