Assessing Trump's Nightmare Presidency

[lpetrich]

Updating Authoritarian Nightmare – The Authoritarians - October 8, 2020

Referring to the book that BA wrote with John W. Dean: "Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers"

As well, Donald Trump keeps doing things that test the durability and depth of my explanation. For example, on that late-June day when we put the book “to bed,” Trump reprised his absurd impersonation of someone who cares about the law and issued an executive order promising severe punishment for defacing public statues and monuments. The following day he laid down a Tweet bombardment aimed at Obamacare and the mainstream media. The next day he (falsely) insisted no one had told him Russia was paying Taliban fighters a bounty for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan.

"Then we’ll face the dark, dark problem of what might happen after November 3rd." - we have now seen it.

BA then compares his book to four then-recent books.

Mary L Trump’s Book, Too Much and Never Enough

Mary L. Trump thinks the president’s admiration of dictators and his obsequious desire to be their friend—as well as his own powerful dictatorial impulses—are based upon this searing experience with the dominating authoritarian in his life, his father.

...
Mary Trump’s book also offers insight into the president’s lack of empathy for anybody, including the people whose suffering he has directly caused. ... Donald Trump grew up unloved and quite unprepared to love others. He tried to solve the first problem with narcissism. There is no evidence he ever tried to solve, or even was bothered, by the second.

One wonders why the other Trump children so uniformly and quietly went along with the Trump Family Plan to dishonestly accumulate mountains of wealth. The same question arose when their father set out to destroy Freddy, one of their own. The simple answer according to Mary L.’s book: They all had too much to gain by playing along.

That can also explain why many anti-Trump politicians became belligerent Trumpies.

 

[lpetrich]

John Bolton’s Book, The Room Where It Happened

The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton provides greater insight into Donald Trump’s presidency than any of the other tomes sitting on my “Trump shelf,” because of its breadth, depth, and detail. It is also fun to read, whether you agree with Bolton’s realpolitik or not, if you like quippy narratives. (Some people, unaccountably, do not.) (I am told.) (Often.) The White House fought hard to suppress his book too, saying it endangered national security. It’s much easier to see that it endangers the president’s security, as it exposes him as being the greatest threat to America’s welfare in foreign relations.

... I also hypothesized that his insatiable drive for adulation sprang from deep self-doubts about his abilities that constantly hammered his sense of worth, interrupted his thinking, and hijacked his decision-making.

Take Trump’s competence. Bolton didn’t have enough twine to plumb the president’s ignorance. The president did not know Britain had nuclear weapons. He thought Finland was a part of Russia. He did not realize Afghanistan was next to Pakistan and it provided a haven for the Taliban. He did not think Japan was threatened by North Korea’s short-range missiles. He unwittingly confessed to his unpreparedness for the office by commenting that while other presidents had refrained from talking about money with foreign leaders, “that’s all I know how to talk about” (p. 295). And even there, as Bolton makes clear, Trump had no understanding of trade deficits and why America might wisely foot the bill for maintaining troops in certain nations because its enemies would gladly take its place.

I don't see how Mitch McConnell can put up with him. MMC allegedly considers Trump "nuts" and less intelligent than him. Yet MMC has bailed him out no less than three times, first on the two impeachments and then on the proposed Jan. 6 commission. MMC could easily have whipped the votes for impeaching him, but he didn't.

Trump tried to cover being way, way out of his depth by presenting a public face of firm resolve and fixed purpose (“Make America Great Again”). But Bolton found that both resolve and purpose were sham. No decision reached in “the room where it happened” was final. Aides who lost arguments to other advisors in the Oval Office simply booked another appointment with the president and changed his mind.

With Trump having no idea of what was going on, it seems.

Bolton says Trump’s Twitter Flitters in foreign affairs can be traced not only to his cavernous ignorance but also to his lack of principles to guide him. Bolton dreaded the one-on-one meetings with foreign leaders that Trump craved because he feared Trump would give away the farm for a bowl of porridge. Far from being a brilliant negotiator, Trump proved enormously incompetent when dealing with America’s adversaries. Giving him a big parade and a compelling photo op mattered more to him than the negotiating points his advisors had prepared. Any decision that brought him short-term glory was the right one, in Trump’s mind. Always concerned with his image, appearance mattered most.

