The White House has launched an attack on judicial review that is very familiar to any historian of U.S. foreign intervention tactics (coups).
It raises the question, if someone is following a historical playbook for instituting martial law, but hasn’t gotten far enough to openly declare it yet, should we wait until they explicitly say “martial law” before using that term? This article makes a case that Vance is following specific steps from a documented pattern that historically led to martial law and military tribunals.
When he suggested that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance wasn’t drawing from American constitutional tradition – he was echoing the well-known playbook the United States repeatedly used to dismantle democratic institutions abroad.
Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. developed a clear pattern for supporting regime change: systematically undermining judicial independence as a crucial step toward establishing unchecked executive control. The parallels between these historical interventions and current rhetoric about limiting judicial review are striking and deeply concerning.
The Military Intervention Template
The U.S. playbook for overseas intervention typically followed a four stage plan to remove existing government and quickly replace it with a dictatorship:
- Declare judicial oversight as obstruction of necessary reforms
- Assert certain executive powers as beyond judicial review
- Establish parallel systems (often military tribunals)
- Eventually eliminate judicial independence entirely
Precedents Americans Tend to Forget, Because Somewhere Else
Chile 1973:
Following the U.S.-backed coup against Salvador Allende, Pinochet’s junta moved immediately to neutralize judicial oversight. By September 14, 1973 – just three days after the coup – the Constitutional Court was suspended. The regime argued that national security requirements superseded judicial authority, eerily similar to current arguments about executive privilege.
Guatemala 1954:
When the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of democratically elected President Arbenz, the dismantling of judicial independence was swift and methodical. Within weeks of Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas taking power in July 1954, the constitution was suspended and military tribunals replaced civilian courts. The justification? That the judiciary was impeding necessary anti-communist reforms and economic modernization.
Iran 1953:
Operation AJAX’s overthrow of Mossadegh was followed by a systematic purge of independent judges. By September 1953, civilian courts were subordinated to military authority. The Shah’s government claimed judicial oversight was hampering essential economic and security reforms – a recurring theme in attacks on judicial independence.
Need I go on?
Vance Brings it Home
Vance knows domestically it’s been ruled the judiciary can judge the executive, and he doesn’t care. When he suggests judges can’t review certain executive actions, he’s drawing from the foreign interventionist playbook that says the end of democracy is justified by corporations and Christians wanting more control (fewer liberties).
His specific examples about military operations and prosecutorial discretion mirror arguments used in Guatemala, Chile, and Iran to begin the process of eliminating judicial oversight and end democracy.
Iran’s trajectory in particular should terrify anyone following Bannon’s vision for America. After the U.S. helped overthrow its democratic government in 1953, the resulting authoritarian regime collapsed into the 1979 Islamic Revolution – creating precisely the kind of anti-American theocratic state that Bannon has repeatedly praised as a model of religious nationalism, while seemingly blind to how U.S. interference with Iran’s judiciary created the conditions for that revolution.
The connection runs deeper through the Reagan years into today. Many Reagan administration officials who later condemned Iran’s hostility had earlier supported dismantling its independent judiciary under the Shah. U.S. actions – including the systematic destruction of judicial review that Vance now promotes – helped transform Iran from a democracy into first a dictatorship and then a theocratic state. This same blueprint appears in Project 2025’s vision of “traditionalist” governance through expanded executive power and weakened courts.
This historical parallel exposes the dangerous consistency in Bannon’s position. The same playbook that helped create an anti-American Iran is now being proposed for use at home to create an anti-American America. When Bannon praises Iran’s religious nationalism while supporting attacks on America’s independent judiciary, he’s endorsing the very tactics that destroyed Iranian democracy and created the system of religious law he claims to admire – but this time, he wants to deploy them against American courts.
Project 2025: The Domestic Coup Playbook
Project 2025 makes the threat immediate. This Heritage Foundation blueprint combines historically proven tactics of institutional capture with direct control of federal operations – the first time foreign intervention tactics are being deployed domestically by actors controlling federal operations. Through the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), it has already achieved what previous domestic coup attempts could not – institutional capacity for systemic capture without requiring military alignment.
When we see Vance echoing these same strategic approaches to judicial control, it’s not coincidental. Project 2025’s own documents reveal 72 attacks on American institutions completed so far, many through executive orders and agency-level directives – exactly the kind of systematic dismantling of oversight that preceded martial law in Iran, Chile, and Guatemala.
These aren’t just historical analogies; consider now the obvious parallels between Vance attacking America from within the White House versus the CIA attacking foreign governments:
- Claims of executive domains beyond judicial review
- Emphasis on security and efficiency justifications
- Portrayal of judges as obstructing necessary changes
- Gradual expansion of “unreviewable” executive power
The Time to Act is Before Martial Law
The United States has long experience with dismantling judicial independence abroad. When administration officials begin using rhetoric that echoes these foreign interventions back home, it should raise serious concerns.
The Vance attack on judicial review isn’t just a constitutional debate – it’s an attempt to import very well known and refined tactics previously secretly developed for regime change operations elsewhere, into overt domestic governance.
The historical record is clear: questioning judicial authority to review executive actions often marks the first step toward broader autocratic control. The fact that this rhetoric now echoes U.S. foreign intervention tactics with Bannon in the room makes it more concerning, not less – because we know exactly where this path leads. Vance said it himself months ago: Trump should “seize control, fire everyone and replace them with our people” and then, like Andrew Jackson, simply refuse to listen to judges:
The threat is enforcement. As George explains, when U.S. Marshals report to Trump, who will enforce the court orders?
The question isn’t whether Americans will recognize these tactics – we’re telling you what they are. The question is whether anyone will act before judicial review becomes another historical example of what Americans lost while waiting for someone else to save them.