The Autogolpe and Other Things Lost in Translation
By Elizabeth Huergo | February 25, 2025 |
I’m becoming an avid reader of Substack, and one of my favorite sites is Paul Krugman’s. Earlier this month, Krugman, a Nobel laureate in Economics, observed “…that everything Musk and Trump say about what they’re doing is false, including what they say about their motivations.” The pandemonium they are creating isn’t the point, he notes. The point is the consolidation of power. At this very moment, Krugman warns us, we are experiencing an “attempted autogolpe,” which he translates as a “self-coup,” and defines as act by which “a legitimately elected leader uses his position to seize total control, eliminating legal and constitutional restraints on his power.”
Golpe de estado and coup d’état both refer to the violent and unlawful overthrow of a government. The Spanish word golpe and the French word coup both refer to a “hit” or “strike.” Krugman is using and attributing a term from an opinion piece by Charles T. Call that appeared on the Brookings Institution website in 2021, “No, it’s not a coup — It’s a failed ‘self-coup’ that will undermine US leadership and democracy worldwide.” Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capital, Call beseeches us to look to other countries (Peru, Guatemala, Bolivia) in order to understand that the attack was a “self-coup.” Despite the reference to Latin America, Call slips from Spanish (autogolpe) to a mishmash of English and French (self-coup). Perhaps that slip and the noticeable absence of irony are connected?
In Spanish “auto” has several meanings, including an act done by oneself. The Diccionario de la lengua española defines autogolpe as a violation of a country’s legitimate law, ordinance, or custom by someone in power for the purpose of consolidating and affirming power. I don’t know who first translated “auto” into “self”. “Self-coup,” however, does not lead to clarity but bathos. The violent, destructive strikes against law, ordinance, and custom shift rather quickly from the sublime to the ridiculous.
“Self-coup” has a pop-psychology vibe. I imagine someone fretting before a mirror, a big guy, strong guy, tears in his eyes, trying to power through a debilitating idea about himself that affects his moods and behaviors. A malevolent clown, he is not feeling good about himself, and he is going to usurp that part of his consciousness, beating out of himself what he deems unacceptable because, well, he is the State.
Another favorite Substack site is Book Post, founded and edited by Ann Kjellberg, a member of The New York Review of Books editorial staff from 1988 to 2017, the editor of Little Star (literary magazine), and the literary executor of poet Joseph Brodsky. Kjellberg began Book Post in 2018 with the hope of creating a community of readers and writers. Her purpose? She wanted to “restore” and “broaden” a nationwide “commitment to informed discourse and culturally rich expression,” a highly laudable goal.
Book Post is on a short break right now. Kjellberg is taking a couple of weeks to reflect on the balance she wants to achieve “between the works of ambition and insight that [she is] trying to introduce readers to and [her] own more worldly excursions into the business of publishing and news.” Her search interests me. I’m not certain that readers are in dialogue with literary works. I suspect readers have become mostly consumers engaged in a monologue with what they already like and expect in a work of fiction. I think we have already witnessed a different autogolpe which, while not strictly political, has implications for how we understand language, and political language in particular.
Consumers consume. And if I remember correctly some of Krugman’s articles in The New York Times, close to 70% of the US economy depends on our drive to consume. We want exactly what we want, and we want it now. That’s true of buying a car or a refrigerator or a work of fiction. The reader who approaches a work of fiction as a consumer expects a recognizable formula. She is not in dialogue with the author or new ideas or unexplored aesthetic forms. She wants a fast read. She wants to purchase access to nearly the same reading experience each time. Alter the plot, tweak the themes, add a few new characters, but don’t forget she wants the book she has already read.
I see a parallel in the college classroom. Students are no longer students in dialogue with their professors over difficult works and ideas as much as they are consumers of education. They pay for content and expect a particular grade in return. They pay for a degree and expect a paying job at the end of that degree. Like the consumer of books, they expect the content to shift a bit from class to class, but the formula for getting the grade, the degree, and the job, all that has to stay the same. No time for digressions. No time to reflect and chat.