As for making America great again, Bolton soon realized the force driving Trump’s foreign policy was “Get me elected again.” Trump’s constant goal was to do things that would make him look good so he would have a “gimmie” in 2020—even if it hurt America’s allies or the United States itself.

Like with North Korea. "Kim gladly accepted the courtship and the two exchanged syrupy, fawning letters. Kim especially gushed, playing chump Trump the way a con man seduces a sucker to play Three Card Monte."

The most blatant example of Trump betraying America’s interests for his personal gain occurred in June 2019 at the G20 meetings, when he astounded people sitting on both sides of a China-USA negotiating table by “pleading with (President) Xi to insure Trump would win” the upcoming election by buying more soybeans and wheat (p. 301). ...

In case anyone has forgotten, the next month Trump made a telephone call to the president of Ukraine asking for “dirt” on Joe Biden. He would howl and howl that this had nothing to do with the coming election, and Republicans in Congress bayed right along.

 

[lpetrich]

"So many former aides have said that it is impossible to keep Trump focused on an issue, it seems clear that something is fundamentally wrong with his cognitive processes."

Then when he got a cognitive-assessment test, he bragged about how he got a perfect score in a supposedly hard test. I looked at it, and it looks rather easy to me.

How can people work for someone like Trump? John Bolton resigned as National Security Advisor in September 2019 because he found it impossible to maintain coherent policies when Trump kept changing his mind, undercutting him, and blaming him (Bolton) for his (Trump’s) own bad calls.

Many other people have left for similar people, yet some people have stayed on. Do they believe that Trump is a great leader? Or do they do it because it's good for their careers?

Bob Woodward’s Book, Rage

Rage turned the COVID-19 story upside down when it reported Trump’s recorded declaration on March 19, 2020 that he had known from the start that a pandemic was going to savage America, but he publicly denied it for months, he said, to prevent panic.

That seemed plausible to many people. Yet there is another explanation.

The “prevent panic” excuse was actually less damaging to Trump than the truth, which was that he had ignored a whole bucket of warnings for weeks about what was going to happen. He not only kept denying the “building” was on fire, he just let it burn away. And when the fire department came to the door, he sent it away.

He must have gotten word of a terrible disease that was spreading in China. But he ignored it.

So on January 18 the CDC instituted screening of all air passengers arriving from Wuhan in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. On this same day the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, telephoned Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to explain how serious a threat the disease posed to the United States. Trump however proved uninterested and changed the subject.

He continued to be dismissive as it spread in the US. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” and “It will work out well.” and “We have very little problem (with the virus) in this country, at this moment—five. And those people are all recuperating successfully. But we’re working very closely with China and other countries, and we think it’s going to have a very good ending for it, so that I can assure you.”

I think instead that the “candid admission” to Woodward of lying about the danger from the start was just the best lie that Trump could hit upon to cloak his real motivation, which was even more damning, namely to keep the road to his re-election smooth and straight. He had planned from Day One to run on a flourishing national economy, and here his medical advisors were talking closures, quarantines, and self-isolations that would slow everything down to a crawl, and drive the re-election bus into the ditch. So he decided instead to tell the American people they were perfectly safe and life should continue as usual. As the infection spread and began overwhelming the healthcare system, he retreated to saying “Never mind, the virus will disappear once the weather warms up,” which he probably got from some fringe news source.

 

[lpetrich]

Woodward also provides numerous examples of how Trump refuses to face reality when the news is bad. In person-to-person settings, he immediately swings the conversation to a different, self-aggrandizing topic (which usually, the fact-checking Woodward makes clear, is much less glorious than Trump’s account). And he will not, no matter what you do, deal with the issue at hand.

Michael Cohen’s Book, Disloyal

Michael Cohen’s book, like my co-author John W. Dean’s Blind Ambition, explains with searing self-recrimination how he became corrupted by working for a powerful man. Except unlike John, who was maneuvered into a conspiracy that he courageously tried to end in situ, Cohen reveals he was looking to be corrupted and leapt at the chance. As a result, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for campaign finance violations, tax evasion, and lying to a Senate committee. He wrote Disloyal while in jail.

