Autocoups are not new. Again and again, leaders who came to power legally have used the machinery of the state to make themselves impossible to remove. Two centuries of the same move, in two flavors—and how each one ended.
Dissolve the legislature, suspend the constitution, rule by decree. Fast, visible, and easy to name—which is also why it sometimes fails.
Keep the elections. Capture the courts, the press, and the count until the vote can't touch you. Harder to see, harder to condemn, harder to reverse—and the one now underway in the United States.
Two patterns, one destination. The dramatic version is easy to see and easy to condemn. The slow, legal version keeps the institutions open just enough to look legitimate—and it is the harder one to stop. Read how it maps onto America in Orbán Took a Decade. Trump Is Doing It in a Year., or watch it unfold on the tracker.