Harris Salutes the Generals at Town Hall
Why are former military leaders getting involved in politics? And why is Harris embracing it?
At the CNN town hall event last night, Kamala Harris’ first question was about two retired general’s description of Donald Trump as a “fascist.”
Whatever you think of Trump, high-ranking former military officers have no place in politics. The longstanding taboo against their involvement in politics is intended to preserve civilian control of the military, a key part of any functioning democracy. Retired officers are prohibited by law even from “using contemptuous words against the president and other elected officials,” experts say. But that taboo is disappearing as the country’s most powerful former generals are virtually tripping over each other in a rush to denounce their former boss.
Just this week, Army Gen. Mark Milley, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff and a retired Marine Corps four star, have publicly condemned Trump. “Fascist to the core,” Milley said. Kelly also called Trump a fascist, adding that Trump would “rule like a dictator” in a second administration.
This is far more heated language than that of past generals who tried to dip their toes in politics and generated far more controversy, as in the case of several former generals who called for then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation over the Iraq War. “But many currently serving officers, regardless of their views, say that respect for civilian control of the military requires that they air differences of opinion in private and stay silent in public,” the New York Times said of the incident at the time. Can you imagine the Times saying something like that today?
Despite all the campaign talk about saving democracy, Harris has embraced the generals’ remarks. At the town hall event last night, she brandished the national security credentials of Trump’s critics:
“I don’t necessarily think that everyone has heard what you and I have heard repeatedly, which is that the people who know Donald Trump the best, the people who worked with him in the White House, the Situation Room, in the Oval Office … his national security adviser, former secretary of defense and his vice president have all called him unfit and dangerous.”
Harris is not just ringing an alarm bell. She is also saying that these men are a class of individuals above all others, these men of national security (and these are all men) who not only know what’s best for America but also have earned the right to tell the American people how to vote. Though Milley and Kelly served under Trump, serving and enduring him as president, neither ever resigned out of principle, nor evoked Constitutional measures to remove the president for actions he took.
At the town hall, Harris explained to questioner Anderson Cooper with remarkable frankness her concern that the military might not be able this next time to “hold him back”:
“I think one has to think about why would someone who served with him [Trump] who is not political — a four star marine general — why is he telling the American people now? And frankly I think of it as he’s just putting out a 911 call to the American people. Understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House. And this time we must take very seriously those folks who knew him best and who were career people are not gonna be there to hold him back. At least before there were folks who … know what he would say, but they would restrain him.”
By “career people,” Harris is saying that these honorable men should be listened to precisely because they are not politicos. By their own accounts though, and those of most of the former president’s other former officials, Donald Trump was an ineffectual president who lost most every bureaucratic fight with them and the national security community. In other words, the national security community stopped an elected official from carrying out his policies. That should be a cause for alarm, not just in relation to Trump, but any future Democratic president who might find themselves at odds with the national security state.
You don’t have to like Trump to recognize that a coterie of unelected generals and other national security “career people” undermining the elected president is not a good thing. It flies in the face of the civilian control of the military I mentioned before — one of the country’s most cherished principles. In 1783, when a top general’s aide sought to coerce Congress into providing troops back pay and pensions it had promised — not an unreasonable demand after fighting in the Revolutionary War — George Washington was apoplectic. Despite being himself a longtime military officer (and America’s only six-star general), Washington denounced the aide’s subterfuge as treason.
As the U.S. Army War College explains, normal Americans today don’t really distinguish between active and retired, especially when it comes to these four stars, who continue to traffic on their rank and unique position in society:
“... the risk of politicization is real. We know from recent research that military cues harm the public perception of the military as a nonpartisan entity. … Americans are largely unable to distinguish between the retired and active-duty general officer corps, and the public’s commitment to military norms of non-partisanship norms are weak at best.”
We need to guard that distinction as much as possible.
As President, Trump did a lot of things I didn’t like. But none of those things are why his top national security officials resigned and now go on to trash him.
Harris mentioned his former secretary of defense, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis (another retired general), so let’s start with him. Mattis resigned over Trump’s desire to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria — a proposal that looks eminently reasonable today. (Just this week, two U.S. soldiers “not in combat” and deployed to “undisclosed locations” in Southwest Asia were injured in a raid in Iraq). Mattis did not resign over Trump’s idiotic raid in Yemen that got a Navy SEAL killed as well as an 8-year old American girl.
Kelly did not resign over Trump’s “rocket man” nuclear bluster about North Korea. He resigned when Trump defied him, over one of the things that Trump did that was actually constructive, attempting to extricate ourselves from an endless war. Similarly Trump got rid of national security advisor John Bolton after he opposed signing a peace agreement with the Taliban so that U.S. troops could withdraw from that war as well.
