One of the big questions with coups is who the military sides with. It's a big question now. Does the firing of a whole lot of leadership make the military now more malleable, or does it anger and alienate a lot of people down the chain of command? www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec... - ThreadSky

rebeccasolnit.bsky.social • 14 hours ago

One of the big questions with coups is who the military sides with. It's a big question now. Does the firing of a whole lot of leadership make the military now more malleable, or does it anger and alienate a lot of people down the chain of command? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/21/trump-joint-chiefs-of-staff-charles-brown-dan-caine/

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thechemist22.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I don't think it makes them more malleable. There are other strong leaders and most of them have a non-partisan commitment to protect the country. They work for people like Trump and, if necessary, against people like Trump. We'll see.

zencker.bsky.social•13 hours ago

our military is different than it used to be, with contractors instead of conscription

rebeccasolnit.bsky.social•14 hours ago

On January 3, 2021, the former secretaries of defense published a warning about Trump and his looming coup.... https://apnews.com/article/10-former-pentagon-chiefs-trump-warning-eac5170301db792231b94537bfbbceff

rebeccasolnit.bsky.social•14 hours ago

But I have no idea where we're at now... There's this: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/trump-executive-order-military-justice/index.html

rebeccasolnit.bsky.social•14 hours ago

But there's also so much team Musk/Trump is doing that is pissing everyone off. How it is perceived by the military, various branches, various levels...will matter.

donnamo.bsky.social•14 hours ago

What will win? Anger or fear of retribution? I guess we'll find out.

sandy5.bsky.social•14 hours ago

As usual, follow the money. Musk, Thiel, etc want to privatize and make money off of chunks of DoD, by selling the services back to the USA, among other things. I’m sure they want the armed military to be their enforcers too. They’ll have all our data and 24/7 surveillance ability.

kaiewrites.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Yeah, but like, are the experienced armed trained folks gonna go along with that??? is the question I feel like more of us are asking all the time… I’m no expert on geopolitical history but “military” & “ coup” are two words often seen together…

sandy5.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Yes, exactly. That is the wild card.

bethdantonio.bsky.social•14 hours ago

100%

barblieberman.bsky.social•14 hours ago

And veterans!

tcindc.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Removing qualified top brass and putting in loyalists diminishes my dream of the military defying Trump at some point and launching a coup d'etat to get rid of him.

darkarfs.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I hope it does, and I hope the anger and abandon is FELT. The military, the FBI, CIA...I hope they're angry, defiant, and justifiably so.

plutoniary.bsky.social•13 hours ago

There’s a lot of sentiment out there about how very right wing the military is. We already know the cops are foaming at the mouth with delight over becoming his de facto ICE agents/SS. What are we left with? Only ourselves. I don’t believe the military is coming to save us.

akfullerton.bsky.social•14 hours ago

One thing is certain: Uncertainty has increased. These weren't questions in earlier administrations. It doesn't make a military coup likely, but it makes it a possibility that must be considered. All areas of government, the economy, & society have had an increase in uncertainty. Uncertainty = risk.

butchugal.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Just so the toadies know: Trump will be dead one day, and we have very, very long memories. There will be a day of reckoning if they chose loyalty to Trump over the oath they swore to the Constitution.

anil-blue.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I hope that part of the executive order would be found invalid by the courts. I can't imagine them ceding that power to the President, even Trump. But maybe they will.

realguyfawkes.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Which means the military leaders would do whatever trump tells them? That’s not going to work well with our revolution.

plutoniary.bsky.social•13 hours ago

And it changed…nothing. It doesn’t matter what they say. No MAGA is gonna hear it.

mizannazon.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Now's the time to reach out to the veterans and active service people you know to remind them of their oath.

emeseilyes.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Anyone with integrity is in danger of being fired for his vision of America to materialize.

surrealisthells.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I think it is a positive sign that they had to go so far down the hierarchy to find someone sufficiently acceptable from an ideological standpoint. That's a LOT of people passed over for being judged unlikely to follow unlawful orders, and those people are all for now still in the chain of command.

surrealisthells.bsky.social•14 hours ago

And you can only fire just so many senior leaders before you bring the entirety of military operations to a grinding halt, particularly at a time when the continuity of operations is likely to continue to be under attack via the indiscriminate firing of GS civilians (though that's on hold for now).

liberalrage.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I would think it would anger everyone

mtheriaultsf.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Yep this was something I worried and wrote about (in Organized Labor, newspaper of the San Francisco Building Trades) in the first Trump admin, but now, dammit, they’re giving it a try. At best it’s chaotic. At worst….

p1n1on.bsky.social•8 hours ago

And I thought I was being ridiculous yesterday when I started to think about the possibility of a military coup in the USA

merilynaw.bsky.social•14 hours ago

It could do both. We can hope that the oath to uphold the Constitution takes the upper hand, but there are no guarantees.

