Three Retired Generals Warn That We Must Prepare Now For the Next GQP Insurrection

Retired Generals Paul D. Eaton, Antonio M. Taguba and Steven M. Anderson write at the Washington Post, Retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection:

As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we — all of us former senior military officials — are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk.

In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.

One of our military’s strengths is that it draws from our diverse population. It is a collection of individuals, all with different beliefs and backgrounds. But without constant maintenance, the potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real.

The signs of potential turmoil in our armed forces are there. On Jan. 6, a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military took part in the attack on the Capitol. More than 1 in 10 of those charged in the attacks had a service record. A group of 124 retired military officials, under the name “Flag Officers 4 America,” released a letter echoing Donald Trump’s false attacks on the legitimacy of our elections.

Recently, and perhaps more worrying, Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, the commanding general of the Oklahoma National Guard, refused an order from President Biden mandating that all National Guard members be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Mancino claimed that while the Oklahoma Guard is not federally mobilized, his commander in chief is the Republican governor of the state, not the president.

The potential for a total breakdown of the chain of command along partisan lines — from the top of the chain to squad level — is significant should another insurrection occur. The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the “rightful” commander in chief cannot be dismissed.

Imagine competing commanders in chief — a newly reelected Biden giving orders, versus Trump (or another Trumpian figure) issuing orders as the head of a shadow government. Worse, imagine politicians at the state and federal levels illegally installing a losing candidate as president.

All service members take an oath to protect the U.S. Constitution. But in a contested election, with loyalties split, some might follow orders from the rightful commander in chief, while others might follow the Trumpian loser. Arms might not be secured depending on who was overseeing them. Under such a scenario, it is not outlandish to say a military breakdown could lead to civil war.

In this context, with our military hobbled and divided, U.S. security would be crippled. Any one of our enemies could take advantage by launching an all-out assault on our assets or our allies.

The lack of military preparedness for the aftermath of the 2020 election was striking and worrying. Trump’s acting defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller, testified that he deliberately withheld military protection of the Capitol before Jan. 6. Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly scrambled to ensure the nation’s nuclear defense chains were secure from illegal orders. It is evident the whole of our military was caught off-guard.

With the country still as divided as ever, we must take steps to prepare for the worst.

First, everything must be done to prevent another insurrection. Not a single leader who inspired it has been held to account. Our elected officials and those who enforce the law — including the Justice Department, the House select committee and the whole of Congress — must show more urgency.

But the military cannot wait for elected officials to act. The Pentagon should immediately order a civics review for all members — uniformed and civilian — on the Constitution and electoral integrity. There must also be a review of the laws of war and how to identify and deal with illegal orders. And it must reinforce “unity of command” to make perfectly clear to every member of the Defense Department whom they answer to. No service member should say they didn’t understand whom to take orders from during a worst-case scenario.

In addition, all military branches must undertake more intensive intelligence work at all installations. The goal should be to identify, isolate and remove potential mutineers; guard against efforts by propagandists who use misinformation to subvert the chain of command; and understand how that and other misinformation spreads across the ranks after it is introduced by propagandists.

Finally, the Defense Department should war-game the next potential post-election insurrection or coup attempt to identify weak spots. It must then conduct a top-down debrief of its findings and begin putting in place safeguards to prevent breakdowns not just in the military, but also in any agency that works hand in hand with the military.

The military and lawmakers have been gifted hindsight to prevent another insurrection from happening in 2024 — but they will succeed only if they take decisive action now.

These generals are focused on 2024 as if we have time to prepare for the “next GQP insurrection.” But judges who are handling the more than 700 cases of insurrectionists charged to date for January 6 warn that the insurrection is ongoing and continuing – it is here and now.

Sarah Jones reports, Multiple Judges Sound The Alarm That 1/6 Terrorist Attack Threat Is Ongoing:

“Judges sounded the alarm today, verbally grabbing America by the lapels Warning from the bench today that Jan 6 is ongoing risk to the nation,” Scott MacFarlane reported late Friday.

“The Judges, nearly a year later, as cases get more and more serious that go to sentencing, are taking this moment to underscore the significance of January 6th, 2021 – to make sure America recognizes the significance of what happened that day and that January 6th was, and is, a threat to our country.”

