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No. No. Only someone who has never met a soldier and knows nothing about how the military works would EVER say something this dumb There's about to be a lot of tweets but tl;dr: no one even remotely left of center would enjoy the results of an American military coup 1/https://twitter.com/RickHertzberg/status/1254509734838841344 …
First off: the military is a conservative institution by nature. It revved around tradition and tales of past glory. It's never going to be revolutionary or even progressive, ever Like all systems, the military shapes it's members into its own image 2/
This is the part where you point to the Military Times 2019 survey and point out that 50% of troops do not approve of Trump (https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2019/12/17/half-of-active-duty-service-members-are-unhappy-with-trump-new-military-times-poll-shows/ …) Good news from an electoral and moral perspective. From a coup perspective it means both jack and shit 3/
If I polled the troops on their opinions on their direct chain of command, I guarantee you WAY more than 49.9% of them strongly disapprove, and yet nary a mutiny do I see That's because military training, organization, and ethos prioritize following orders over anything 4/
"But what about officers? They could order the troops to do a coup!!" In theory, sure. In practice? How do you suppose someone rises to the level where they could make a coup happen? Conformity. Obedience. Political maneuvering Bootlicking 5/
The people who don't like the taste of shoe leather get out. Those who stay in acquire a taste for it or never progress to a high enough rank to matter There are exceptions of course--all hail CPT Crozier--but generally speaking, everyone high-ranking does what they're told 6/
If you think 50% disapproval of the commander in chief within the ranks is enough to make a high-ranking officer go against 20+ years of indoctrination and identity to openly rebel against a superior using military force, you're living in dreamland, you know nothing 7/
Even if a coup happened, which it 100% would NOT, who do you think gets installed? Not Joe Fucking Biden, that's for sure, and definitely no one to the left of that. You'll get a military conservative, or just plain military dictatorship. Both of those things are bad 8/
What is far more likely, if we're talking coups, is that a sitting commander in chief commands the military to preserve his power in the face of something designated an unconstitutional threat The chain of command remains unbroken, institutional identity remains intact 9/
Lots of soldiers wouldn't like being Trump's personal army. But soldiers like very, very little of the shit they're ordered to do. They do it because they've been trained to obey. The military exerts tremendous and unrelenting pressure from all sides to force conformity 10/
So take the words "military coup" out of your mouth and out of your brain, forever. The military is a tool that belongs to the commander in chief, the military will not save you Sincerely, -an ex-troops 11/11
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