The book contains some salacious revelations about Trump and some of his close associates, which are branded as lies by the president’s defenders who ask, “Why should anybody believe a convicted liar?” I tend to hesitate about Cohen’s obviously self-serving stories, but I also know that the only people who can reveal conspiracies and organized criminal activities from “the inside” will likely be conspirators and criminals themselves. So you cannot ignore them if you want to ever find out the truth.

How much does Trump believe his lies? "Cohen provides a compelling example of how Trump comes to believe his lies." MC then discusses how Trump came to believe in birtherism, by repeating it over and over and over again.

Then when Trump got outraged at a poll that showed him 187 out of 200 of influential business leaders. Then he hired a company that does “Internet reputational management.” That company then hired lots of fake voters to bump up Trump's score, putting him into 9th place. "CNBC discovered the cheating and removed Trump from the list, which infuriated him because by then he really believed he had legitimately come in ninth (pp. 193-197)."

Toward the end of Disloyal, Cohen elaborates on the role other people play in Trump’s self-delusion. “No one ever tells Trump the truth about his behavior or beliefs, or the consequences of his conduct and ignorance and arrogance, in business or in his personal life and now in politics. Trump truly is the boy in the bubble, imperious to the thoughts and feelings of others, entirely and utterly focused on his own desires and ambitions” (p. 221).

...
“He projects his own sins and crimes onto others partly to distract and confuse, but mostly because he thinks everyone is as corrupt and shameless and ruthless as he is” (p. 21).

...
Donald Trump has a very low regard for his son, Donald Trump, Jr. Cohen quotes the president as saying, “Don has the worst fucking judgment of anyone I have ever met” (p. 37). He repeated the criticism before others on various occasions, humiliating his namesake (p. 97). Cohen wondered why Don Jr. stayed around. But the son told him that when he was in his twenties his father told him he had to join the family business and work for him, or else he’d be disowned and disinherited (pp. 97-98).

“Trump didn’t take setbacks well, to put it mildly, his form of leadership revolved around anger, fury, rage, and always chaotic blaming and shaming” (p. 100).

 

[lpetrich]

Donald Trump seems to have an irrational hatred for John McCain and Barack Obama. Michael Cohen: “There were really no words to describe Trump’s hatred and contempt for Barack Hussein (emphasis Trump’s) Obama”

MC suggests that a big part of it was Obama's successes: “Watching Obama’s Inauguration in 2008 with Trump, with the massive, adoring, joyful crowd on the Mall, incensed the Boss in a way I’d never seen before—he was literally losing his mind watching a handsome and self-evidently brilliant young black man take over, not only as Commander in Chief, but also as a moral world leader and guiding light. It was just too much for Trump. I thought I’d seen the worst of Trump, but when Obama won the Nobel Prize, Trump went ballistic…it was almost like he was hearing voices the way he ranted and raved."

I don't think that Obama was that successful, but he was very loved, at least in 2008. Given Trump's narcissism, it must hurt a lot to see some competitor receive the love that he craves and that he feels so entitled to.

In fact, MC thinks that Obama is “the only person on the planet whom Trump actually envied.”

“My role as Trump’s personal attorney was essentially managing chaos, as he was always, always, always enveloped by crisis and teetering on the brink of disaster,” he wrote. He'd never get Trump's version of events about things that Trump wished to cover up, like his high-school and college grades.

“Trump wasn’t really the man advertised in The Art of the Deal. To start with, after 2008 and the free fall in value of his various real estate holdings, including Trump Tower and his golf courses, he effectively dropped out of the building business.” Meaning that he wasn't a very successful businessman, despite the image that he projects that he is a great hero of a business leader. But it's nice to get it from someone who was close to him from many years, someone who worked for him and who had to be involved in his real-estate dealings. Including upvaluing his assets for insurance and loan purposes and downvaluing them for tax purposes.

