A Quiet Coup d'état
"'This is the Reichstag moment,'" General Milley told aides.' . . . A student of history, Milley saw Trump as a classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose."
Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker, in I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump's Catastrophic Final Year.
I take little comfort in learning that the nation's top military official had arranged to confound the Commander in Chief.
This week saw the release of several books with detailed inside looks at the final months of the Trump presidency. Each book gives well-sourced reports that Trump was desperate to void the 2020 election and retain the presidency. This was not just show-boating. He genuinely tried to use every lever of power to stop Biden from taking office. He lobbied local and state officials to ignore the vote in their jurisdictions; he implored Congress to over-ride the vote; he expected the Supreme Court to declare votes for Biden uncountable; he demanded the Vice President void votes.
It didn't happen.
The books cite people who stood in the way of Trump. These include Michael Pence, who refused to void Biden's electoral votes and refused the Secret Service's urging to leave the Capitol and delay the process. It includes Mitch McConnell, who urged Senate colleagues to accept the election results. It includes AG Bill Barr, who told Trump the "rigged election" lie was "bullshit."
It also included the military. The military feared it was being set up to be used in a coup d'état and took steps to distance themselves from Trump.
Leonnig and Rucker's book report a conversation between Nancy Pelosi and General Mark Milley. Neither raise objections to what they report. Pelosi, who was taken to the safety of an Air Force base to shelter during the insurrection, expressed concern that Trump, in desperation, would use the military to secure his hold on the presidency. Michael Flynn and others had publicly urged Trump to declare martial law and use it as an excuse to delay the election. Trump has openly wondered if that was possible. Meanwhile, a riot was happening at the Capitol and Trump was slow to stop it. Might Trump allow--or create--a state of emergency that would justify extra-Constitutional acts? They report this dialog:
"Ma'am, I guarantee you these processes are very good," Milley reassured her. "There's not going to be an accidental firing of nuclear weapons."
"How can you guarantee me?" Pelosi asked.
"Ma'am, there's a process," he said. "We will only follow legal orders. We'll only do things that are legal, ethical, and moral.”
In the context of these books, the military is positioned as heroic. They stood by the Constitution. They refused to be used. I am happy they played that role, but I am also troubled by it. The people empowered by the Constitution to put a brake on an out-of-control president are Members of Congress, not the military. Representatives and Senators have powers of checks and balances: The power of the purse; the power of impeachment and removal; the power of oversight; and the power to write laws and pass them with majorities that over-ride a veto. Those are the Constitutional ways of protecting Americans from tyranny.
Congress failed Americans. They failed to pit ambition against ambition. They acted like partisans on a team. Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsay Graham, even Bill Barr objected to Trump in the moment, but now have faded away in silence as Trump continues to assert the election was rigged and the presidency legitimately his.
The Congress has license to do this because there was a backstop. We did not have a visible military coup d'état. The public did not see troops in the street and a president standing in front of generals and tanks, saying that he is staying in power to protect Americans from chaos.
We did not have a military coup d'état on behalf of Trump. We had one in defiance of him. This sets bad precedents. The president attempted--and still attempts--to overthrow an election and it can be done without offending a political party's members. Officeholders have license to play political messaging games, to protect themselves from a primary. What's the big harm? It all worked out. The military wouldn't let itself be used.
That is dangerous thinking. General Milley saying that they have taken secret unilateral steps to confound a president should be alarming, not comforting. The authors of the Constitution knew full well that militaries are a dangerous repository for democratic values. Military culture supports order and obedience--an ideal environment for tyrants.
Worse, by giving the apparent safety-net of a military that would confound a president, we relieve the Congress of doing its duty. Mitch McConnell, after having publicly announced that Trump is dishonest in saying the election was rigged and that Trump unquestionably incited a riot to overturn the election, still goes on to announce that if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee in 2024, that of course he will support him wholeheartedly.
Just another illustration of how Trump gets mud on everybody that comes near him. That said, the US military is only required to obey lawful orders. I'm thankful they thoughtfully prepared themselves.