The Only Oath Trump Respects Is to Himself
In recent days Donald Trump has gone completely medieval on six Democratic members of Congress, all of them military or intelligence-agency veterans, who ran an ad reminding their former comrades in arms that they aren’t obliged to obey illegal orders. In a blizzard of Truth Social posts, Trump called the lawmakers “traitors,” accused them of “seditious behavior, punishable by death,” and suggested they be locked up immediately. Soon thereafter, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Senator Mark Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy captain, might be called back to active duty in order to be court-martialed over “serious allegations of misconduct.”
Subsequently the FBI contacted the six Democrats to arrange interviews and investigations about their involvement in the ad. One of them, Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, said, “The President directing the FBI to target us is exactly why we made this video in the first place.” And the four House members who participated in the ad (Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire) released a joint statement defiantly responding to the FBI move: “No amount of intimidation or harassment will ever stop us from doing our jobs and honoring our Constitution.”
Team Trump is obviously going far beyond anything it needed to do to address the ad. As Jonathan Chait noted, “The Trump administration could have deployed an obvious defense: What are you talking about? We’re not issuing or planning any illegal orders.” The ad did not accuse the administration of having already issued illegal orders. It simply observed that “this administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens.” That’s a rather incontrovertible statement, given Trump’s deployments of National Guard units in various cities, and of Marines in California, to deal with entirely legal protests. Yes, the White House seems to believe a vast number of Americans are traitors and insurrectionary conspirators. But the fact remains that Trump fully expects members of the military to engage in rare domestic law-enforcement activities that at least skirt the laws and the Constitution. It’s a legitimate problem.
Even if you believe all orders by this president are by definition lawful, or that they must be obeyed even if they aren’t, there’s a pretty serious inconsistency problem for the administration. You know who else takes the position — and takes it to an extreme — that oaths taken to defend the Constitution outrank any orders that might violate it, even from a president, and even after uniformed service has ended? Trump’s allies in the Oath Keepers organization. This right-wing group recruits active and retired military and law-enforcement personnel who are asked to put into practice their elevation of oaths over orders and over laws they deem unconstitutional. They don’t just appeal to the patriotic conscience: They have defined views on the many laws and public policies they feel no compunction to obey, beginning with absolutely any regulation of firearms and extending to private-property rights, which they consider sacrosanct. And indeed, when the Oath Keepers believe politicians are plotting to violate their rights, they are committed to do something about it preemptively, which is why the group is deeply invested in an array of far-right conspiracy theories.
The Oath Keepers (along with the similarly militant Proud Boys) have been on the radical fringe of the MAGA movement and were very involved in planning and executing the January 6 insurrection. A significant number of the Capitol rioters arrested, investigated, prosecuted, and imprisoned for involvement in that assault on the 2020 election results were Oath Keeper and Proud Boys rank and file. They were among the 1,500 “J6 patriots” pardoned by Trump on the first day of his second term. Five Oath Keepers who were convicted of playing a particularly large role in organizing the insurrection received commuted sentences and were set free the same day as the pardons. They included Oath Keeper founder Stewart Rhodes, a sort of Johnny Appleseed of sedition in the name of constitutional rights.
So if people like Rhodes and his confederates are viewed as MAGA heroes for acting violently on their constitutional convictions while breaking laws and defying the legitimacy of a duly elected president of the United States, why should six Democratic members of Congress get treated as “traitors” for the mere suggestion that illegal orders might be issued and should be disobeyed? Aren’t they “oath keepers” too, without all the conspiracy theories and weapons caches?
The inescapable conclusion is that Trump respects oaths taken to him and his causes, not to the presidency or to the Constitution. He has repeatedly placed himself above all laws, and his understanding of the Constitution is defined by his famous comment that “I have an Article 2 where I have the right to do anything I want as president.” His position atop an inviolable chain of command governing the military is personal, not institutional. In his mind, he is in the process of saving America from destruction every day and thus is the sole legitimate object of patriotic duty. No wonder he so often identifies opposition to his will with “insurrection” and is enraged by reminders of the limits of his power. That’s the real crime committed by the six Democrats he wants to jail or hang.