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How to Stop Trump’s Coup

South Korea’s lessons for the US midterms.

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........

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