Did this really just happen?

[_Jersey Girl]

We were all mistaken apparently. Trump was in the bunker all night for an "inspection" he says.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/Trump-bu ... tUcX6cwVIo

Glad that's all cleared up now.

Did you know the bunker goes 5 stories underground?

[_EAllusion]

Watching the battle to compromise the political independence of the military play out in real time, I gotta say I'm a little less confident that Trump could simply refuse to leave office than I once was. I am even more confident that this country is unlikely to survive his reelection (and I continue to have some concern it did not survive his first).

[_Jersey Girl]

Watching the battle to compromise the political independence of the military play out in real time, I gotta say I'm a little less confident that Trump could simply refuse to leave office than I once was. I am even more confident that this country is unlikely to survive his reelection (and I continue to have some concern it did not survive his first).

Can you explain the connection between the military and Trump refusing to leave office? I'm not at all certain what you mean.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Jersey Girl,

The fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, stood by and watched Trump gas Americans for a photo op, and then join in on it, is something I don’t have words for. Add that to his silence while Trump threatens Americans with the military’s unlimited powers makes you wonder if he swore an oath to Trump or to the Constitution. He should resign.

- Doc

[_Jersey Girl]

Jersey Girl,

The fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark A. Milley, stood by and watched Trump gas Americans for a photo op, and then join in on it, is something I don’t have words for. Add that to his silence while Trump threatens Americans with the military’s unlimited powers makes you wonder if he swore an oath to Trump or to the Constitution. He should resign.

- Doc

Agree that he should resign. The whole place is full of rat bastards. Flush 'em out, I say. Exploiting the US military and compromising/perverting their relationship with the American public? That pisses me off in a way that I can't describe.

[_EAllusion]

Watching the battle to compromise the political independence of the military play out in real time, I gotta say I'm a little less confident that Trump could simply refuse to leave office than I once was. I am even more confident that this country is unlikely to survive his reelection (and I continue to have some concern it did not survive his first).

Can you explain the connection between the military and Trump refusing to leave office? I'm not at all certain what you mean.

People who are are worried that Trump will not leave office even if he loses an election are correct that this autocratic nature might make him want to try that gambit, but are naïve about the lack of mechanism to make that happen. It doesn't matter what Trump might want to do if there's no institutional path for him to do it. Or so my and a lot of people's thinking goes. He can't just squat in the Whitehouse and proclaim himself President. Presidential authority flows from who the government treats as the legal authority. By what mechanism can Trump usurp lawful recognition of his defeat and Biden assuming his authorities throughout the federal government? Trump has managed to purge a lot of the leadership in the executive branch and replace it with amoral apparatchiks whose loyalty is to Republican power in general and him specifically, so they might go along, but what's to make the rank and file listen to them? Biden takes over and they will just ignore Trump's people if it comes to that.

You can imagine a scenario in which Trump declares the election fraudulent by lying about voter fraud and insists he has actually won. In a close election, I'd be surprised if he didn't do that. You can imagine Republicans backing him in the Senate and even some courts. But he's unlikely, at this point, to win a Supreme Court case over lies, so it does not matter. But if the leadership of the military is compromised by Trumpists, then it could very much matter. If the military continues to take orders from him in the lame duck session in such a way that he subverts transition of power, that's ballgame. I don't think it's likely, but I've upgraded my position from "seems really unlikely to possible enough to be worth keeping an eye on, but still not terribly likely."

What made me change my stance is watching military leadership, right now, try to thread the needle on only giving in a little on the prospect of following illegal orders to avoid deeper purges replacing them with people who definitely will. I've said this a lot over the past couple of years, but when these kind of stories play out in other countries, we don't have any trouble seeing where it is heading.

[_honorentheos]

The US military leadership has an ingrained understanding that civilian politicians are at its head, so they are supposed to advise behind closed doors but be good soldiers in public. It's part of what led us into Iraq in 2003 as faqs has been so kind to remind us.

So on the one hand I think that is part of the mechanism that makes Trump's ability to reject the results of an election unlikely to hinge on military leadership support. Once Biden is sworn in, he's their new civilian commander in chief. I tend to believe that would Trump Trump.

But it makes what we are currently seeing all the more tough knowing there are limits to how far any of the brass is likely to push back. I suspect the line Trump would need to cross for the military to risk being viewed as orchestrating a coup is well past the point most of us would expect open resistance.

[_EAllusion]

There are Trumpists in the military. It's a race against the clock to see how effective Trump's subordinates are at working them into key leadership positions as has happened at varying paces in every facet of the executive branch.

[_honorentheos]

While I'm sure that's true, a career senior officer in 2020 has a deep and complex network of loyalties within the organizations that, for better or worse, define their identities. Trumpists or not, they're almost guaranteed to be many other things first. I've known a few from back when. It's a certain kind of person who puts on stars every morning.

[_EAllusion]

While I'm sure that's true, a career senior officer in 2020 has a deep and complex network of loyalties within the organizations that, for better or worse, define their identities. Trumpists or not, they're almost guaranteed to be many other things first. I've known a few from back when. It's a certain kind of person who puts on stars every morning.

The same could be said of any other number of civil service organizations and yet, *taps nose*.