raz77.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Millions of them will dutifully say fuck off.

isthislifeonmars.bsky.social•12 hours ago

My money's on the military. They take their oath to the Constitution very seriously. I'm sure they're watching these pikers and gearing up for something.

plutoniary.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I have no faith in our military now. If they were actually going to defend us from enemies foreign and domestic, they’d be doing something. An active coup is destroying the country and they’re doing nothing.

spiv.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I vote for the military coup to overthrow the Nazi self-coup

connilee.bsky.social•14 hours ago

It's almost to the point that we're depending on the military to fix this mess

seejaneshout.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I’m going with #2. But it will be toothless. It is likely Putin is in a hurry to end the war with Ukraine for a reason. Trump will require his assistance.

kollontai1.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Of course this was going to be part of the plan because military leadership stood up to him in the past. Hegseth’s ethos and plan will be to get rid of those who might stand up to his leadership.

whimsywriter.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Trump believes that the troops will just follow orders if he orders them to attack fellow Americans. It is all a matter of how seriously one takes their oath.

The question is not when will Trump use the American military to try to remove a sitting Governor, the questions are when and where

doc369.bsky.social•14 hours ago

They're probably pissing off some dangerous people

eeiibb.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I feel like we’re about to find out

eggchic.bsky.social•28 minutes ago

Thank you for writing about the questions that worry me the most. They are big questions, indeed, and you help me get my arms around them.

whosyrhoosier.bsky.social•10 hours ago

I bet we're about to see a lot of freshly fired military & civil service personnel entering into politics...

47 is populating the force that will have the knowledge & motivation to oppose him.
#TrumpsFollies

askgma.bsky.social•14 hours ago

I hope they sue, baby , sue.

jac426.bsky.social•1 hour ago

Wondering how the other Joint Chiefs feel about the firing of their leader and the abandonment of our NATO allies in favor of Putin, too.

jessethegray.bsky.social•14 hours ago

We are, as a nation, in completely uncharted waters and there be dragons here

joelskyzer.bsky.social•14 hours ago

Will they honor the oath and the code?

cali22.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Im hoping for the angry betrayal which is what it is…shameful

ncshusterman.bsky.social•13 hours ago

RS, I'm a big fan of your writing and maybe this is being picky, but who the military sides with isn't "one of the big questions," it's THE question.

4legsrgood.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I think it infuriates them. I’m hearing Hegseth is already despised

kristin64.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Hegseth, get your disrespectful hand off General Brown, you pathetic racist.

mia-59.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Disgraceful!!!!! No!! I am not losing Hope! I will resist. I owe my freedom and democracy to the generations like my grandfather’s generation that gave their lives for OUR DEMOCRACY!!!! OUR Freedoms!!!
We can and will do this! We the people! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Love you grandpa! Will never forget!❤️

pcoyote41.bsky.social•1 hour ago

\Rebecca. I have a british friend who was a general in the Falklands conflict. He works with the Marines regularly, and at the Pentagon. After Trump’s election, the first question I asked him was, “In a pinch will the military back the Constitution or Trump.” His instant reply-Constitution.

owenhowlett.bsky.social•13 hours ago

I remember being surprised about how clear some military guys were after the first Trump admin, that they wouldn't stand for Trump overthrowing the government. Apparently the military has a strong culture of reading history books and taking oaths.

plutoniary.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Well guess what. He didn’t have to overthrow anything. Americans were stupid enough to (supposedly) re-elect him and the ENTIRE Republican Party is as corrupt and unfaithful to our constitution as he is.

plutoniary.bsky.social•12 hours ago

If our military really wanted to defend our constitution and our people they’d be doing it right now. Don’t see them anywhere during this active coup.

plutoniary.bsky.social•12 hours ago

Republican elected officials are very clearly enemies of the people and utterly refuse to do their jobs. I’d suggest that the military start with them. All of them are treasonous compromised spineless cowardly Nazi scum. Every single one of them.

kresensha.bsky.social•9 hours ago

Personally, I appreciate that the military hasn't stepped in, yet. It shows they have restraint, & aren't itching to take control. It's good for them to give lots of time for things to be resolved without violence. Military intervention should be LAST resort.
But they do have plans for everything.

plutoniary.bsky.social•9 hours ago

When there is nobody left in chain of command who serves the constitution…and a decent % of troops are right wing…then what?

owenhowlett.bsky.social•1 hour ago

I really hope they do have a plan. It's hard to imagine someone could be in that job and not think about that eventuality.

anka32.bsky.social•13 hours ago

Agreed; I know J6 upset many - my brother was Army MP for 24 years, and he’s pretty conservative overall, but a lot of former military serve as DC/MD/Cap Police & he had friends there… I can’t imagine they’re all ok with the pardons. And I do believe they take the oath to the Constitution seriously.

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