Are these people right? Are they wrong? That’s not the point. The point is that the emphasis has shifted radically from process to product. The perceived value of the Humanities has been in decline for decades now because reading Shakespeare or Milton, Thoreau or Faulkner involves an experience that takes time. The product, a student who can think critically, takes time to form. It takes time to immerse oneself in language, syntax, image, metaphor. Do you want cheese aged in a cave or propelled from a can through a piston driven by nitrogen gas? That depends on the palate you have had the extraordinary luck to develop. As to whether you end up in the cheese caves of Asturías, Spain, or one of the many Kraft factories across the US, that more and more depends on money.
Before the development of the printing press, reading was a skill limited to those who had power and access to an education. It was a privileged class that read Latin and Greek; that selected and interpreted passages from the Old and New Testaments; that commissioned paintings, statues, and stained glass that transformed language, stories, into visual icons. Peasants could not read, but they could glance at images and learn a story about power and about their betters. They could learn to stay exactly as they were—hungry and desperate. Every semester, for every class, I review the course syllabus, including required texts. Despite the fact that I provide title, author, ISBN, publisher, and year of publication, a student never fails to ask me for an image of the book’s cover. Why? Glancing at an icon takes a moment. Tapping on it is a cinch. The student hasn’t done anything wrong, but I’m a worrier. I think the student is doing something atavistic that undercuts her learning, something that has deep implications for a democratic society. Democracy requires dialogue. Monologue is the form preferred by dictators who, well, “dictate.”
Has the process of reading been usurped by secular icons? Memory and reflection require time. Is our collective obsession with speed, with skimming language and insisting on formulas also a desire to forget? I keep thinking about Milan Kundera’s Slowness, a favorite novel, perhaps because it reminds me so much of Laurence Stern’s Sentimental Journey. Slowness weaves together two stories that take place in two different centuries. One story is about a young 18th-century nobleman who arrives at a chateau and is seduced by the sensuous Madame de T. The other story is about a young 20th-century man, Vincent, who arrives at the same chateau but is so distracted and obsessed with being seen by important people that he loses the opportunity to be with the beautiful Julie.
The nobleman and Vincent cross paths at the end of both stories. One is lying back on the cushions of his carriage reflecting on the memory of the evening’s pleasures. The other is speeding away on his motorcycle and working to forget his humiliation. Milan’s Vincent resists the slowness, the actual pace of life, and so misses the opportunity for pleasure and intimacy. He has no shared memories of Julie because he was never with her in the present moment. He never opened himself to beauty and the process of seduction.
My other favorite Substack is Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter from an American. Cox Richardson is a professor of American history. Her posts are political chronicles that echo the spirit of Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer (1792). Cox Richardson looks back in order to understand the present moment. She is addressing the future, however. Her daily posts are in dialogue with graduate students one-hundred years in the future. And you can sense that dialogue in the way she balances past and present.
History matters. I think that’s why the slip from Spanish (autogolpe) to a mishmash of English and French (self-coup) hurts a bit. Spanish doesn’t matter the way English and French do, despite the fact that all three languages are involved in a complex history of colonialism that destroyed so many indigenous cultures and languages. As for Call’s insistence that we look to Peru, Guatemala, and Bolivia for examples of autogolpes, that’s fine, but do so only after understanding the history of US imperialism in Latin America, the way an external bully can and does destabilize budding democratic processes by splitting the natives into two competing classes, aligning themselves with the rich and grinding the poor into an even finer dust, turning potential dialogues into a bloody monologue. The mega-rich, who have thwarted the development of other countries, have now set their sights on the US.
Are we moving so fast that we don’t have time to stop and acknowledge the autogolpe? At some point, we stopped listening to political language. We got in the habit of letting people who wield power use approximate language, language that evokes a certain feeling, propels heads to nod in a particular way, but amounts to nothing except violence against both the distracted and those who are trying to listen and understand. It is sound distended with approximate meanings. It is syntax that rises, circles, and drops into the sea, disappearing like silly Icarus. We have been in such a hurry that we stopped thinking through history and the language of story.
Elizabeth Huergo was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States at an early age as a political refugee. A published poet and story writer, she lives in Virginia. The Death of Fidel Perez is her first novel. You can learn more about Elizabeth on her website, and by following her on Twitter.
Thank you for giving us this nomenclature, which effectively makes what he is doing sound as self-centered as everything else he does–and thank you for the tremendous shout-out to Substack. Today, on Substack, Joyce Vance reminded us of Thomas Paine’s words: “It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice.”—Thomas Paine
“She wants the book she has already read.”
