File this outpouring of insanity under "Be careful what you wish for."
Tom Nichols is a columnist at "The Atlantic" and a sufferer of terminal, end-stage Trump Derangement Syndrome. He apparently hates President Trump so much that he's willing to see the country come apart, literally, to see the president out of office. He's even to the point where he's talking about the need for a military revolt against the National Command Authority - the president. The Federalist's Beth Brelje has some thoughts:
Tom Nichols, The Atlantic’s columnist and professional Trump quibbler, may be trying to provoke a civil war with his Oct. 7 piece urging the military to ignore any of President Donald Trump’s orders that they don’t like.
Also, Nichols may murder puppies. And he may lean too heavily on the qualifier “may,” used like a safe-word seven times in the piece, as he guesses his way through an anarchist’s fantasy that some readers may mistake for news.
He peppers in Antifa dog whistles, calling Trump and his administration “would-be autocrats,” and calls White House aide Stephen Miller a fascist.
So, he doesn't just have Trump Derangement Syndrome. He hates anyone who's to the political right of Leon Trotsky. I mean, calling Stephen Miller a "fascist?" Bear in mind that "fascist" these days is just a synonym for "doody-head." It's just the latest in the list of terms leftists 1) don't understand, and 2) use as a knee-jerk pejorative which relieves them of the need to actually think about what they're saying.
Here, though, is where Nichols' rambling treads on dangerous ground.
All of his “may” statements are below, and together, they show a clever propagandist’s strategy. He starts by repeating an ominous warning.
“The leaders of the U.S. military may soon face a terrible decision.”
“… top U.S.-military commanders may have to decide whether they will refuse such orders from the commander in chief.”
“… military commanders may soon have to choose between obeying the president and obeying the law.”
After Nichols coaches the troops in insubordination and possible treason, he transitions to some scenarios he cooked up.“Trump may be tempted to issue orders to the military that will be aimed at suppressing dissent, or disrupting elections, or detaining political figures …”
“[Trump] may even become desperate enough to launch a foreign war …”
Nichols is implying a dichotomy where none exists. President Trump has not issued any illegal orders. Where a judge, for whatever reason, orders a deployment of National Guard troops, the administration complies - they react, they appeal, they find workarounds, but they comply. There have been no illegal orders.
But what Nichols is calling for is very dangerous. What he says "may" happen, and bear in mind he is issuing a veiled call for a military coup, would split the country apart. It would very likely lead to open conflict - a civil war. Nichols seems to think that eliminating President Trump by means of a military coup would somehow make America into a wonderful socialist paradise, which it wouldn't. Even if Nichols' side - the left - won any such conflict, it would more likely result in a military dictatorship.
And, to be candid, Nichols' side, the left, wouldn't win. The military brass may well be amenable to a leftist American government, but the rank and file - many of whom were among the thousands that stormed the recruiting stations after President Trump won the 2024 election? They aren't likely to take part in a military overthrow.
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It's a near-certainty that Nichols just plain doesn't know what he's talking about.
The likely result of an open conflict, the likely result of any attempt at a military coup, regardless of which side wins, would be deaths in the hundreds of thousands at a minimum, more likely in the millions. It would mean trillions in economic losses because of the infrastructure loss and the collapse of the big cities, which is, in any case, already happening, and which President Trump is trying to stop.
President Trump has been trying to stamp down the leftist outrages that are tearing our cities apart, and Nichols is willing to sacrifice those cities to get Trump out of office. And that, indeed, is his most catastrophic miscalculation:
Nichols hates Trump more than he likes safe cities, and he really wants to bring Trump down. Sadly for him, nothing has worked yet.
“Congress, so far, has been useless in restraining Trump,” Nichols writes.
But he misses this important point: most Americans don’t want Trump restrained. They want Trump to carry out his agenda and they want people like Nichols and Antifa — aka the Democrats — to get out of the way.
A civil war would engender hatred and ill will that would last for generations. It would be very likely to damage the Republic beyond repair.
America as we know it would almost certainly be no more. This is something nobody should want and an outcome that we should take great pains to avoid. But to damage President Donald Trump, this liberal columnist, and many on the petty, rage-filled woke left like him, would gladly take that chance.