Watch NBC4 Washington investigative reporter Scott MacFarlane’s reporting here:

Judges sounded the alarm today, verbally grabbing America by the lapels

Warning from the bench today that Jan 6 is ongoing risk to the nation. My latest reporting ====> pic.twitter.com/nXnRx54Mg4

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 17, 2021

(transcription)

“Today ended up being a busy day of sentencings in U.S. Capitol riot sentencing. The longest sentence handed down so far in a January 6th prosecution, five years and three months for defendant Robert Palmer, who was accused of going after police here that day with a pole and with a fire extinguisher.

“We heard multiple defendants, including Palmer, tearfully say they were sorry as they asked for leniency, say they were horrified or ashamed of what they did, say they learned their lesson.

“But it wasn’t what the defendants said today or what the prosecutors. Today was a day about what the Judges said.

“In particular today, they really leaned into the defendants, into the significance of the unparalleled American moment that occurred January 6th here at the Capitol, and into the significance of that day and this prosecution to our country.

“While sentencing Palmer, the Judge said January 6th was a quote ‘violent attempt to overthrow a duly elected government.’ That it was law enforcement, first responders and the Congressional staff and Congress that were the real patriots of January 6th, not the mob. And mentioned the horrifying image of those gallows erected on the opposite side of the Capitol and of seeing the mob egg each other on — even as police were being beaten.

“In a different case, in a lower level case today, defendant accused of being in the U.S.Senate chamber, the Judge said what occurred on January 6th hurts the credibility of our country in the world, that America is no longer seen- or it’s more difficult to champion our country as that shining light, shining city on the hill.

“The Judges, nearly a year later, as cases get more and more serious that go to sentencing, are taking this moment to underscore the significance of January 6th, 2021 – to make sure America recognizes the significance of what happened that day and that January 6th was and is a threat to our country.”

After nearly a year of defendants being treated like they were almost the victims of their own behavior and choices, Friday was a rather large pivot. The Judges signaled a grasp of the looming threat to democracy and to our global credibility as a “democracy.” This is a huge shift from the Judge who ordered the corrections authorities to give a Trump insurrectionist his preferred organic food while in jail. Yes, the “Man who wore horns at US Capitol to get organic food in jail” days might be numbered.

More January 6th trials are coming, for example the high level trial date for former Trump Administration State Department appointee Federico Klein and co-defendants is set for September 26, 2022.

Trial date in Jan 6 case of former Trump Administration State Dept appointee Federico Klein & co-defendants is set for Sept 26, 2022

High-level case, includes allegations of assault against police pic.twitter.com/Sl8957wjPd

— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) December 18, 2021

Finally, multiple people in authority seem to get the danger posed by January 6th and are trying to sound the alarm regarding the ongoing risk we all face so long as the domestic terrorist attack on our capital – an attempted coup to overthrow the duly elected government by the people – continues to be rug swept by judges, media and certainly the Republican Congressional suspects.

[T]he Committee on Homeland Security “examined” the ongoing domestic terrorism threat in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Capitolin February of 2021. It opens with damning evidence that January 6th “was not an isolated act” of terrorism and that domestic terrorism attacks were at an all time high, with racially -motivated violent extremists posting the greatest threat and then in July of 2020 :`that the upcoming election will spark one or more violent events if the President loses his reelection bid.“[His supporters] want him to continue, and they have talked about civil war now for years if he does not.’

It is now December 18th, and in the interim we have been gaslit as a nation about what January 6th was, including the infamous attempt by a Trump loyalist, Georgia Republican Representative Andrew Clyde, falsely claiming the insurrection looked more like a “normal tourist visit” — and that’s when Republicans weren’t blaming “antifa” for the result of their own party leader’s public incitement of the attack.

Judges stepping up to call attention to the grave ongoing threat of January 6th impacts more than just upholding the law, although that can’t be underappreciated at this point. It is also a lifeline for Americans who feel justifiably threatened in their own communities, all over this country, for simply not supporting Donald Trump, and for those who see these predominantly white terrorists being treated like judicial guests while our police continue to kill Black people over much less.

A Democracy cannot function without enforcement of its own laws. If it doesn’t enforce its own laws, it is not a democracy. It might appear as a democracy, but it is in the process of falling to corrupt and criminally minded authoritarians.

Finally, a glimmer of hope for our embattled country.

Lawrence Douglas sounds the alarm. Republicans are plotting to destroy democracy from within:

At hand is a plot to destroy American democracy from within. Its organizers have infiltrated the highest echelons of state and federal government, and have instigated and condoned acts of violence directed against our elected officials. This might sound far-fetched. But the threat is real and the seditious group is none other than the Republican party. Its target is the 2024 presidential election.

