The U.S. Military prevented Trump from a totalitarian takeover of our nation. They are still in the process of doing so, but the greatest danger has been averted.
But how do I know this? I want to provide as much context as I can for how this military takeover was planned and how it was thwarted.
Let's begin with Trump's relationship with the military. First and foremost, he wanted, with a certain break in precedent, high-ranking military commanders (retired) in his Cabinet. To this end, he brought in James Mattis, the supremely respected four-star Marine Corps General, as well John Kelly as Chief of Staff, a former general. He kept talking about them as "his" generals, and claimed that the military was decimated before, and that he would make them very powerful again.
He wanted to be "the" military president. But it wasn't just about being the military president. He wanted the military to be as cruel as he was. And he wanted the military to be his possession.
Last year, he pardoned known war criminal Eddie Gallagher, among others, which shocked the military. Why did he do it? According to the Military Times:
"President Donald Trump on Friday granted clemency to three controversial military figures embroiled in charges of war crimes, arguing the moves will give troops “the confidence to fight” without worrying about potential legal overreach."
But who would these people be fighting? Not ISIS. President Erdogan of Turkey told Trump to leave Northern Syria and abandon the Kurds, a humiliating move for the military that triggered the resignation of General Mattis as Defense Secretary.
Some would be sent to Saudi Arabia as a favor to the cruel despot Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
But it looks like he wanted to encourage a culture in the military, so that the military would have a culture of cruelty, cruelty willing to be wielded against anybody - including, perhaps, us.
As time went on, he tried to gain more control of the military. Defense Secretary Esper turned out to be a pliant tool, and new Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley turned to be easily intimidated by Trump to do whatever he wanted.
That time, for them to do what Trump wanted, would come as crisis came to America. Crisis, in the form of Covid-19, has been a real problem for authoritarians around the world, killing their greatest supporters as well as their enemies alike. It makes them look weak, and they would rather hide the virus then admit to it and take care of everybody equally. If he had to take care of everybody, he would rather threaten the health of states who don't support him, taking away their medical equipment, to give to those who pledged their support.
But other kinds of crisis can be a healing balm to those kinds of people.
Crisis situations that involve law and order are the bread and butter of authoritarians. And after the murder of George Floyd was publicized, the opportunity was hot.
After being locked in for so long and suffering by the virus, and seeing such grave injustice as a representation of collective injustice, the American people, led by Black Lives Matter, broke out in massive demonstrations. Alongside these, came chaos. It is quite possible that alongside organic rioting came foreign help in organizing agitators and looters who, as in many authoritarian countries, come to scare civil society into shutting down the protest by any means necessary.
This was the main bet, that the American people would want these shut down by any means necessary. But instead, civil society underwent a transformation in consciousness, where looters and rioting became seen as secondary to the tragic nature of American society. If that had not been the case, the police and National Guard may not have been seen as enough. Of course, in many cases, the police were exposed in their systemic cruelty - but in that time of chaos, they were ready to create more in service of this greater vision of complete chaos, and then, power.
Chechnya and Tiananmen Square and the War on Terror were the recipe that was cooked up. In Chechnya, Putin blew up apartment buildings under the guise of terrorists, to instigate control and total oppression of the region. In China, Deng Xiaoping, brought in Chinese soldiers from other states to crush students they saw as enemies of the states, rolling tanks in the street to send a message. And the War on Terror became our method to designate terrorist groups and give them no rights and allow them to be crushed anywhere and everywhere.
Antifa, the non-existent organization, was going to be the label and justification to roll in the tanks across America. Bill Barr, the totalitarian Attorney General, who right now is commanding a private military that is stationed in DC with no IDs, labelled Antifa as the source of chaos, and designated them terrorists, giving the government carte blanche to attack anyone and everyone and murder them, given that Antifa could mean any enemy that a cruel solider or police officer wanted to target. And protesters were most definitely part of that dragnet - according to the opinion of Trump lawyer John Dowd, who Trump retweeted stating this opinion.
But they didn't know how far these demonstrations would go, and that maybe, they would in fact be physically threatening to the President. After some time, he went to his bunker, fearing the worst - the he had stirred the pot too much. He called Vladimir Putin, the architect of his safety for a plan; really, it was THE plan, but he needed to execute it before it was too late, before it was too much crisis.
He called the governors and told them that they had to be brutal to the protesters. Then, he demonstrated, with a pageant devised by Putin- his ever-present patron of extrajudicial assistance, to declare that he would send in troops whether the governors wanted it or not, declaring something very akin to martial law, marching across Lafayette Square proving the military was in his control and ready to be brutal to the whole nation, by having them charge against peaceful demonstrators, and standing in front of an Episcopal Church declaring himself the regent of God (this was a critical error due to the lack of translation of Russian cultural norms to American ones.)
And then he had Milley and Esper walk with him as he declared his junta. Alongside this, the New York Times allowed Senator Tom Cotton, the rumored replacement for the weak-willed Esper, to write a terrifying Op-Ed calling for "sending in the troops" and giving resistors "no quarter," a war crime.
But Milley and Esper couldn't give the orders. They did to an extent, bringing troops to DC, where there was more legal leverage. But beyond that, the military knew that the line was crossed. Trump, it was reported, had spoken not just of auxiliary forces assisting the National Guard, but tanks rolling down the streets of America.
The military was not ready to bow to the President's order for many reasons. First, the treatment of Captain Crozier, who was demoted by Trump after complaining of Covid aboard his ship, the subsequent outcry, the hugely insulting speech given by the then-Secretary of the Navy, had eroded confidence in the President among the rank and file. Second, the American people rose to the occasion, declaring that 74 percent of the country was in support of the protesters, perhaps completely out of the blue. This allowed the disturbed generals to justify their strong statements within and without the military to justify their loyalty to the Constitution, and not the President, on a moral, and not political basis.
General Mattis, perhaps the spiritual leader of the military, wrote a scathing attack on the President for being a threat to the Constitution. These were not empty words. He had committed to never speaking about a sitting President, but he had declared the President unconstitutional, which in the military context, means illegal. Though Secretary Barr was within his rights on textual grounds to allow for this takeover, Mattis declared this against the Constitution, and allowed for every prominent retired General and Admiral to do the same. The current military then echoed this in more muted terms - declaring the cause of the protests to be just and moral (not political), that the National Guard was adequate for the job, and that the Military would listen to only lawful orders. And judging by my reading of this situation, the rank and file heard this message loud and clear.
Lawful orders. But not unlawful orders. With this, Milley and Esper had to stand down. Esper, reversed course, but then reversed back, sending the troops out from DC. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser felt emboldened to try and expel federalized National Guard troops.
Mike Pence, Mike Mnuchin, and others, presumably locked out of these deliberations - (perhaps a transitional government in waiting after the 25th amendment’s potential invocation), suddenly returned after a month of being completely out of sight. Trump, who called on dominating the protests in his rambling, insane press conference, stopped short of saying the name of the army as the given force to “dominate the protests. (He, presumably, was no longer allowed to.) The FBI began arresting white nationalist instigators and terrorists, who had been primed to exploit the chaos, feeling ready to be off the leash. The totalitarians had finally been boxed out, at least for now.
Trump now has left Barr's Army, the hope for more chaos, and his MAGA army. For now he is back to his old Cabinet, showing everyone that he was beaten for now. But the ending is uncertain, hence the silence of Republican Senators, not knowing their future.
Chaos will reign, but the American people, as called upon by the Generals, Biden, and many others, have given the military to be on their side. We now see that opposition to vote-by-mail was not because of Covid denial, but because he plans election violence. But I have faith. We will win.
E Pluribus Unum
