Turnover fuels alarm in the Pentagon. Do U fear Trump will use the military to retain power?

[ProudModerate2]

Poll Question ...
Do you fear that Trump will use the military to retain power?

Trump administration removes senior defense officials and installs loyalists, triggering alarm at Pentagon.

The Trump administration has carried out sweeping changes atop the Defense Department's civilian leadership structure, removing several of its most senior officials and replacing them with perceived loyalists to the President.

The flurry of changes, announced by the Department of Defense in a statement roughly 24 hours after President Donald Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, have put officials inside the Pentagon on edge and fueled a growing sense of alarm among military and civilian officials, who are concerned about what could come next.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/11/10/politics/pentagon-policy-official-resigns/index.html

Vote and discuss.

[BudgieForce]

Trump is obviously unpopular with the upper military brass. There's no way they'd support Trump in any coup attempt.

[Hammy]

I absolutely think he believes that he can, but this is also the route I think has the least chance of actually succeeding. 

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Heads would roll.

I mean, not literally. Beheading is no longer used as a method of execution.

[Joe Biden is your president. Deal with it.]

Why is everyone so scared of Trump? The guy who was in Home Alone 2 and The Little Rascals movie is going to overthrow the government? Yeah no. Give it 2 weeks when Pennsylvania certifies Biden’s win.   

[TRKL1917]

Why is everyone so scared of Trump? The guy who was in Home Alone 2 and The Little Rascals movie is going to overthrow the government? Yeah no. Give it 2 weeks when Pennsylvania certifies Biden’s win.  

The fact that most people view him as a celebrity clown makes him very easy to underestimate and thus more dangerous then if he wasn’t perceived that way. The facts are that their is absolutely no indication that Trump will concede the election, and it is crystal clear that Trump and his allies (Congressional Republicans, Most of the active duty Military, virtually all of Law enforcement, a majority of the Intelligence community, most of Wall Street/Silicon Valley, and certain foreign actors such as Israel and Russia) will seek to keep him in the White House by any means necessary (ranging from Lawsuits and recounts to delay certification and throw the election to the 27 Republican House delegations to having Republican State legislatures in PA, MI, WI, GA, and AZ, select Trump electors instead of Biden electors and potentially use the Military to launch a Tiananamen-style crackdown on resulting nationwide protests/riots and arrest any Democratic Party politicians that would attempt to stop the de facto transformation of the U$ into a Fascist dictatorship).

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't at all fear Trump is somehow going to use the military to retain power, as if that is a thing that would be remotely possible.

I am a bit concerned though for the implications for our military readiness and how this looks to our adversaries.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Why is everyone so scared of Trump? The guy who was in Home Alone 2 and The Little Rascals movie is going to overthrow the government? Yeah no. Give it 2 weeks when Pennsylvania certifies Biden’s win.  

The fact that most people view him as a celebrity clown makes him very easy to underestimate and thus more dangerous then if he wasn’t perceived that way. The facts are that their is absolutely no indication that Trump will concede the election, and it is crystal clear that Trump and his allies (Congressional Republicans, Most of the active duty Military, virtually all of Law enforcement, a majority of the Intelligence community, most of Wall Street/Silicon Valley, and certain foreign actors such as Israel and Russia) will seek to keep him in the White House by any means necessary (ranging from Lawsuits and recounts to delay certification and throw the election to the 27 Republican House delegations to having Republican State legislatures in PA, MI, WI, GA, and AZ, select Trump electors instead of Biden electors and potentially use the Military to launch a Tiananamen-style crackdown on resulting nationwide protests/riots and arrest any Democratic Party politicians that would attempt to stop the de facto transformation of the U$ into a Fascist dictatorship).

I disagree a little here, even though I seem to be in the camp of those who are more worried about Trump's nascent coup rather than less.

I don't think we know (yet) that Trump's allies will keep him in power "by any means necessary". My distress is more that we have already left the "business as usual" path for a presidential transition and there are few or no positive indicators from the would-be coup plotters as to how far they're willing to go down it. (And the further they go, the harder it becomes for them to stop, because of the consequences they may face and the pressure from their followers they themselves are creating.)

