President Donald Trump’s latest descent into authoritarian delirium arrived with a “splat” Thursday when he publicly said Aurora Congressperson Jason Crow and five other Democratic lawmakers should face the death penalty for crimes of sedition.
The supposed crimes of these highly decorated and respected veterans? Posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to do exactly what their oath and the Uniform Code of Military Justice already requires: Refuse illegal orders.
Crow and the other five Democratic lawmakers, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander, and Chrissy Houlahan, spoke plainly and accurately. They reminded troops that the Trump administration has been “pitting our uniformed military against American citizens.” They called on servicemembers to “refuse illegal orders” and “stand up for our laws.”
The message was neither radical nor unlawful. It was constitutionally protected speech pointing out U.S. law.
As a network of more than 300 national-security professionals later wrote, “only a restatement of what every officer and enlisted servicemember already knows. Illegal orders can and should be refused.
Nothing in the video encouraged troops to shirk lawful orders. U.S. courts, the UCMJ, and decades of military doctrine make clear that service members are obligated — not merely permitted — to refuse illegal commands.
This is not a political opinion. It is doctrine.
Yet Trump reacted with another episode of his increasingly worrisome tyrannical fury.
On his social-media platform, he blasted these members of Congress as “TRAITORS!!!” and demanded they be “LOCKED UP???” He called their conduct, “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH.”
Trump also amplified posts from his supporters calling to “HANG THEM.”
His press secretary even furthered the grotesque propaganda, saying the Democrats’ message “perhaps is punishable by law,” while Trump allies on Fox News branded the video as “insurrection.”
This is not even remotely defensible.
The Democrats’ message reiterated an uncontroversial truth.
And the message is warranted. Trump’s track record on subverting democracy and the law is long and increasingly alarming.
He has already been judged as guilty by bipartisan investigators. The Jan. 6 congressional committee, composed of both Republicans and Democrats, concluded after extensive investigation and public hearings that Trump incited and permitted the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election he lost.
Trump’s current tantrum about “sedition” is grotesque coming from someone whose own conduct has already been authoritatively described as the gravest assault on the peaceful transfer of power in American history.
The message of these six Democrats is not subversive. It is prudent.
The Trump administration has already attempted to deploy National Guard forces into U.S. cities for dubious “roles,” with courts halting many of these actions.
The Trump administration has already been admonished for refusing to comply with court orders in immigration cases.
And as cases regarding presidential power and domestic military deployment move through the courts, it is not difficult to imagine the day when the Supreme Court rules against Trump, and he refuses to comply.
Calling for the arrest of political opponents and fantasizing about their execution is the definition of authoritarian abuse.
These six lawmakers are decorated veterans, intelligence officers, and national-security professionals who “swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution” and who declared they “will not be intimidated.”
Trump, however, is so consumed by rage and vengeance that he now wields the power of the presidency like a cudgel to threaten their lives because they have exposed his corruption and incompetence as commander in chief.
That alone is grounds for his resignation, and absent that, his impeachment and removal from office.
His behavior is not only reducing the presidency to a treacherous farce, he is rapidly dragging the Republican Party down with him.
Every member of Congress from both parties should make clear that calling for the execution of political opponents is an act of presidential depravity.
Congress should condemn the threats, denounce the rhetoric, and insist that a president who openly promotes executing lawmakers for expressing accurate legal information is unfit to serve.
Trump has repeatedly violated his oath of office and discarded the U.S. Constitution. This latest felony is beyond the pale and warrants his impeachment.
I heartily agree with the Sentinel opinion. However, I see no GOP congressperson or GOP Senator who maintains a shred of real principle or spine. Oh, I see those willing to buck Trump on salatious salivations of the MAGA tribe about what could be locked up inside the Epstein files, but those same legislators merely blink as he calls for hanging decorated heroes after they simply reminded troops that they must consider what they can and can’t do. I saw limited spine in the GOP during Trump’s first term. The legislators who possessed the temerity to call Trump out were castigated for being RINOs. What Trump is great at is intimidation, as if that is desirable trait. How does any thinking person believe how he amassed his fortune. The truth is revealed by his history of man-handling and eventually stiffing contractors who dared to work for him. For crying-out-loud, he was involved in at least 3,500 lawsuits BEFORE his first term started in 2017! Oh, he richly deserves a third impeachment, but it won’t happen under this feckless GOP leadership. Johson and Thune are nothing but toothless enablers. Somewhere people like Barry Goldwater, Dick Cheney, and John McCain are rolling in their graves. Gone from the GOP are the thinkers and true patriots. The remainder kneel to kiss Trump’s ring (or something else) every day!
No greater proof of people like Mikey being part of the Uniparty than appealing and fawning over the same people he and his team they gleefully demonized as Literally Hitler. Guess it’s different when they’re no longer in a position where they’re considered a political threat.
Comedy gold.
Totally agree!
Wife and I voted for Trump.
But now, after such remarks, King Trump should be removed from office.
Apparently his brain is going Biden on us.
Biden is a patriot.
Trump is a thug.
You need lessons in reality.
Biden doesn’t even like this country.
Just like you.
“Reality” doesn’t fit for people who follow your dumb political theology.
Biden was doing a fine job…infrastructure, concern for health issues, support for immigrants. We had a great county BEFORE Trump!
But your side doesn’t actually believe it’s a great country. In fact, your side spends a great deal of time complaining about it when you don’t have total political hegemony.
A similar seditious argument was used by the Democrats while they were fighting to keep slavery in the USA. According to Abraham Lincoln:
“Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy.”
Jason Crow is simply following the example of his party.
Whereas the “example” of your party is a greedy, mendacious coward who got a doctor to discover “bone spurs” and save him from Vietnam.
Jason Cow defended his country through three tours of Iraq, earning a Bronze Star.
Donald Trump was a party boy and a thief. I think they’ve lost count of the number of judgments against him for ripping off other businessmen, workers, salespeople,… Judgments he fights like hell to avoid. His own lawyer, Ty Cobb, calls him a “(deleted) “liar”.
To say nothing of being an adjudicated sex offender.
What a “hero”.
I’ll stick with Jason, thanks.
Yeah, you’ve got GREAT principles.
“Jason Cow defended his country through three tours of Iraq, earning a Bronze Star.”
And now he’s inciting mutiny and sedition.
“I’ll stick with Jason, thanks.”
Of course you will. But your unwarranted sense of self-regard isn’t going to mean much.
The leader of the maga terrorist group calls for the execution of those stating the existing responsibility of military members to not follow unlawful orders. This same criminal has pardoned hundreds of actual criminals who did in fact did commit seditious acts. Impeach and indict!
Well said, Nilta.
Your side bombed the building. Twice.
And since your side is being coy about “unlawful orders,” that means that, in fact, Crow is inciting mutiny and seditious conspiracy, while the leader of this little effort, ex-glowie vermin Elissa Slotkin, is inciting a coup.
See you when the civil war kicks off.
You’ll for nothing, keyboard weakling, except screech while texting like you’re a right-wing Rambo…
Stop punishing the rest of society for your lissencephaly. Do yourself and your family a favor, and eat Kurt Cobain’s breakfast.