Disruption? What They Really Mean Is Coup — The Trump-Musk Blitz Seen From Abroad

-OpEd-

HAMBURG — A few weeks ago, I read Stefan Zweig’s memoir, The World of Yesterday, in which the Austrian-born writer describes the downfall of “old Europe” and the rise of fascism.

From his American exile, where he would eventually take his own life in 1942, Zweig reflects on the late 19th and early 20th centuries, an era he recalls as a time of security and progress. As he puts it: “An upswing began, and it was felt in almost all European countries. Cities grew larger and more beautiful with each passing year. You could feel it: wealth was increasing and spreading. And it wasn’t just the cities moving forward, the people in them became healthier and stronger, thanks to better nutrition, shorter working hours, greater access to sports, and a closer connection to nature.”

Zweig’s depiction feels eerily relevant today. The current rhetoric of decline doesn’t accurately reflect reality, at least not from a global perspective. Life expectancy has risen in nearly every part of the world, particularly in Africa. The proportion of people living in absolute poverty is shrinking. Education levels are rising, and so is global economic output. The world’s unemployment rate is at its lowest point since such records began.

So when former British Prime Minister Tony Blair tells Die Zeit that “the system isn’t working” and calls for disruption, we have to ask: What exactly does he mean?

For a vast portion of humanity, the system works quite well. That’s not to say change isn’t needed: inequality is growing, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries; and bureaucracy stifles private initiative in many places. But solving these problems doesn’t require disruption; it requires better tax policies and cutting unnecessary regulations.

The term disruption is being used with an alarming level of naivety. In economics, it refers to the routine replacement of old business models and technologies by innovation: the car replaced the horse-drawn carriage, streaming services replaced VHS tapes.

But when politicians talk about political disruption, what exactly do they intend to destroy and replace? Democracy? The state itself?

Talk about a revolution?

The essence of a functioning political order is its stability, not disruption. If radical change is the goal, we should at least call it what it is: revolution.

This so-called revolution aims to replace liberal democracy with a system of arbitrary rule.

And let’s not deceive ourselves: what Trump is attempting is nothing short of a revolution, or even a coup d’état. He is systematically undermining democratic institutions: firing prosecutors who investigate him as part of a broader purge, altering citizenship laws by executive order despite constitutional protections, suing media outlets simply for unfavorable coverage, making baseless territorial claims on Greenland, Canada and Panama, and arbitrarily imposing tariffs on trading partners. Meanwhile, his ally Elon Musk is openly encouraging people to vote for far-right parties in Germany and beyond.

This so-called revolution aims to replace liberal democracy with a system of arbitrary rule, where the separation of powers exists only on paper. In reality, political disruption is often just a euphemism for violating the constitution. And Germany’s Basic Law is unambiguous on this point: “All Germans have the right to resist anyone who seeks to abolish this order, if no other remedy is possible.”

Real resistance

Zweig’s reflections remind us that the rise of fascism was not inevitable. He describes it as the product of two forces: the ruthless pursuit of power on one side and a lack of resistance on the other. It all began in small ways — an unjust arrest here, a broken rule there. Then, suddenly, it was too late.

Is the post-War era on the edge of collapse?

But history doesn’t have to repeat itself. There are forces pushing back: not just in the U.S., but in Germany, too, as last weekend’s demonstrations against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) showed. Trump has backed down before. When his tariffs caused stock markets to crash, he quickly reversed course, walking away with little more than symbolic concessions.

He is not invincible. When faced with real resistance, he often retreats.

I am not in exile. I am writing this column from the Austrian mountains, where the snow glistens in the sun. It’s hard to imagine that the post-War era, a period of history that has brought so much prosperity and freedom, is teetering on the edge of collapse. Perhaps we can prevent history from repeating itself. But I am far less sure about that than I once was.