On Monday, the Department of War announced its commencement of an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., for potential violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice related to his participation in Democrats’ seditious “disobey unlawful orders” video.
This is absolutely the right approach, and the move is a helpful contrast to the mixed bag Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, offered this past Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
When asked about President Donald Trump’s pushback against sitting Democrat lawmakers actively encouraging the military to disobey orders (specifically ones to destroy drug-running Venezuelan boats), McCaul was 100 percent correct that the orders are perfectly legal under Article II and that the White House needs to emphasize this fact.
I would add to that and say that it needs to be hammered that these orders were issued to save American lives. Make the choice a stark dichotomy: Either you are for saving American lives or you are for saving the lives of South American scumbags who would kill a 10-year-old girl if it meant an extra $50. But he was completely wrong when, pressed by Martha Raddatz, he said, “I would tone down the rhetoric and tone down the theme here.”
Because the right currently lacks the necessary revolutionary mindset required to win, Republican lawmakers, pundits, and professional blabbers are often urging each other (and we, the people) that words and actions need to be toned down. We saw ripples of this after the disappointing results of the off-year elections earlier this month. As soon as the results were in, Rep. Marie Salazar, R-Fla., took it as a sign that it was time for the GOP to “moderate” on immigration, declaring that “immigration is the economy” and then urged the House to pass her Dignity Act, which would grant legal status to certain illegal aliens.
We see this in the recent rumor, first reported in the UK Daily Mail, that there is a plot brewing among the Bush family and its still legion connections within the GOP to bring the family back to the party’s pinnacle after Trump leaves the White House for the last time, demonstrating that there are still a myriad of swamp monsters who want to drag us back to the days of “bipartisanship” and “high principle,” which is now just code for allowing the Uniparty to have its way in everything, the country and her citizens be hung.
Depending on how the word is defined, in normal times, “moderation” would not necessarily be a bad thing. When civilization is healthy, when political arguments are just that — and not feints of a metaphysical war which has, as its heart, the question of whether the United States should exist — then no sane person wants to be a rhetorical bomb-thrower. But we do not live in normal times and haven’t for quite some time.
The Democrat apparatus has declared every Republican presidential candidate to be “literally Hitler” since 2000 and every Republican president illegitimate: Bush was “selected, not elected” in 2000 and “stole” the 2004 election (a conspiracy that never died); Russiagate, of course, was the pièce de résistance. And it goes even further back than that. In his 1944 State of the Union Address, Franklin Roosevelt referred to the “normalcy” of the 20s (that is, the presidencies of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge) as “the spirit of Fascism,” which could never be allowed to return.
The rhetoric has only increased, building slowly but logically toward our present moment, when enforcing the duly passed immigration laws already on the books is now the equivalent of the Gestapo rounding up Jews in 1942, where wishing for the death of your political opponent’s children is rewarded with public office, and where sitting members of Congress call on the military to disobey lawful orders.
Mark Kelly and the rest are already trying to play victim, saying they were just reminding active military that they don’t have to follow illegal orders. But, as the X account Cynical Publius (a retired Army colonel who served in Afghanistan and Iraq) noted, it’s more lies. The sole purpose of the video was to strike a flame, egg on members of the military to disobey lawful orders, and create a self-fulfilling political drama. “See! See! Even our military knows Trump is a fascist despot!”
In other words, they shredded the chain of command, tried to nullify the results of the 2024 election, and played footsie with genuine insurrection in order to conjure “proof” for their narrative. The proof comes from their own mouths. Not a single Democrat in the video ever specified which of Trump’s orders were illegal. If illegal orders were issued, they should be able to point them out. Instead, silence on specifics and grand, balloon gorilla chest thumping.
This, if for no other reason, is why there cannot be a “toning down” of rhetoric when it comes to dealing with Kelly & Co. and the rest of the Democrat apparatchiks. Yes, the easy thing to do is to ignore it and go on with business as usual. Yes, the left will react just as you know it will and use the softest pushback as “proof” that America is now a dictatorship with Trump “targeting” his political enemies. Look at the pearl clutching, the screaming from Trump’s social media response, where he reminded the public that insurrection is punishable by death.
An actual pushback would be met by a cacophony of op-eds, breathless analyses, wailing and grinding of teeth. It would become a focal point of Democrat fundraising for the midterms. It might even trigger more street violence. But the consequences of not doing anything are more terrible than these.
An actual push to undermine the sitting president from his legitimate, constitutional authority and swindle the majority who elected him must be punished, or else our self-government is a sham, held hostage by legislative terrorists. An attempted coup — no matter how squishy seeming — demands the strongest and most effective reaction to defend our form of government and our sovereignty. More importantly, there must be an appropriate response so that this never, ever happens again.
The left is a steamroller. It will not stop unless it’s smashed. If Kelly and Slotkin and Crow, Goodlander, and the rest are allowed to get away scot-free, not only will they do it again, but they will raise the ante. One reason why leftists are so dangerous today is that there were no consequences for them over the last four years. When you burn down American cities and the Democrat VP candidate’s campaign pays your bail, you get the message quickly.
So, as Scott McCay writes in The American Spectator, “Strip their committee assignments, kick them out of their offices, refer them to the Justice Department for sedition, open investigations into them for every possible violation of campaign finance or other laws. Make examples of them and let them scream about persecution as patriots standing up for American principles.” It’s past time to show the left who the real sovereigns of the country are.