These cases point more to tantrums on the part of the national security community that it didn’t get its way rather than any kind of principled opposition to anything unlawful Trump did. The media is filled with strident headlines that next time it will be different, that somehow Trump will manage (the man who can’t manage anything!) to enlist the military to go after his political enemies.
These retired officers should shut up. No more letters signed by retired generals and admirals endorsing the national security credentials or opinions of presidential candidates. But most importantly, no more reverence for the generals, who can win no wars, provide no peace, and who gorge themselves like ticks on the private sector and now on our politics.
— Edited by William M. Arkin
I don’t draw the same conclusions from my observations. So much to unpack:
1. Harris is a 60 year old professional woman. Like all of us, she has undoubtedly been told ALL HER LIFE like the drip drip drip of Chinese water torture that she was too soft, too quiet, too emotional, too sympathetic, not tough enough, not bold enough, etc. And when she WAS tough, she was undoubtedly told she was too harsh, too aggressive, too shrill, etc. I don’t worry that she is going to kowtow to the military, because I know this game. Unlike male candidates of a certain age, she has to show that she can function like they do in the toxic environment of male dominated military leadership, as the Commander in Chief of the most powerful nation on earth. The generals are partly window dressing for the old misogynists in the crowd who will be voting. Trust me.
2. I have unfortunately had to deal with high level military commanders and they are some of the most politically astute, arrogant SOBs you could ever meet, and they are EXPERTS at CYA efforts. I have no doubt that Milley, Mattie and his ilk were unprepared for the utter fecklessness, lack of discipline and complete disregard for law/custom/human decency they encountered in Trump. By the time they wised up and realized he’d take the whole enchilada down with him (including their pensions and careers) they likely believed that they were uniquely positioned to prevent some of the carnage, so they stayed. Until they couldn’t control him. Then, in a mixture of awareness (when the denial bubble burst) and self interest, they walked. This makes more sense than what you propose: that these guys are so emotionally unhinged that they throw tantrums and quit when the Prez doesn’t do whatever they tell him to do. I don’t worship soldiers, but I acknowledge the amount of combined effort, self control and strategy that goes into their functioning and performance of duty.
3. Despite your characterizations, when I read the Harris quote, I noticed that she doesn’t elevate the generals over others in importance or stature. What she is referring to is the fact that they were privy to classified info and had access to the President in unguarded moments of critical decision making. This is priceless intel that was available to only a small group. The fact that they are willing to come out and make these statements after what they experienced, to prevent the complete destruction of democratic norms and processes in a 2nd term, is significant for that reason. They know what Trump is, how he makes decisions and what he envisions for the future. He asked them why he couldn’t just call out the National Guard to go shoot protestors, remember?
4. Which brings me to the most important point: I agree that civilian control of the military is essential. However, I do not see any threat to that in Harris. The Trump presidency was anomalous and enlightening. He did us a great service in showing us where the cracks in our foundations need patching to prevent another wanna be dictator from attempting to hijack our Constitution and the spirit of our nation. But he is a threat to order and freedom - why? Because of his shaky, shady financial ties, his cult of MAGA fanatics, his lifelong abuse of the justice system, his alliances with and admiration of autocrats and oligarchs, his use of extortion, fraud and gang style management of every criminal enterprise (and some legit ones) that he has ever led. Basically, because he operates like Tony Soprano. All the zealots and grifters have propped him up with a structure and a vetted list of 5k loyal stooges to take over on Day 1 to enact his horror show of priorities here. So he may be incapable and incompetent, but his Oval Office Round 2 Team is not and they have had time to regroup. That in itself is good reason to temporarily suspend (yes, I know what that sounds like) some concerns about pre-election puffing and generals making negative reports about a candidate who is determined to end the American experiment in favor of anointing himself king for life (followed by the nightmare of a fundamentalist theocracy led by Shady Vance, for the pale male landed gentry only).
Ok that’s just my initial thoughts, enjoy.
Condemnations of Trump by his former generals and natsec people have been ardently embraced by Harris to my dismay (and disgust). My initial reaction every time a new one pops up is, “Where the hell have you been for the last x years? Why now?”. The same people who decry election interference from [insert country du jour] have no issue with election interference from the U.S. military?
I also laugh sardonically at the Dems latest scare tactic. “Trump wants Hitler-style generals. He’s a fascist.” Have these folks paid no attention to Israel and the IDF in the past year?
Thank you for confirming what I was thinking. In my 81 years on this earth, I’ve never been faced with two worse major party candidates in a presidential race. Neither has earned my vote.