The prevailing portrayal of the 2024 self-coup in South Korea—marked by President Yoon Suk-yeol’s imposition of martial law—as either a byproduct of strong presidentialism or as Yoon’s opportunistic exploitation of concurrent crises to consolidate power lacks a deeper historical understanding of the self-coup. Alternatively, this study situates the self-coup within the broader historical trajectory of Korea’s distinctive democratic model, “democracy through strength.” Drawing on Karl Polanyi’s framework, which contemplates fascist transitions as reactions of privileged elites to working-class mobilization, this study contends that the self-coup represents the culmination of the political violence employed by conservative elites to resolve a legitimacy crisis following the so-called 2016 Candlelight Revolution. This crisis catalyzed three new ideational currents: (1) systematic efforts by the conservative People Power Party to subvert the legacy of the preceding Democratic Party government; (2) the push for social demobilization by so-called republican politicians and activists who conflate civil activism with populism; and (3) the rise of hyperlegalism among political prosecutors who frame legal punishment as a cure for political and social disorder. These currents converged in the Yoon administration’s escalating use of political violence, ultimately crystallizing in the self-coup and triggering broader reactionary mobilization from below.