It has been a couple of weeks since Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, and different Democrats launched their outrageous video suggesting that members of the U.S. Military should refuse supposedly ‘illegal’ orders from President Trump. Individuals are nonetheless speaking about it as a result of now we have by no means actually seen something prefer it prior to now.
What the Democrats tried to do right here is fairly easy to know. They’re attempting to drive a wedge between our army and President Trump, the Commander in Chief. It’s the kind of factor that the CIA does throughout coloration revolutions in international international locations and Elissa Slotkin is former CIA.
One query about all of this that retains arising is that this: The place did this come from? Who got here up with this concept? It actually doesn’t appear to be one thing Democrats would simply provide you with out of skinny air.
Properly, right here is one doable reply to those questions.
A few month earlier than these Democrats launched their video, a By no means-Trump Republican named Tom Nichols wrote a column for The Atlantic which reads like a blueprint for this entire factor. Take a look at this:
The Civil-Navy Disaster Is Right here
To seize a democratic nation, authoritarians should management three sources of energy: the intelligence companies, the justice system, and the army. President Donald Trump and his circle of would-be autocrats have made speedy progress towards seizing these establishments and detaching them from the Structure and rule of legislation. The intelligence neighborhood has successfully been muzzled, and the nation’s prime legal professionals and cops are being purged and changed with loyalist hacks.
Solely the army stays outdoors Trump’s grip. Regardless of the firing of a number of prime officers—and Trump’s menace to fireside extra—the U.S. armed forces are nonetheless led by generals and admirals whose oath is to the Structure, not the commander in chief. However for the way lengthy?
To start with, what Nichols says right here is totally mistaken. The army isn’t outdoors of Trump’s grip. As President of the US, he’s the Commander in Chief. Now learn this subsequent half and particular consideration to the bolded ending:
Trump and his valet on the Protection Division, Secretary of Bodily Coaching Pete Hegseth, at the moment are making a devoted run at turning the women and men of the armed forces into Trump’s private and partisan military. In his first time period, Trump commonly violated the sacred American custom of the army’s political neutrality, however folks round him—together with retired and active-duty generals reminiscent of James Mattis, John Kelly, and Mark Milley—restrained a few of his worst impulses. Now nobody is left to cease him: The president realized from his first-term struggles and this time has surrounded himself with a Cupboard of sycophants and ideologues fairly than advisers, particularly these on the Pentagon. He has declared warfare on Chicago; known as Portland, Oregon, a “warfare zone”; and referred to his political opponents as “the enemy from inside.” Trump clearly desires to make use of army energy to exert extra management over the American folks, and shortly, prime U.S.-military commanders could must determine whether or not they may refuse such orders from the commander in chief. The best disaster of American civil-military relations in fashionable historical past is now below means.
The similarities listed here are simple. It appears to be like like somebody within the Democrat occasion learn this column and thought it could be an effective way to undermine Trump by attempting to plant seeds of dissent within the army.
In fact, it may simply be one nice large coincidence too. Anybody shopping for that?
In his subsequent column for The Atlantic, Nichols instructed that Mark Kelly ought to be the Secretary of Protection. Is that this additionally a coincidence?
The creator of the under “Atlantic” screed is Tom Nichols.
From 1997 to 2022, Nichols was everlasting school on the U.S. Naval Warfare School. He has by no means served within the army, however does have a number of levels from some ostensibly spectacular universities.
In case you had been questioning… pic.twitter.com/mvcigrWdAC
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) December 3, 2025
Republicans in Congress must look into this. There are just too many handy coincidences right here.