 

[lpetrich]

When he tested the waters for a presidential run in 2012 he invited over fifty religious leaders to Trump Tower, where he lied up one street and down another about his views on abortion (he had been pro-Choice for years), homosexuality (some of his best friends…), family values (love, acceptance, support—what have they got to do with having a family?), and so on. “As the evangelicals inhaled Trump’s…horse shit, they solemnly asked to approach him to ‘lay hands’ on him…He closed his eyes, faking piety, and gave the appearance of feeling God’s presence” (p. 127). Later Trump said to Cohen, “Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?” (p. 133).

Yet the Religious Right adores him. Some RR people even call him a sort of messiah, a great leader sent by God himself. They make excuses for his misconduct, comparing him to King David in the Bible.

Early in his campaign, Trump made some attacks on Mexicans and Muslims and the like, attacks that provoked a big backlash. Trump's family got MC to beg him to quit. He responded “’I will never get the Hispanic vote,’ Trump said. ‘Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump.’”

MC: “Trump never prepares for anything, ever. Reading reports, taking briefings, seeking context and background for professional encounters—Trump does none of that, trusting that he can fake his way through life. More than that, he preferred to be ignorant, as it allowed him to rely on his gut instincts.” That is consistent with Trump not wanting to read detailed briefing papers. He likes them short and full of pictures.

One can ask how accurate a known liar can be, but what MC describes agrees with other descriptions of Trump's working style.

More MC: “Trump convinced a vast swath of working-class white folks in the Midwest that he cared about their well-being. The truth is that he couldn’t care less…That was a stone-cold fact…To Trump, his voters are his audience, his chumps, his patsies, his base.” But he seemed like he cared for them, and they fell for it.

Even more: “(Trump) had long accused others of doing the very things he did; that was a central element of his modus operandi. If Trump claimed you cheated or lied or stole, you could be sure that he’d done those things himself; it was almost as if he had a compulsion to confess to his terrible actions by way of accusation.” Or he finds it difficult to imagine that anyone could possibly not be as corrupt as he is.

 

[lpetrich]

Updating the Crisis as We Head Into the Home Stretch - written in the fall of 2020, a few months before the election.

White Supremacy

"Donald Trump has constantly misrepresented the Black Lives Matter movement as a violent, left-wing extremist attempt to destroy America. But it’s what his base wants to believe."

The President’s Illness

When the morning news on October 2 reported that Donald Trump had tested positive for COVID-19, I confess my first thought was, “Aha! This is the ‘October Surprise.’” I thought Trump was faking it, the way he had set up phoney dramas with Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment, and he would soon stage “the greatest recovery from a disease of all time,” proving the virus was not nearly as dangerous as the experts said. So you can color me black-hearted and paranoid, and rightly conclude that my future ‘pinions could prove as valuable as snow tires on downhill skis. (Or surfboards.) (Or blenders.) (Your turn.)[10] One thing’s for sure: the meds he’s on now haven’t helped his cognitive processes.

That's a conspiracy theory that I haven't seen before. Michael Moore floats conspiracy theory that Trump may be faking Covid diagnosis | The Independent

How Will Trump Try to Get Re-Elected?

"Trump said he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, but the U.N. World Food Program won instead." - what a sense of entitlement.

He is openly flaying the Justice Department to get out and find some evidence, any evidence, of voter fraud. We can be sure the Trump campaign will also be working intensely on voter suppression. The GOP has launched endless lawsuits to stop states from adopting vote-by-mail plans, as well as blatantly tried to corrupt the postal service.

Alongside lots of similar things, like limiting the number of ballot dropboxes per county.

After discussing polling, we get to.

What Will Trump Do If He Loses the Election?

If and when it becomes clear that Trump will lose the election, he will almost certainly try to stay in power, “legally” or illegally. On September 23, 2020 he was asked for the umpteenth time if he would peacefully give up power if he lost the election in November, and for the umpteenth time he refused to say he would. Instead he repeated his argument that the only way he could lose would be if the election was unfair, mainly because people were allowed to vote by mail.

That is what happened -- Trump claimed that he lost because of enormous amounts of voter fraud. He sent his lawyers to challenge the election results, but they failed miserably in something like 60 cases.

 

[lpetrich]

If all the voter suppression, “dirty tricks” and court challenges fail, Trump will predictably threaten violence and the nation has to be prepared for the threat. He has allied himself with armed militia groups and his next utterance to them may be to “lock and load.” ...

