All of this comes against a background of debacles like the botched ObamaCare rollout, the mistranslated “reset” button with Russia, a Secret Service that can’t seem to hang on to its guns, to keep its agents sober or to keep intruders out of the White House, an EPA that didn’t report the water problems in Flint, Mich., and a seemingly endless array of similar screwups. When they’re not crooks, our leaders all too often seem to be incompetents.

If this were just one-sided anger at the Obama Administration, then it would be troubling, but not dangerous. But if, as seems plausible, a majority of Americans don’t think a Republican administration would represent a substantial improvement, then we’ve got a bigger problem. If voters think that they can’t vote their way out of a problem, then they may look to other solutions.

A much-hyped YouGov poll from last fall found that 29% of Americans could imagine supporting a military coup. That poll probably overstated popular support — it didn’t ask if people favored a coup right now, just whether they could imagine supporting one, including in the instance of the government violating the Constitution — but there was also this, as Newser reported: “Some 71% said military officers put the interests of the country ahead of their own interests, while just 12% thought the same about members of Congress.“