To Military Leaders: You Can't Be Above the Fray Anymore

The president's actions have raised a question about the military. Its leaders must answer.

On Tuesday, the president of the United States conducted a political rally at Fort Bragg. Instead of celebrating the military on its 250th birthday, the president spoke to uniformed soldiers as his political supporters. He celebrated his narrow political agenda, vilified his opponents, falsely claimed conspiracies involving government officials, and asserted a special alliance between himself and the military.

Worse, in clear violation of professional ethics and military law, the soldiers in attendance expressed support for the president’s message. The attendees—again, in uniform—vocally agreed with the president’s claims about his agenda and his opponents. Soldiers also made attributed comments to reporters expressing their support for the president.

Worse still, the leadership of Fort Bragg facilitated all of this. Organizers were permitted to set up a booth selling MAGA and other right wing political merchandize on the post. Leaders of Fort Bragg curated the attendees to facilitate the president’s partisan message. Ensuring a politically sympathetic audience and implying that the event was political in nature, they told service members who do not agree with the president’s politics that they were permitted to not attend. They even explicitly treated their soldiers as political props by making “fat soldiers” not visible.

Though it broke new ground, this is not an isolated instance of the president politicizing the military. The president's remarks to service members in recent weeks have been increasingly partisan. What happened on Tuesday is just the new norm. We should now expect the president to explicitly treat the military as his political ally from now on. The military parade and the president’s remarks scheduled for Saturday will probably express even more loudly that the military is the president’s political tool.

These facts raise a question: Is the military the ally of the president and the enemy of his opponents?

As others have pointed out, the senior military leadership, both retired and active duty, have been conspicuously silent. They have not told the American people that this is wrong, even though it violates bedrock elements of military professionalism and the law. They have not said that this is dangerous, even though it directly threatens the constitutional order and the safety of American citizens—the very things the military exists to protect.

Surely, many military leaders are afraid of the consequences of speaking up. In this political context senior leaders who criticize these actions would be in danger. They could face professional penalties, threats from the president’s supporters, even prosecution. These are serious concerns, and I sympathize with their fears. But, as these leaders don’t need reminding, they are professionally obligated to protect the political neutrality of the military, even when doing so risks personal harm.

I presume most of the leaders who are staying silent tell themselves that speaking out will be interpreted as an act of political partisanship. They think that by staying quiet they are helping preserve the image of the neutrality of the military. But that is no longer possible. The president’s actions have undermined the image of the neutrality of the military. At this point, the military is longer above the fray. The failure of military leaders to dissent only further erodes the image of the military.

So, to all military leaders, please answer the question: Is the military the political tool of the president or not? You know what the right answer is. Silence is the wrong one.