John Schindler on the reasons for civilian-military concern with the Trump WH and its generals

[highplainsdem]

11-tweet thread starting here, with all the tweets linked:

Link to tweet

1/ There is no "military coup" in DC. That's ridiculous. Still, there are reasons for civ-mil concern with the Trump WH & its generals....

2/ It's not normal to have so many top WH jobs staffed, as now, with (recently) retired GOs. No use pretending this is America's SOP....

3/ How much this is due to our draft-dodging POTUS' weird affectation for all things military is a good question to ask. But there's more...

4/ Since the draft's abolition in 1973, military worship (as long as you don't have to serve) has become normal, esp on the US Right...

5/ US military is easily idolized only if you never go near it. It's a govt institution, peeps. Yet, it's become an idol to be worshipped...

6/ Rise of the generals in the Trump WH has a lot to do with a sense that our military is 1 of the few functional things left in America...

7/ I wonder if that's true, particularly given the less-than-stellar record of our military, strategically speaking, in its recent wars....

8/ But a lot of Americans believe - or perhaps want to believe - it's true, so here we are with a dysfunctional WH loaded with generals....

9/ It's never a sign of societal or political health when you have to call in generals to do big things normally handled by civilians...

10/ In its last years, Yugoslavia - another fragmentingly diverse society - used generals to fill top civ jobs too due to a broken system...

That's not a feel-good analogy; not supposed to be. The rise of the generals isn't a coup, it's something maybe even more disturbing. /End

[SunSeeker]

1. Things didn't end well for Yugoslavia, nor its generals.

Last edited Sun Oct 22, 2017, 12:42 PM - Edit history (1)

Generals are trained in applying brute force, not governance. And the vocation tends to be populated by authoritarian types. All of that makes for pretty disastrous civilian leadership.

[highplainsdem]

3. True. Schindler meant the analogy as a warning.

[mopinko]

2. and yet they suck up more and more of the budget.