Trump’s acceptance of militia groups has encouraged their growth and their boldness. Today the FBI arrested 13 men who were plotting to kidnap the (female, Democrat) governor of Michigan and hold her on trial for “treason” before the election. One expects there will be similar incidents ahead. Officials as well as votes will have to be protected.

January 6. Need I say more?

Throughout his life, Donald Trump has used threats to get what he wants, usually wielding (or creating) the appearance of having enormous power which convinces his opponents to back down. He almost never has had to follow through, and John Bolton describes several situations when Trump changed policy rather than act out his threats.

Like threatening a civil war if he does not get re-elected.

More recently, Trump supporter warns CNN civil war is coming in alarming live segment - Tue, June 29, 2021, 12:51 PM - "A Donald Trump supporter warned CNN that civil war was coming if the former president was not reinstated to the White House in an alarming live segment."

 

[lpetrich]

Four Scraps from the Editing Room Floor

Forecast

BA describes what might have happened if Trump had gotten re-elected. "When Trump took the oath of office the crowd extended beyond the Washington Monument halfway to the TRUMP Memorial, where craftsmen had nearly finished reshaping the statue of Lincoln into one of Trump. His supporters felt they had to be there to celebrate their victory in November, which the President pronounced the greatest event in the history of the world." Then his come-from-behind victory.

"President Trump had said he was owed more time as president than the Constitution permitted, and his followers were taking up the cry."

"Trump had already established enough executive powers during his first term to keep Congress from doing anything against his wishes, even in areas where the Constitution specifically granted the House or Senate sole power to act."

An historian at Trump-Harvard University later wrote that American democracy died because most Republican office-holders wanted it to, and others in government put their personal interests ahead of their country. The proper authorities as always reviewed the professor’s analysis and, deciding it was not threatening to the State, allowed it to circulate—provided it contained the usual conclusion that President Trump saved the country from ruin by taking control of everything in 2021.

That would likely not happen right away. It would likely take some months for such control to be established.

Would it provoke massive demonstrations? Rebellion? Civil War II?

 

[lpetrich]

The Right Stuff

Why "right" vs. "left"?

Bob Altemeyer's discussion of those terms is very confused. The original definition of "right" is "correct", a Latinate borrowing that contains the same Indo-European root as in the English word. It got applied to the direction because for most of us, that is the side of our better-coordinated hand, our "good hand". Our worse-coordinated hand becomes our "bad hand".

"Right" vs "left" in politics emerged in the French Revolution, where at one point, if you supported the existing system, you sat on the right-hand side of the President of the National Assembly, while if you opposed it, you sat on his left-hand side.

The ”Four F’s”

What many teenage boys say one ought to do about the female sex: “Find ‘em, Feel ‘em, Fuck ‘em, “Forget ‘em.” But Trump never seems to have outgrown that.

Epilogue

The Monmouth survey revealed that the most prejudiced people in America tend to support Donald Trump, and you will find among their many stereotypes a belief that the “white race” is intellectually and morally superior to African Americans, Asians, and Native Indians. These notions, however, were declared scientifically bankrupt a long time ago, and not just because research shows the stereotypes of various groups are misleading and often just plain false. Research has shown that the whole idea of “race” has no scientific validity.

Also, what counts as the "white" race has varied quite a lot. Are Eastern Europeans "white"? Southern Europeans? Irish people?  Definitions of whiteness in the United States mentions disagreements on these issues in the 19th cy.

 

[ZiprHead]

Another part of Bonespur's legacy.

Hate crime reports in US surge to the highest level in 12 years, FBI says

 

[ZiprHead]

A top US general said 'I agree with you on everything' when Nancy Pelosi called Trump 'crazy' after the Capitol riot: book

A top US general reportedly agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she said in January that then-President Donald Trump was crazy.

That's according to "Peril," by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward and Post reporter Robert Costa. The Post, which obtained an early copy of the book, published details from it on Tuesday.

The conversation in question took place on January 8, two days after Trump incited a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol in a failed effort to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 US election.

Woodward and Costa obtained a transcript of Pelosi's January 8 phone call to US Gen. Mark Milley, in which she wanted to know "what precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike."

