If Esper was fired for not invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying active duty troops, is this a sign that Trump is thinking about attempting to use the military to defy the election results? i.e. is he trying to send a signal to the military that they need to obey him or be fired in a desperate bid to turn the United States into a banana republic in his image?
I doubt it, but I have wondered what he is capable of. When push comes to shove, the military is our last line of defense with regards to the rule of law.
The man is delusional if he thinks he has the backing of the top brass of the military and it’s a mixed bag with the common soldier. This is the man after all who called them ‘suckers & losers’.
Initially in 2017 they were happy as punch when he increased defense spending but soon realized he was bat-$hit crazy and had no respect for them whatsoever after Mattis, Tillerson and the generals tried to explain to him why overseas bases were a bargain in protecting the USA.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/10/21/inside-trumps-first-pentagon-briefing-229865
And it’s only gotten worse since then.
A great book came out at the beginning of this year,
A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, which goes into greater detail about Trump’s relationship with the military in the last 3 years. He called the generals, right to their face, ‘you're all a bunch of losers’ at one meeting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Very_Stable_Genius
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/19/a-very-stable-genius-review-donald-trump-leonnig-rucker-washington-post
What scares me right now is the gossip coming out of the White House and the Pentagon, after the Esper firing, that he wants to recall all the troops in the Middle East, Africa, etc., by Christmas, to bolster his legacy as he exits the scene of his crimes.
The financial cost, the logistics, the message to our allies, who will literally be left ‘holding the bag’ till Biden takes over, is incalculable, never mind the mischief our main enemies right now (North Korea, China, Russia & Iran) could seek to exploit. Hopefully it’s just that ... ‘gossip’.
As dangerous as he’s been to our republican democracy in the last 4 years, I fear he could be even more dangerous in the next 2 + months.
If this gossip is true, I think the military for the first time in US history, may outright ignore his orders, further straining the long observed civilian/military relationship in this country, where they have stayed apolitical since the Revolutionary War vs. England, the founding of our country and up until now.
