Except for people who geek out on politics, people in the U.S. haven’t considered these terms for generations.
But lately, they are making a big comeback in the news, in congressional debates, in college classes and all over social media.
Here, El Camino professors and other academics weigh in on their significance for everyone in the South Bay and across the U.S.
COUP D’ETAT, COUP noun. origin – French meaning “blow of state.” a sudden decisive exercise in politics and especially the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group.
Recent references include: 1. Labeling the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol led by Donald Trump, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers who all falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” and mobilized people to overthrow the results. 2. The work of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been called a coup by media outlets, elected officials, advocacy organizations, unions and movement organizers.
According to research published by the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the presence of the following factors can trigger a coup: grievances of military troops and/or commanders; economic decline; domestic political crisis; collusion with a foreign military power; and a weakening of civil society.
REVOLUTION noun.
1: a sudden, radical, or complete change
2: a fundamental change in political organization, especially the overthrow or renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed
3: activity or movement designed to affect fundamental changes in the socioeconomic situation
A coup is usually led by a small group, while a revolution is sparked by both planned and spontaneous action led by masses of people.
Some movements on both the political right and the left say they are calling for a revolution.
Sociologist Jack Goldstone argued that all revolutions contain “efforts to change the political regime that draw on a competing vision of a just order; mass mobilization (of people, communities and organizations); and efforts to force change through noninstitutionalized actions such as mass demonstrations, protests, strikes or violence.”
CIVIL WAR noun. a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country.
As political and cultural divisions have grown in families, communities and throughout the nation, violent clashes and targeted attacks have sparked predictions that the U.S. is headed for another civil war.
ECC Associate Professor of English Erica Brenes highlighted that all of us have the power to fight for what we believe in without going to war, by both our individual and collective action.
“We like to think the American consumer is this romantic being. We buy refrigerators because we need them. But we are absolutely cogs in the machine that are impacted by larger systems and trends,” Brenes said.
But she added that we can make conscious choices to resist.
“I feel good about my decision to buy second hand products. There are no tariffs on those goods. If we don’t have money to buy anything, we can push toward mutual aid,” Brenes said.
In other words, she added, we can share with everyone even as the government is cutting people off.
Brenes also emphasized that some people benefit from a collapsing economy and some don’t.
“Who can swoop in and buy up businesses and industries when they’re cheap? Who is benefiting when everyone else is losing?” Brenes said. “Look at those people and remember who they are, because in 15 years you want to make sure they’re on your s— list.”
Recession also impacts who comes to college and what they study, Brenes said.
“I think we will see a lot more lit majors honestly. The best thing about a bad economy is no one’s gonna make any money, so you should study what you want. Why go to law school? You might as well be broke writing a poem,” Brenes said.
FACISM noun. a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition.
This term has been used increasingly in describing the Trump administration’s actions – exerted by Trump, Musk, Vice President J.D. Vance, U.S. Secretary of State Mark Rubio and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth – ignoring U.S. law, court orders, the budget passed by Congress, due process protections, or free speech and protest rights most notably on college campuses.
For historians, Trump’s replacing of the original indigenous name Denali for the nation’s highest mountain, located in Alaska with the name Americans first gave it – Mount McKinley – wasn’t a surprise.
“McKinley embodied a kind of president who exercised U.S. military power and violence in a way that, from Trump’s perspective, amplified U.S. position and power,” ECC history professor John Baranski said.
He said it was catastrophic for the countries that we invaded and McKinley’s tariffs really devastated the U.S. economy.
ECC political science Professor David Reed says that the U.S. is not yet a fascist state, but that could change.
It’s hard to enforce constitutional order “on a president that’s hell-bent on violating it,” Reed said. “The power of an executive order is determined by the willingness of those other branches [of government] to push back.”
Protecting democracy requires that the courts continue to issue orders against the administration’s actions, that elected officials at the federal, state and local levels refuse to enact or enforce laws that violate the Constitution, and that the unofficial “fourth branch” of government – the media – has the courage to denounce illegal or unjust actions.
It also depends on the people – including community organizations, faith-based institutions, unions and college students, professors and administrators – speaking out against unjust practices and protecting the rights of people to protest against the government.
The political science professor
says that theories on global stability speak of the importance of maintaining alliances and managing conflict around the world.
“Ragging on our NATO partners, hitting on all of our closest trading partners, it really seems like they [the Trump administration] are trying to retreat from that role,” Reed said.
According to Reed, the challenge is that no one else in the world is strong enough militarily or diplomatically to take the place of the US. Eliminating our alliances is likely to increase violence and economic chaos around the world.
ANOCRACY noun. A political system that is neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic and is unstable.
A government that exists between democracy and autocracy is considered to be in transition, where one of the forms of government becomes dominant.
The U.S. score on the autocracy-democracy scale has dropped significantly since 2016 as democratic institutions have been attacked or dismantled.
The V-Dem Institute, based at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, recently released its 2025 annual report analyzing democracy in 202 countries.
According to V-Dem, the U.S. is undergoing the “fastest evolving episode of autocratization the USA has been through in modern history.”
Barbara Walter, the Rohr Chair in Pacific International Relations at the University of California San Diego, said that “The United States became an anocracy for the first time in more than two hundred years. We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy.”