As you say, I do see various people (here and elsewhere) dismissing Trump's coup with excuses like "it's just his usual BS" or "he's just trying to grift more money from his supporters". And I don't know that they're wrong. But there is no way to accurately tell if they're wrong until we get further down the road of 'Donald Trump's coup'.

Right now, in a normal lawful transition, Trump would have conceded and the formal transition would be gearing up. While the concession itself is a formality, there are several other more concerning anomalies:

Trump is claiming he won.
Trump is rejecting the election as invalid.

He and his campaign/administration (he's blurred the line to an illegal level) are advocating abandoning the electoral process. 

And, the biggest warning sign, Trump is refusing to even spin up the presidential transition process.

The next big step, either towards normality or GOP treason, will be December 1st, by which time all the contested states will have certified their results. At that time, Trump and Republicans will no longer be able to refuse to recognize President-elect Biden without tipping their hand. Refusing to acknowledge Biden after the election results are official, or declining to do so on by claiming baseless legal challenges (Trump's campaign is 0/12 on those so far) is a pretty clear indicator that they're going for a coup.

After that, the key dates are:

December 14th - the Electoral College votes.

January 6th - Congress counts the Electoral Votes

January 20th - Inauguration

[pbrower2a]

Given the choice between being complicit in extending the term of Trump's Presidency illegally (which is practically the establishment of unconstitutional rule) and backing the Constitution, I am fully satisfied that the senior officers of the USA will back the result of a free and fair election.   

[vitoNova]

The military swears an oath to the Constitution, not the president. 

[Woody]

He's draining the swamp.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Dems lied he was Putin's puppet. Didn't happen.
Dems lied he would start war with Iran or someone else. Instead, you've got most dovish President in decades. No wars, gradual pullout from Middle East and couple of historic deals between Israel and Arab nations.
Dems lied he would try to grasp the power over states during pandemic, because he's a wannabe authoritarian dictator. He chose a libertarian approach.


Now Dems lie he will "use the military to retain power". Yes, sure.


The purge is likely about leaving Afghanistan (Middle East?). If OP read the article he linked to, he'd see this:

Knowledgeable sources told CNN's Jake Tapper Tuesday that the White House now seems focused on going after Esper's under secretaries at the Defense Department in the wake of his firing on Monday. Esper was replaced by Christopher Miller, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The sources said the effort may be because Esper and his team were pushing back on a premature withdrawal from Afghanistan that would be carried out before the required conditions on the ground were met, and other pending security issues.

"This is scary, it's very unsettling," one defense official told CNN. "These are dictator moves."

Gi! According to Pentagons Swamp it is a "dictator move" to fulfill a promise made to Americans. Leaving ME for good is one of few truly popular bipartisan policies. Among voters, not among warmongers from GOP and Dems.


More about Miller>>>

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/11/10/what-does-the-new-acting-secdef-mean-for-the-war-in-afghanistan/
What does the new acting SECDEF mean for the war in Afghanistan?

One of the president’s top priorities throughout his administration, but particularly in the run-up to the 2020 election, has been the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan after 19 years of back-to-back deployments.

“It would be, in my view, the height of irresponsibility to leave this conflict for our children to fight,” Miller told senators of his feelings about prolonging the war.

The Trump administration this year forged ahead with a plan that would draw down troop levels from about 8,500 to 4,000 this month.

In the weeks before the election, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien insisted that number would come down again, to 2,500, early next year. Trump followed that statement up by tweeting that remaining troops “should” be home by Christmas.

“I don’t think there’s anybody that knows more about these situations than Chris,” Neil said. “Chris has been involved since the very first troops into Afghanistan, so he is the one to give the president the best counsel.”

Miller’s predecessor found himself trying to maneuver around the president’s ambitious Afghanistan timeline, urging over and over that withdrawing below 4,000 troops would be based on conditions set out by ongoing peace talks between the U.S. government and the Taliban, as well as the Taliban and the Afghan government.