A New York Times story reports that Trump’s recent statements and actions have “caused deep anxiety among senior military and Defense Department leaders, who insist they will do all they can to keep the armed forces out of the elections.”
The Times goes on to say,
Several Pentagon officials said there could be resignations among many of Mr. Trump’s senior generals, starting at the top with General Milley, should troops be ordered into the streets at the time of the election.
The estimable Lawrence Tribe says about this notion that the generals would refuse to carry out such improper orders, “We’ll have to see.”
But while Tribe wonders if they’d follow through with such resignation, the more important point — and I’m not the first to say this, but it’s worth having it said repeatedly — is that the generals’ resigning in the event Trump attempts to use the military to pull of a coup d’etat is not good enough.
With the stakes this high, it won’t do for Trump to be able to do what Nixon did with his Saturday Night Massacre— i.e. wait through a series of resignations (like AG Richardson, followed by William Ruckelshaus who resigned rather than obey Nixon’s order to fire the Special Prosecutor) until someone rises through the wreckage (like Robert Bork, who did the firing).
What matters is not the honor of the Secretary of Defense or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What matters if the survival of American democracy.
Rather than resign, these officials should stand their ground, maintain their positions, and publicly refuse to obey an unlawful order issued in an attempt to effect a coup.
They took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution against enemies foreign and domestic. And refusal to abet an overthrow of our constitutional election process fails to provide the protection the nation needs.