Will the military, who swear an oath to the Constitution, the country, and the Commander in Chief, recognize and follow the rule of Law?

I'd like to think so.


Just for the record, in case folks don't already know, the Constitution is listed first in their oath:

He can't.

if the people who Trump is ordering to break the law decide not to comply with Trump's orders. Trump has surrounded himself with sycophants who seem to feel The Constitution is a quaint piece of paper that no longer applies to Donald Trump. I have zero confidence that anyone surrounding Trump will stand up to his dictatorial power play. This is just another brick in Trump's and the republicans' wall of their fascist coup. The takeover of the United States' government is almost complete. We are now in the grip of a fascist dictatorship in The United States of America. That IS NOT hyperbole.

We've seen cases in the past about officers refusing what they considered unlawful orders.
I would think the military knows their job

I have no faith in Milley. Esper is a military weapons lobbyist. It will be up to dedicated Pentagon and other military lawyers to push back on Trump.

They are RW thugs:

This is the last "test" for our country. If he succeeds in this, we could lose democracy. But hey, the markets up. Sarcasm....

You have a racist corrupt president using a church and a bible as a pr prop while demanding the military be used as a weapon against the American people protesting peacefully. He is doing this so when the people over the military refuse to do anything he wants , they will then face replacement to someone who will ignore the law, civil rights and justice for trump. He's done this with the AG position , the Treasury position , and others who will be as corrupt as trump demands they be . He wants the military to defend him is what this is really about , not defending the American people. When trump ends up in a corner from his corruption and crimes he's committed he wants the military to protect him, like he's done to members of Congress , protect me or i'll hurt you. I think he is also trying to corrupt the Supreme Court to do as he says or else, this is his pattern , and I suspect he's trying to call them and bribe or threaten them to protect him with their rulings , or else. He's following putins tactics to make the government his, not ours.

in transforming a democracy into a dictatorship. Putin is not just the pal who got him into the WH. Putin is his mentor. "Follow me, watch, and listen. I will show you how to do it."

In the end, they will join the ranks of wealthy, powerful, criminal dictators who run their nations and the world for themselves.

of carrying out illegal orders. The international trials at Nuremberg after WWII illuminated the consequences to soldiers who violated that principal.

Trump may be experimenting with the use of the insurrection laws to see how far he can go in unilaterally declaring an "insurrection."
Who knows, perhaps he can declare an "unfair election" as an insurrection and put the military into the streets in order to retain his power.

Perhaps Trump could even define a post like this as an "insurrection" and disappear the poster into the fog and night of a military prison.

If he declares "an 'unfair election' as an insurrection and puts the military into the streets in order to retain his power," we'll then know what the fabric of the country is truly made of. I think "we the people" would respond and looking at his current poll numbers, I don't think he'd have enough support to overturn an election.

I keep hearing talk of civil war but haven't a clue how that'd work since we're not as geographically divided as we were in 1861.

although there are some regions that are very red or blue. Not a war of secession, but a war of ideologies.

I could see it happening as rebellion against a declaration that the election was invalid. Or an uprising if he really did get the army or his militia thugs to fire on and arrest en masse the demonstrators. Think of places like Syria, where the war is against the leader and his allies rather than regions, although some regions have more fighting than others. Or like the American Revolution, when loyalists and patriots fought each other.

As was our Civil War. But how would those holding differences of opinions identify each other?

I live among wingers & for the most part, keep my mouth closed about politics, except when I put my Obama sign out. And yet, I don't think most of my neighbors would kill me. Most! It's a neighborly dog-walking community. We've dined at our neighbors' & even attended a b.d. party. Just don't think folks here would go kill each other.

Pulled a Tiananmen Square type treatment on the protesters at the WH? (For the record, even I don't think he would do that. This is just a hypothetical example.)

Riots would break out making the current ones look tame. Trump's militia thugs would come out of the woodwork, armed to the teeth, and attacking anyone in their path. The people being attacked would retaliate with anything they could get their hands on. Other citizens would come to their aid.

Already in some communities, there are people on rooftops with guns to protect businesses from vandalism because cops won't come near unless there is a fire during the riots.

Supremacists would make it a race war on minorities in general. There are several of those groups in every state, usually in rural areas. Any organization (e.g. churches and community centers) known to aid minorities or immigrants would become fair game for burning or shooting.

In the 1930's during the Depression, the nation was sharply divided between left and right, communists and socialists vs. fascists. White people resented any minority person or immigrant who had a job. Immigrants were beaten and run out of town. Klan membership and activities surged. Lynchings increased. People who intervened or tried to protect anyone got the same treatment.

That's how people fight against fellow citizens in a civil war over beliefs and ethnicities. It has happened in other countries. The Spanish civil war for example, was over politics. Each side (mostly one side, though) had its uniform, but civilians were dragged into the fight, too, and got killed, injured, had their homes burned, etc.

In small communities, people know each other. I have tutored adult immigrants and minority children. I have spoken to groups about immigrant rights. I have done paid and volunteer work in domestic violence situations. I have been involved in political protests. If the social fabric broke down to the point that gun-toting Magas felt free to attack "enemies" openly, I would become a target.

During the Bush Jr years, my car was attacked over a bumper sticker that praised the right to dissent. I was in the car at the time and spent an afternoon in the hospital with a concussion and bruises. I am white. So were the people who went after the car with me in it. I live in a blue state, but there are RW militias in rural areas outside of town.

That's how people fight each other in an ideological civil war. I can easily see Magas going after journalists, for example, if open violence broke out beyond the current demonstrations. Cops are already doing that.now -- arresting journalists and shooting rubber bullets directly at them.

But considering what happened with the Eddie Gallagher case, anyone committing war crimes in defense of Donald Trump has a reasonable expectation of a presidential pardon.