With so much read-alike fiction out there, it seems that way doesn’t it? But I think there’s another way to look at it: She wants a story.
If she wanted exactly the same thing, she would read one novel over and over again, but that isn’t the case. I’ve written here about the human brain’s craving for novelty. The truth is that cynically delivering more of the same isn’t a formula for success as a novelist.
Also, consumers of fiction do not read abbreviations. People don’t use Blinkist for novels. For a story, people slow down.
I think all of that is good news for fiction writers whose stories have a purpose. Tell a story. Time slows down. Readers pay attention.
Thought provoking post, Elizabeth, I read every word and paused to think.
Hello Elizabeth. Thanks for your painful, thoughtful post. After a long preamble related to political Substack articles–your principal subject–you turn to an assessment of how consumerism has conditioned literary taste.
“I’m not certain that readers are in dialogue with literary works. I suspect readers have become mostly consumers engaged in a monologue with what they already like and expect in a work of fiction.”
I think you ARE certain, I think you’re right, and I don’t exempt myself.
“The reader who approaches a work of fiction as a consumer expects a recognizable formula. She is not in dialogue with the author or new ideas or unexplored aesthetic forms. She wants a fast read. She wants to purchase access to nearly the same reading experience each time. Alter the plot, tweak the themes, add a few new characters, but don’t forget she wants the book she has already read.”
For me, this “self-coup” among readers is reflected in the expanding universe of genres. With each new, identifiable subset within society comes a genre, and that is soon the parent of sub-genre children. Goodbye books for all reading adults, hello to books for fill-in-the-blank.
Genres have always been with us, but today they have gone nova. I think the effect makes money for publishing, and reduces the odds for books that can’t be conveniently marketed to specific prefabricated tastes.
Do I see myself as affected by this? I do. I got tired of writing in a genre that required me to invent clever new ways of killing off characters. So, I wrote something else. The trouble is, it comes close to being un-marketable: the “target audience” is the general literate reading public. Except this description no longer has much if any meaning.
Thanks again for taking up what I think is a painful truth.
Excellent post, Elizabeth. I am also a fan of Substack, and it has become my main connection point in the social media world, I have found my people there. I do think it’s quite an egghead place, meant for thoughtful people who love books and reading, deep thought, at, and historical connection! And very good writing, like this piece.
I haven’t found that readers want the same thing, or even fast paced. My readers want what the experience I bring to the novels, I think. Or the experience they find with their favorites, whoever they are. Readers are still readers, as varied as the books they love.
Love your lists of Substackers. Also a huge fan of Heather Cox Richardson. I follow several spiritual teachers there, too, Buddhists and Christians and pagans, all to help keep me calm after reading some other things.
Thank you for such a thoughtful essay.
Thank you, Elizabeth. Every day my hopes for America lessen. People want things easy. They want things fast. But easy and fast are not the way to KEEP our democracy. Also, easy and fast will not create a memorable novel or text of any kind. My daughter reads Substack and urged me to join, write for them. I joined Medium, thinking my work is not UP to Substack. But you are lighting up the page. We cannot sit around and be easy anymore. No matter what we read, watch, take in…these changes are frightening. Now a favorite of mine on MSNBC has lost her spot. Is it because she is a women of color? And why this decision, why now? No matter where we read, we must remember: democracy matters. We must stay awake, fight for it.
Elizabeth Anne, I assure you that you will not be outclassed over at Substack. I’m on there, for instance, and my only regular readers are me and some guy in Florida. Think of Substack as a website of websites. You can write about whatever you wish. I would like to point out: 1) that there are few places where one can learn more about writing (and reading) than here at Writer Unboxed; 2) that Substack can suck up time the way Facebook once did; and 3) that democracy does matter, and it’s encouraging to me that people have figured out this *autogolpe* so quickly.
Thank you for a post so rich with starting points to travel in thought today, Elizabeth. To begin, I’ve already downloaded the novel Slowness from my library’s hoopla. It sounds like a match for my style and speed.
Language, I believe, is culture, not just reflecting but often dictating how we think and communicate. I appreciate your diving into one word that represents a start of these times. It deserves as much scrutiny as everything else.