Milley told Pelosi that there were "a lot of checks in the system" to prevent Trump from going rogue, the book said.

Pelosi then told Milley, "He's crazy. You know he's crazy."

"He's crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness," Pelosi said, referring to the deadly Capitol riot.

According to the book, Milley responded: "I agree with you on everything."

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

A top US general said 'I agree with you on everything' when Nancy Pelosi called Trump 'crazy' after the Capitol riot: book

A top US general reportedly agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she said in January that then-President Donald Trump was crazy.

That's according to "Peril," by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward and Post reporter Robert Costa. The Post, which obtained an early copy of the book, published details from it on Tuesday.

The conversation in question took place on January 8, two days after Trump incited a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol in a failed effort to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 US election.

Woodward and Costa obtained a transcript of Pelosi's January 8 phone call to US Gen. Mark Milley, in which she wanted to know "what precautions are available to prevent an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or from accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike."

Milley told Pelosi that there were "a lot of checks in the system" to prevent Trump from going rogue, the book said.

Pelosi then told Milley, "He's crazy. You know he's crazy."

"He's crazy and what he did yesterday is further evidence of his craziness," Pelosi said, referring to the deadly Capitol riot.

According to the book, Milley responded: "I agree with you on everything."

How could anyone think Milley was being treasonous? If there was any treason it was being committed by Magatards and Orange. Milley, if anything, was not allowing it to go so far as it might. Good on him.

 

[LoAmmo]

How could anyone think Milley was being treasonous? If there was any treason it was being committed by Magatards and Orange. Milley, if anything, was not allowing it to go so far as it might. Good on him.

It isn't quite that easy, though.

To be clear, Trump was (hell, still is) an unmitigated disaster, and in my opinion was easily the biggest existential threat to America since probably Hitler. But there's a decidedly fine line between Milley "putting up guardrails," "being the adult in the room," or however one wants to cast it, and Milley "subverting the National Command Authority responsibility for nuclear weapons which is super-clearly and explicitly reserved for the President."

While I am personally glad Milley tried to throw up some speed bumps in front of a crazy person, he could very well end up having to answer some trick questions, as we used to say, regarding the legality of his interference. Which I'm sure would be fine with him. He had the interests of the country top of mind, ahead of Trump's, for once, And we were well-served by his concerns.

But, rightly or wrongly, the authorization for release or nuclear weapons doesn't say, "rests with the President of the United States unless he's acting like a whiny douche bitching about stolen elections," it says it rests with the President of the United States.

(The system itself is probably long overdue for a review and update, but, until that day, it is what it is.That would be a discussion for another thread.)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

How could anyone think Milley was being treasonous? If there was any treason it was being committed by Magatards and Orange. Milley, if anything, was not allowing it to go so far as it might. Good on him.

It isn't quite that easy, though.

To be clear, Trump was (hell, still is) an unmitigated disaster, and in my opinion was easily the biggest existential threat to America since probably Hitler. But there's a decidedly fine line between Milley "putting up guardrails," "being the adult in the room," or however one wants to cast it, and Milley "subverting the National Command Authority responsibility for nuclear weapons which is super-clearly and explicitly reserved for the President."

While I am personally glad Milley tried to throw up some speed bumps in front of a crazy person, he could very well end up having to answer some trick questions, as we used to say, regarding the legality of his interference. Which I'm sure would be fine with him. He had the interests of the country top of mind, ahead of Trump's, for once, And we were well-served by his concerns.

But, rightly or wrongly, the authorization for release or nuclear weapons doesn't say, "rests with the President of the United States unless he's acting like a whiny douche bitching about stolen elections," it says it rests with the President of the United States.

(The system itself is probably long overdue for a review and update, but, until that day, it is what it is.That would be a discussion for another thread.)

Milley was simply executing his commission as trained. He knows what constitutes an unlawful order. That's all he was doing. He was protecting and defending the constitution, not blindly following orders from Orange. I don't think a hearing on the issue will be that revealing. His actions as described would constitute proper behavior, not blind obedience.

 

[LoAmmo]

Milley was simply executing his commission as trained.

Not really.

