Last week, political candidate Donald Trump announced, then doubled down, that he would use the military against political opponents.
Republicans are split between opposing his plan while others are trying to once again explain away or are hoping to rationalize or deflect his words. But make no mistake, this abuse of the military would destroy our Constitution and our country.
“In a weekend interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, Trump made an ominous threat to use the military against his critics and intervene in the election, claiming that they are a bigger threat than migrants,” according to a New Republic article posted on Yahoo.
Immediately, some Republicans rushed in to defend him, according to The New Republic, also retrieved from Yahoo.
“Even Donald Trump’s MAGA allies are in disbelief over the Republican presidential nominee’s recent comments. Several leading Republicans have outright refused to acknowledge that direct quotes from Trump’s weekend interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo were actually what he said. Speaking with CNN Tuesday morning, Florida Representative Mike Waltz dismissed the idea that Trump had used such language, claiming that it was instead the network’s attempt at ‘connecting some dots.'”
Some claimed he wanted to deploy the military to protect the election. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin claimed what Trump really meant that he would use the military to defend the border. When showed the words Trump weren’t about the border, Youngkin said he “can’t speak” for Trump. Instead, Youngkin said, he believes the CNN anchor misinterpreted the former president’s rhetoric and was “misrepresenting his thoughts,” according to The Hill.
Then Trump gave the chilling truth of who he really wants to use the military against: political opponents, in that New Republic article. “At a Fox News town hall on women’s issues in Georgia taped Tuesday evening, Donald Trump spoke further of the “enemy within” that he wants to use the military against, specifically naming Democratic Representative Adam Schiff as well as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her family. ‘It is the enemy from within. And they’re very dangerous. They’re marxists and they’re communists and they’re fascists and they’re sick.’ Trump said to Fox’s Harris Faulker. ‘I use a guy like Adam Schiff. They made up the Russia Russia Russia hoax.” Trump went on to claim that enemies like Russia and China could be handled, but the Democrats were a different story. “
“‘The more difficult are, you know, the Pelosis, these people, they’re so sick and they’re so evil’… He added ‘They’re the threat to democracy.’
He then doubled down on his words, claiming he was actually “being nice.”
Trump’s Defense Secretary Mark Esper and confirmed Trump’s desire to use troops against fellow Americans, according to The Hill, with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Miley claiming Trump is “fascist to the core.”
While some Republicans have actually embraced Trump’s words, many alarmed Republican legislators have pushed against such statements, or hoping that Washington would stop Trump from doing so. Given Trump’s desire to break up Washington, that’s unlikely to happen.
For years, Trump has said exactly what he meant, while others in his party have tried to say they didn’t see his quotes in the news, that Trump didn’t mean it, that he was misquoted, that he wasn’t an experienced politician and simply misspoke, that he’s just playing to the crowd, that he’s only joking, or don’t worry: someone in Washington DC, like his Vice-President, his Cabinet, or our military wouldn’t let him do an authoritarian takeover of America.
We know how that turned out on January 6, 2021.
If this is what people vote for, this is what exactly what our country will receive. Later, people might say “But I didn’t think he would really do that, or he would go that far.”
He told us exactly what he has planned. It is everything our Founding Fathers and Constitution stand against.