It must be frustrating to have consumer-style students. I’m holding onto hope for a backlash wave that will slow everything down. There’s a grassroots call for a boycott in the US of purchasing anything on Feb 28th. Maybe that’s a start.
I will be thinking about this post for a long time. I love to read books that have, even if only a sentence here and there, that I read and reread, savoring a particular part of the book. I love to slow down while reading, recently, that’s often books I’ve already read. In this present era, I am greatly disturbed every day, and I think I’m presently rereading my favorite books because I love the word choices in them, the visuals they inspire in me, and do temporarily give my mind a break from what is happening to our once-beautiful nation. Our nation was never perfect, but the beauty was in how we always tried. It appears a segment of the population is tired of the trying and ready to turn over all possible difficult thought/decisions to a group of narcissistic predators. I have three degrees, partly because I just love education – it’s amazing how there are so many people, all with different ideas and viewpoints, and it expands our own to hear them. Your insights are amazing. I’ll be thinking about your words for a long time. Thank you for writing this post!!!
Thanks Elizabeth. I follow a number of substacks as well (Heather Cox Richardson is a daily must), in particular historian Timothy Snyder, author of “On Tyranny” (first selection in the defending democracy book group I’m leading at my local library), and Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family” and “The Undertow,” both of which explore the increasingly violent and power-obsessed elements of the religious right in the US. I recommended Sharlet’s substack on Bluesky a week or so ago, only to have a commentor respond: “Substack platforms homophobes and Nazis.” I have no idea how true that is, since I subscribe to neither, but …
Although I agree with much of what you said, I found myself at times wondering who exactly the “we” and “they” you were referring to might be. The terms seemed a little loose on deck. Because of that it felt impossible to weigh in any precise way just how severe or widespread the problems to which you refer might be. The sense is that those problems are ubiquitous, but I have no way of knowing that’s true given what you wrote. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong, I’m just can’t determine how right you are.
I feel about “self-coup” the way I feel about people mispronouncing words. One of my favorite sayings is, “Never criticize someone for mispronouncing a word. It means they learned it by reading.” I feel somewhat the same about “self-coup.” It’s likely used by people unfamiliar with the reality, because their political experiences are likely restricted to those in the US. January 6th was sui generis in the US at the time of its occurrence. Though it would be helpful if people were more widely read on world history and especially the US role in it, I’m not going to fault a potential ally because their word choice is imperfect.
I do agree that the speed of modern life is accelerating at a pace that is difficult to capture precisely because it’s, well, accelerating. And the amount of information at one’s disposal–from substack, for example–seems to be ever-expanding. There seems to be so much to know and learn and it just keeps coming. And that only underscores your point that slowing down is not just about velocity but mental, spiritual, physical–perhaps even political–health. I tend to read fiction late at night, when they carping demands of the day are more easily silenced. And I not only look forward to that time–I now recognize that I need it. As Barbara said in a different context, I need it to help keep me calm after reading other things. I also need it to go deeper, not just wider. And I do not want to disappear in the whirlwind.
Thank you for the thought-proving post.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for this impassioned, thought-provoking post. It’s the best piece I’ve read illustrating the relationship between literature, thought, and power. It’s a powerful reminder and inspiration for us writers, when we fall into complacency or discouragement, thinking our words have no lasting impact.
Thank you for this post, I deeply appreciate the reflection on this. The connection between “auto” and “self” is one I’ve looked into, since the root is in the word “autism” (part of who I am). Apparently it does come from the Greek “autos” for “self,” though it sounds like it’s taken on some more specific nuance in Spanish, especially in this insightful and interesting word “autogolpe.”
In “autism,” the “autos” root is applied to mean “isolation,” since people with the disorder are often shut away deep inside their own heads. This is partly because our pattern sensitivity can cause a seemingly chaotic environment to overwhelm us. Learning new patterns and expanding our sense of ourselves, others, and the world is a difficult process few people with my disorder actively pursue outside of narrow interests we find feel safe. Of course the neurology of autism proper has some unique aspects, but I find it interesting how this experience of chaos creating islands of isolation turns out to be a more and more universally human one the more I hear people talk about how our lives really are. Here’s to story, an art for helping bridge the gap.