Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar
On December 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol attempted to seize control of the country by abruptly declaring martial law. What happened next reveals how democracies can unleash antibodies to resist dangerous threats to the body politic and defend their system of government. Although Yoon had sent military forces to surround the National Assembly and block legislators from taking an emergency vote rescinding his order, legislators rushed to the building and were able to enter. Meanwhile, the military officials and intelligence agencies that the president sought to enlist refused to cooperate, the courts refused to stand aside, and the media reported developments accurately. In the end, backed by overwhelming public support, the National Assembly voted unanimously to rescind the order, putting a stop to the president’s gambit.
Yet even though the South Korean episode ended successfully, it raises an unsettling question about the future of another democracy, which happens to be the world’s most powerful country: the United States. What if Yoon had begun his attempted takeover just a touch more gradually—say, by purging the leadership and midlevel staff at security agencies and replacing them with his own loyalists; normalizing the forced removal of individuals from South Korea and defying court decisions over time even when the courts’ orders were clear; cracking down on law firms, former officials, and even members of his own party who challenged him or defied his wishes in order to uphold the law; and, aided by pliant legislators from his own party, progressively wresting control of government spending—including even money already allocated—from the legislature? As Donald Trump’s second administration vows to deny federal funds to states to bring their actions in line with the his views, pressures the country’s leading law firms into providing hundreds of millions of dollars of pro bono services for causes approved by the president, threatens to end the independence of agencies such as the Federal Reserve, and moves ever closer to open defiance of court decisions, the problem of how to strengthen and even preserve law-bound democracy in the United States is drawing new attention.
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