No One—No One!—Is Staging a ‘Coup’

People really seem to struggle with the word “coup.”

During the impeachment ordeal of Bill Clinton, Democrats and their journalistic allies routinely denounced the effort as a “coup.” Some 20 years later, Republicans and their supporters called the impeachment of Donald Trump a “coup” as well.

Neither of these events was a coup. According to the dictionary, a coup means to overthrow the government, usually by force. It’s short for “coup d’état,” which is illegal. The impeachment power is laid out in America’s rulebook—the Constitution—in black and white.

In any endeavor—sports, law, business, chess, Dungeons and Dragons, whatever—it is axiomatically true that if you play within the rules, you cannot be breaking them.