It may seem like I want to argue semantics, but that isn't the case. How Milley "was trained" is that, by inviolable rule, civilian control of the military includes the sole discretion to authorize strikes with nuclear weapons. The military--even as high up as Gen Milley, the Chairman of the JCS, serves as advisors. And advisors only.

He knows what constitutes an unlawful order.

And if on January 6th, for whatever reason, Trump had decided to strike (say, Iran) with nuclear weapons, his order to do so would not necessarily have been an unlawful order. Doubtlessly, he'd have been advised not to by every level of the Command Authority--military and civilian, but...it is both a blessing and a curse of our system that this awesome level of responsibility is given to our Commander-In-Chief. (And it was one of THE biggest reasons why Trump should have never been elected President, but...here we are.)

If he had appeared to be in control of his faculties (and, yeah, I know, insert joke here) but, seriously, if he gave the order at any point in his presidency, those orders would have been carried out. Don't kid yourself that they wouldn't have been, just because Trump was acting like an ass.
(and, FWIW, I consider that one of the least-understood, under-appreciated aspects of just how dangerous it was to have that clown in the Oval Office.)

That's all he was doing. He was protecting and defending the constitution, not blindly following orders from Orange. I don't think a hearing on the issue will be that revealing. His actions as described would constitute proper behavior, not blind obedience.

It's FAR from being that cut and dried, and so completely obvious that Milley was on firm ground to do what he did. At this point I feel almost compelled to repeat that I'm personally GLAD he at least tried to install a measure of adult sanity into what could've gone very sideways very quickly.

But, no, strictly speaking, his actions were NOT proper behavior. The Chairman of the JCS is not a "decider" on the decision tree to use nuclear weapons, he (or she) is an "advisor."

Milley is exposed in a bit of grey-area, here--again, which he doubtless knows, and accepts, and would do it that way again. But, to be clear, he most certainly was not simply following the rule book here.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But, rightly or wrongly, the authorization for release or nuclear weapons doesn't say, "rests with the President of the United States unless he's acting like a whiny douche bitching about stolen elections," it says it rests with the President of the United States.

This came up almost immediately after Trump was elected.
The authority doesn't rest solely with the president. There are checks. Commissioned officers involved. This is repeated at every level of nuclear command authority, no one person has sole authority anywhere.

After people in 2016 expressed concerns about Florida Man having nuclear authority, the officer whose job it is to say 'No, sir, that's an atrocity,' assured people he would be involved in the process.
The Right, of course, immediately labeled him a traitor for even suggesting he might even question His Gloriosky's Commandments.

Milley was just reminding people there is that process, the backup and checks.

ETA: The actual INTENT of that officer's position is to be knowledgeable about the various attack options developed for the war plans. To determine what the President wants to accomplish, and to offer him the best choice available. Then they work together to authorize that attack plan and issue the authority. It's almost a side gig that he can point out war crimes and atrocities, but that became kinda important with Florida Tantrum.

 

[LoAmmo]

I *think* I remember you being ex-Navy, Keith. Were you on Boomers, by any chance?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

In general, the President has the ultimate authority to launch the missiles... that doesn't mean that his authority means that missiles get launched without protocols... which can have creative methods used to delay said launch, especially regarding a pre-emptive strike. And if anyone were to know it was pre-emptive, it'd be the top brass in the first place. IE they know if the order is bullshit to America's best interests.

The President doesn't have a direct line to a submarine, calls them, and tells them to launch a nuclear missile towards China. There is bureaucracy in the way. Otherwise, if Trump did, the SoS and the Joint Chiefs would have traded out the nuclear authorization codes.

The authorization code is... *squints* Delta - Omicron - Neeta - Tango ... uh... Foxtrot - Indigo - Russia - Epsilon.

Hmm... the first letter of those words spell "Don't Fire".

You got it sir. *ends call*

At which point the all clear and radio silence for a month order would be given through out the military.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I *think* I remember you being ex-Navy, Keith. Were you on Boomers, by any chance?

Fire Control Tech for 15 years, Missile Tech for 5.

Four boomers, 1 Tender, Guided Missiles School, Strat Weapons Facility, and for another 20 years working for GD in support of the Fire Control System. On boomers. Yes.