Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 01:44 pm
Despite what everyone says about the certainty of Trump running in 2024, we should all be extremely wary. Under no circumstances was Trump ever going to give anyone any indication but that it was full speed ahead to 2024. Thus it is that we at this site suspect that the decision is far from made, if only because so much can change between now and then and because he needs to give every indication that he’s a president in waiting to keep as much power as possible and raise the maximum amount of money available.
But if he runs again, and loses again, we must get ready to go through all the same sh*t again, though perhaps worse. Because those “purple states” have remarkably red legislatures and they’ve made it far easier to toss elections over to the guy they want, rather than the one who had the most actual votes (It’s all in which votes are counted).
Some, retired members of the United States military believe that it should be ready and war-gamed out. According to U.S. Army Major General Paul Eaton, with 39% of the population (essentially the entire Republican party) rejecting the last election, the military must fully prepare itself beforehand. Speaking with NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly, Eaton stressed the need to start now.
“You may have heard of the Transition Integrity Project that occurred about six months before the last election, ‘
We played four scenarios. And what we did not play is a U.S. military compromised – not to the degree that the United States is compromised today, as far as 39% of the Republican Party refusing to accept President Biden as president – but a compromise nonetheless. So, we advocate that that particular scenario needs to be addressed in a future war game held well in advance of 2024.”
“I believe that we need to wargame the possibility of a problem and what we are going to do. The fact that we were caught completely unprepared – militarily, and from a policing function – on January 6, is incomprehensible to me. Civilian control of the military is sacrosanct in the U.S. and that is a position that we need to reinforce.”
Perhaps Eaton is too big a patriot to have said that civilian control on January 6th might have been precisely why the military was caught “completely unprepared.” It is possible that the unpreparedness was planned.
Eaton thinks that the possibility of military participation in a coup is unlikely, and we would agree if one only counted the officer corps. But if the “would be” Commander in Chief tells the very young and very inexperienced new soldiers that they’re ordered into the fight, it is hard for us to know whether they will listen to their wiser, more mature, non-coms and officers. It is also not self-evident that some of the MAGA loyalty goes awfully high up.
It likely is a good idea to get the military used to hearing that the Republicans won, “no matter what,” (because they will claim it if Trump has anything to do with anything) if for no other reason than the average soldier has heard all this before such that it was predicted and repetitive, which would perhaps take some of the persuasiveness out of the argument.
One thing is certain. Control of the military is control of the country. Thus, while the military is in Democratic hands, it should be drilled and drilled about a possible “next time.” A lack of preparation would be a dereliction of duty. We seriously doubt that they’ll be unprepared.
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