Was South Korea a sneak preview?

Today's events should send a shock wave through the U.S. too

Martial Law declared and hell breaks loose

This morning started with a shock. The President of the Republic of Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol, declared in a late night local announcement that he had declared martial law with these chilling, and terrifyingly familiar, words:

Dear citizens, I declare emergency martial law to defend the free Republic of Korea from the threats of North Korean communist forces and to eradicate the shameless pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people and to protect the free constitutional order.

Through this emergency martial law, I will rebuild and defend the free Republic of Korea, which is falling into ruin. To this end, I will surely eradicate the criminals of the anti-state forces who have been committing atrocities so far.

This is an inevitable step to ensure the freedom and safety of the people and the sustainability of the country, and to pass on a proper country to future generations from the unrestrained activities of anti-state forces aiming to overthrow the system. I will eradicate anti-state forces as soon as possible and normalize the country. I will crush the anti-state forces and normalize the country as soon as possible.

Frankly, I thought his statement could have been written by Stephen Miller himself.

All I could think this morning was that these unfolding events were our own sneak preview of what is to come here if we don’t get our act together and prepare.

What happened?

I was stunned with the news this morning. I have to admit that with everything happening here I had lost track of goings on in many places of the world. South Korea was certainly one of the places. I had served there in the Army all the way back in 1988 and have a special place in my heart for the country. My uncle Harvey lost his life there with the Marines in 1951 during the Chinese counteroffensive.

While there is a history of military dictatorship the country has been a strong democracy and one of our top allies in the region for decades. I was glad to have found this incredibly well researched piece written by Heesoo Jang, Assistant Professor of Media Law and Ethics, in the Journalism Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

She had been preparing it as an OpEd but with today’s events sent it across social media as a Google Doc. I highly recommend reading the whole thing to understand how today’s events came to pass after months of unrest, collapsing government, and protests. But her final paragraph struck me the most.

“South Korea’s struggle is a powerful reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining—it requires active vigilance. The protests and demands for reform exemplify how civil society can confront governance failures. The world deserves more context and a nuanced understanding from international journalism about what South Korean democracy is facing, as its fight for justice, transparency, and the rule of law holds lessons for all democracies.”

Therein lies so much of what we face here. We must remain vigilant in the face of collapsing Democratic norms and the media must do it’s part as well. For the last two days the media has spent far too much time beating Joe Biden for pardoning his son Hunter after Kash Patel was nominated to take over the FBI. A man who has literally given speeches saying he is going to directly target the last surviving Biden son for criminal investigations.

We are down to six weeks until Trump is sworn in and we need our institutions to be taking his promises seriously. His Cabinet appointments are a menagerie of monsters full of miscreants, fools, clowns, criminals, and even rapists. Instead of taking on this information war or spending time preparing it feels like we are silently slipping into fascism.

The system worked in South Korea

They got lucky today in the Republic of Korea. It looked very dangerous as the Army Chief of Staff was appointed Martial Law commander and deployed troops to surround the National Assembly and block entrance to lawmakers and staff. The members had rushed there in the middle of the night and barricaded the doors to prevent the military from entering.

They were able to create a quorum of 190 members of the 300 person parliament and voted to overrule the President’s declaration in accordance with their laws. All 190 voted against his actions including members of his own party. While the military forces around the National Assembly dispersed soon after a tense few hours passed as the nation waited for the President to announce whether he would comply even as the Martial Law Commander continued issuing edicts like restrictions on the media and others.

In the end President Yoon announced he would comply with the Parliament and ordered the lifting of the martial law edicts. The crisis appears to have been averted. Their institutions held.

Can it happen here?

Now we must ask hard questions here in the United States. When you connect the dots of many of Donald Trump’s moves since the election they create a picture that should trouble anyone.

• A “Warrior Review Board” to evaluate all 3-4 star generals to weed out ‘wokeness’ or wrong think

• Appointments of Cabinet Secretaries and leaders who have made it very clear they intend to use their roles to go after enemies like Kash Patel for FBI who literally published a list of those he will pursue

• Schedule F for federal employees to remove those who are seen as “disloyal” and replace them with MAGA loyalists

• Promises to declare a National Emergency about the border and illegal immigrants and threats to enact the Insurrection Act which will allow him to use the military domestically to deport millions

• Threats against state and local leaders who have declared their resistance to these mass efforts including arresting them if they get in the way

On and on it doesn’t take a genius to map out how this could go. The question as always is simple: Will our institutions hold this time?

Sitting here I can’t say if I know for sure.

• Will Senate Republicans remember their Constitutional duty of checks and balances over the appointments?

• Will members of the military understand what is or is not a lawful order and obey their oath to the Constitution over a man?

• Will local law enforcement serve their community or allow their actions to be taken over by politics?

• Will our courts truly stand up to the assault on the rule of law and do it in a timely manner?

I don’t know. But I plan to do everything in my power to remind them all of their duty and to use the power of public pressure to the best of my ability. We must all decide when the moment comes what our priorities are like this man who was quoted by the New York Times in Korea today:

There may very well come a time when we have to get in our cars and drive to save our democracy. We must resolve ourselves to the moment if it comes and do what must be done. We have years of democracy to preserve and it doesn’t come without sacrifice when needed.

As Professor Jang said in her piece above, “South Korea’s struggle is a powerful reminder that democracy is not self-sustaining—it requires active vigilance. “

We must stay vigilant my friends.