Fmr. Naval professor: Trump seeks 'authoritarian control' of military to 'put down opposition'

08 December 2023

A former instructor of senior US military leaders is warning that if elected to a second term, former President Donald Trump would effectively "break the military" by forcing service members to obey him rather than the US Constitution.

In a recent essay in The Atlantic, Tom Nichols — a former professor at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island — said the ex-president would "attempt to gain authoritarian control of the Defense Department’s uppermost levels from the very beginning" of a second term by appointing "cranks and flunkies" like former Gen. Michael Flynn to key positions. Nichols warned that Trump would "exploit an unfortunate vulnerability in the modern American armed forces" in capitalizing on the lack of political literacy among rank-and-file service members to get them to carry out "illegal orders."

One example Nichols gave was Trump's stated plans to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would deputize the military to act as a separate police force to quell protests. Should officers resist these orders, Nichols said they could be "dismissed or reassigned," which could "provoke a political confrontation between the Trump loyalists in the high command and the rest of the armed forces, itself a frightening and previously unthinkable prospect."

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"And if Trump succeeds in simultaneously capturing the U.S. military while gutting the other key institutions that protect democracy—especially the courts and the Justice Department—nothing will stop him from using force to put down opposition and stay in power," Nichols wrote.

According to Nichols, the biggest obstacle Trump faced in carrying out his most authoritarian plans was the leadership of the US military, which Nichols said was made up of "professionals and patriots." However, he said the former president wouldn't "make the same mistake twice" in a second term, and would make sure that those appointed to the highest military positions would be ardent loyalists who would prioritize Trump's authority as Commander-in-Chief over their sworn oaths to obey the Constitution. He also warned that Trump could circumvent Senate confirmation by rotating loyalists in and out of "acting" positions.

"Trump installed Anthony Tata—a retired one-star Army general who has claimed that Barack Obama is a Muslim and that a former CIA director was trying to have Trump assassinated—in the third-most-senior job at the Pentagon," Nichols wrote. "A few months earlier, the Senate had wisely declined to confirm Tata’s appointment to that position, but in November, Trump gave him the job in an acting capacity anyway."

Nichols also emphasized that Trump's "Schedule F" executive order – which replaces tens of thousands of career civil service employees who can't be fired on a whim with political appointees — would have far-reaching implications for the military. He wrote that these loyalists "would accept his offer to abandon their oath."

"Together, they would make a run at changing the nature of the armed forces," Nichols wrote.

Click here to read Nichols' full essay.

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