Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Is a Coup Coming?

I've read a fair number of pieces -- and I'd call them "alarmist", except I don't think they're wrong to raise the alarm -- that the Republican Party is laying the foundation to simply not accept a Democratic victory in 2024. "Stop the steal" becomes "steal it back", if you will. Certainly, the defenestration of Liz Cheney is part of this dynamic. The branches of the GOP which are even nominally supportive of democracy in America grow more brittle every day.

But meanwhile, Politico is observing goings-on amongst retired military officials, and there's some cause for concern there too:
A day after 124 retired generals and admirals released a letter spreading the lie that President Joe Biden stole the election, current and former military officers are speaking out, calling the missive a dangerous news sign of the military being dragged into the trenches of partisan warfare.

The open letter on Monday from a group calling itself Flag Officers 4 America advanced the false conspiracy theory that the presidential vote was rigged in Biden's favor and warned that the nation is "in deep peril" from "a full-blown assault on our Constitutional rights."

The good news, such as it is, is that most of the flag officers are below three stars (and no four stars) -- not the heaviest hitters. The bad news, well, I'll kick it over to Peter Seaver (formerly on the NSC in the Clinton and Bush administrations) for the bad news:

Every military that coups or threatens to coup constructs a narrative in which the military is acting to save the country from something worse than military rule. Clearly the authors are attempting to write that narrative.

Not good. Not good at all.

Also, I'll just note that Thomas Sowell was flirting with supporting military coups to keep Democrats out of power since 2008. So this rot, while no doubt accelerated by Trump, did not begin with him. It has been percolating in conservative circles for awhile.

2 comments:

ZapPow said...

Same thing in France. More or less. 20 retired generals have written a letter to the government, explaining that the country is in dire straits, because of no-go zones (I'm not sure they exist), of modern antiracism, of post colonialism, gender studies, and some other things more or less real terrifying the extreme-right wing. It was followed by another by others in the active military, both letters claiming the army would step up if the government didn't do anything agains the forces destroying France. The letter were received with great applause from Marine Le Pen, and from the cable TV channels, especially one named CNews, a sort of Fox News, property of a very catholic, very right-wing, and very odious billionaire, all of those channels routinely organizing "debates" with only right wingers, all agreeing with each other, or very few opponents (one had 13 right wingers and one left winger).

France is going by the sewer. And Macron has a bing part in it, constantly appealing to the extreme-right, and appeasing said extreme-right (one of his minister, the equivalent of the Secretary to the Interior, even declared to Marine Le Pen that she was too soft.

Matthew Saroff said...

Why we should bring back the draft.

It will lead to officers like this getting fragged.