Less than a year ago, Donald Trump limped from the White House a badly discredited figure, roundly condemned for having instigated a shocking attack against a coordinate branch of government. The 6 January insurrection seemed like a wake-up call to Republican lawmakers. No longer could they indulge the self-serving story that Trump was simply an uncouth, untraditional president. The reality was stark and undeniable. The president was at heart a petty autocrat, willing to torch democracy to cling to power.

The wake-up call went unheeded. The critical inflection point came during the second impeachment trial, when Republican senators had the opportunity to join Democrats in condemning Trump. And while seven Republican senators voted along with all 50 Democrats to convict, this still left the Senate 10 votes short of the 67 needed to hold Trump to account.

Emblematic of the Republican refusal to reckon was the stance adopted by Mitch McConnell, who only weeks before had lost his position as Senate majority leader. On the floor of the Senate, McConnell delivered a powerful condemnation of Trump – only then to vote to acquit. Insisting that an ex-president was “constitutionally not eligible for conviction”, McConnell cynically overlooked the fact that the purpose of the trial was not to remove Trump from office but to bar him from ever running again. And while McConnell presumably was hoping to mollify the Republican base while keeping Trump himself sidelined, that strategy backfired grandly.

The acquittal served as the first step to Trump’s rapid rehabilitation and the further radicalization of the Republican party. Ten months ago, McConnell castigated Trump for spinning “increasingly wild myths about a reverse landslide election that was being stolen in some secret coup”. Now these same myths have been elevated to first principles of the Republican party, as the party has come to effectively close its doors to those unwilling to lie about the 2020 election. In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith had to be tortured into declaring that 2+2=5. In the case of today’s Republicans, no torture has been necessary. Opportunism and cowardice has more than sufficed to make Republicans across the land espouse a noxious falsehood as an axiomatic truth.

No less ominous has been the whitewashing of the insurrection itself. Ten months ago, McConnell declared the “mob … assault[ed] the Capitol in [Trump’s] name. These criminals were carrying his banners, hanging his flags, and screaming their loyalty to him.” Hardly a day passes without fresh revelations from the House select committee, documenting the shocking steps Trump contemplated in his effort to remain in the White House. Yet despite the intrepid work of Liz Cheney, the larger Republican response has been to distort and suppress the committee’s findings. Paul Gosar, the Arizona congressman who recently posted an animated video that depicted him slashing to death his House colleague Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has recast the insurrectionists as patriots. Others, including Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, have insisted the attack was a false-flag operation, a conspiracy theory given traction by Tucker Carlson’s three-party series.

Republican state lawmakers have in turn weaponized the lies about the 2020 election and the 6 January insurrection to gain control over the local administration of elections. Bad enough are the 33 laws that have been passed in 19 states designed to make it harder for persons of color to vote. But more disturbing still are the Republican party’s radical efforts to purge officials who resisted Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 results and replace them with loyalists who have bought into the big lie. Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin are seeking to eliminate the state’s bipartisan elections commission altogether and to install themselves as the sole arbiter of state election results. And more than a dozen other red states have similarly enacted laws to transform the counting and review of ballots cast into a carefully monitored partisan exercise.

By the time insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on 6 January, the 2020 election was a fait accompli. True, Trump tried desperately to forestall Congress from counting and accepting the duly certified state electoral certificates attesting to Biden’s victory. What ultimately frustrated Trump’s putsch attempt was the fact that election officials in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania had already accurately and honestly reported the results. Many of these officials were Republicans. They acted in simple defense of democracy and were rewarded with death threats, ostracism and now ouster.

Come 2024 these quiet custodians of democracy will have been replaced with loyalists and hacks ready to muddy the waters or supply the votes to secure a Trump win. The 2024 election will not witness a repeat of the events of 6 January. By the time Congress tallies the electoral votes on 6 January 2025, the putsch could be complete. And if it is, it will have been staged in the small offices of the election officials in the key swing states. And it’s all being scripted now.

It will be an “inside job,” a fait accompli, rather than the violent insurrection that the retired generals above fear.

Congress must pass the voting rights legislation, and the Department of Justice and FBI must aggressively prosecute the coup plotters instead of focusing on the low hanging fruit of easy cases. The lack of prosecution of these coup plotters is only emboldening them and giving them the belief that they can overthrow American democracy with impunity. They must be held accountable, and now. The plot begins with the 2022 election of governors and secretaries of state, and replacing frontline election workers with Trump loyalists.

The fascist barbarians are at the gate. What will you do to defend American democracy and the Constitution?