How to Stop Trump’s Coup

How do you stop a would-be dictator? The first requirement is knowing that it’s possible. In 2024, the people of South Korea took to the streets and stopped a would-be coup in its tracks. Their example offers lessons for how Americans can counter Donald Trump and his allies if they disrupt or defy the results of November’s midterms.

After escalating conflicts with South Korea’s legislature and bribery accusations against his wife, President Yoon Suk Yeol abruptly declared martial law on December 3, 2024, at 10:23 pm. Like Trump, Yoon had already appointed loyalists to key military posts, and his state prosecutor used libel laws to attack political opponents and journalists. Now Yoon banned all political activity, protests, and strikes, and claimed the right to detain anyone he chose. He ordered the military to enter the National Assembly by force to remove the members, “including the use of firearms if necessary.”

But 16,000 protesters rushed to the building to protect the legislature. As Korea’s opposition leader and others headed there, they livestreamed calls for more people to join them. Citizens went on to nonviolently block armored vehicles. When military helicopters landed inside the assembly grounds, staffers constructed barricades from furniture and used fire extinguishers to slow soldiers breaking through the windows.

By 1 am, enough parliamentarians had reached the chamber to form a quorum, and they unanimously exercised their constitutional right to revoke Yoon’s martial law. For the next 10 days, citizens surrounded the parliament despite freezing temperatures—chanting, singing K-pop songs, waving light sticks, and calling for Yoon’s impeachment. The protests grew to over a million people by December 14, when the assembly impeached him. Yoon’s party lost the presidential election the following summer, and he is now serving a life sentence for insurrection.

Here are five key lessons for the US from South Korea.

1. Elections matter all the more under a would-be dictator.

Because South Korea’s opposition party had won major gains in the April 2024 election, it was already blocking some of Yoon’s initiatives before he declared martial law. Party leaders had defied previous attempts to silence them, and their leadership on the night of the attempted coup was critical. Because overwhelming vote margins are our best guarantee of securing our elections, we can’t let fear of Trump’s interference deter us from doing all we can to get people to vote.

2. Act quickly to confront attempted seizures of power.

As soon as Yoon declared martial law, activists and opposition party leaders called on people to protest. Had they waited, martial law would have become the status quo, making protest much harder.

For the US midterms, most points of contestation will be local: Citizens and local governments need to protect polling places and vote-counting centers, including having police protect them from disruption. Groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens are suing in advance to block ICE from polling places, state attorneys general and secretaries of state preparing emergency legal briefs, and the Brennan Center has published checklists refuting potential administration arguments. But massive, immediate nonviolent protest will also be essential.

3. Encourage security forces to stay loyal to the Constitution.

South Koreans who confronted the martial law forces said many soldiers showed open or subtle resistance to the coup. For example, soldiers didn’t actively repel the crowds in front of the parliament or remove the aides who were resisting inside. A major and a sergeant who were ordered to issue ammunition refused, saying that replenishing it would take too long. Officers commanding two military buses ordered their troops to stay aboard rather than fully deploy. A sergeant refused flight approval for a special forces transport helicopter. When one unit was ordered to seize computer servers to prevent a parliamentary vote, they delayed by stopping to eat ramen noodles at a nearby convenience store.

Ordinary citizens also urged soldiers to refuse unlawful orders. Former special forces members invoked their shared backgrounds with the soldiers tasked with putting down the protests. Protesters asked soldiers to remember the 1980 Gwangju massacre and not support a dictatorship.

In our own context, it mattered enormously that six US senators and House members with military and national security backgrounds created last November’s video on the duty to refuse illegal orders. We need to keep highlighting this duty to service members. We hope we’ll never reach a moment like South Korea’s, but if we do, we shouldn’t assume that the entire US military will do Trump’s bidding.

4. Prevent the coup’s initiators from consolidating power.

The day after the attempted coup in South Korea, civil society organizations held press conferences demanding the president’s arrest. Daily protests outside the National Assembly culminated in the demonstration by over a million people on December 14, pressuring legislators to impeach Yoon. Protests then shifted to the presidential residence and the Constitutional Court, demanding Yoon’s arrest. Labor unions demonstrated at the offices of legislators who refused to support impeachment and created a website to swamp those legislators’ phones with text messages. A widely circulated PowerPoint debunked Yoon’s arguments and offered counter-slogans.

The lesson for the United States is that power gets consolidated in stages, and every stage that’s blocked makes the next stage easier to prevent. Legal challenges are essential, but so are the actions of ordinary citizens. For example, Indivisible and No Kings have been conducting Hands Off the Vote trainings and recruiting poll monitors, and the long-standing 866-OUR-VOTE national hotline is expanding its presence. Veteran nonviolent organizers the Freedom Trainers have mapped out how people can respond to multiple scenarios, from preelection attempts to suppress the vote to attempts to block vote certification.

5. Create festive, diverse forms of resistance.

As South Korea’s demonstrations kept growing, K-pop light sticks replaced the traditional candles as the protest symbol. The sticks gave the rallies the feel of a concert, as protesters turned K-pop hits into chants. Musicians and artists showed up, adding to the festive atmosphere. Supporters prepaid for hundreds of cups of coffee, snacks, and meals at nearby cafés and food trucks. This atmosphere was crucial in drawing younger Koreans, the core K-pop fan base.

America’s major rallies, like No Kings, already combine festivity with defiance, a combination key to helping people keep going. Let’s embody that in our final election push!

Have pro-democracy organizers across the US engaged enough people to prevent Trump from overturning election results he doesn’t like? We won’t know until Election Day and the days immediately after. Meanwhile, South Korea’s example can inspire and instruct us as Americans defend our own beleaguered democracy.