Imagine a scene in which military forces surround the official residence of their country’s head of state, not to protect legitimate rule, but to point guns inward and overthrow it. This scene has played out countless times across human history, and still occurs across places we tend to consider as part of the 3rd world. In such places, generals—drunk with power—view themselves as rulers rather than servants.
Unfortunately, you no longer need to look overseas to find this kind of mindset lurking among some who wear their nation’s military uniform. You can find it right here in the United States.
There has been a troubling trend in recent years during which American military officers began to feel secure working to subvert the civilian chain of command, and even call for its overthrow publicly with impunity. Some retired generals became emboldened enough to use their former ranks to imply military contempt for the chain of command, specifically when under Republican leadership in the White House. This is a dangerous liberty for them to take with the institutional credibility their official status conveys. In so doing, these flag officers attempt to wrestle control from the expressed will of voters and transfer it to an elitist military caste.
This issue broke the surface again last week when retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Pat Donahoe posted a New York Times commentary, and repeated the headline “We Used to Think the Military Would Stand Up to Trump. We Were Wrong.” This piece—and the general’s endorsement of it from his personal, military-branded account—falls in line with a theme of arguments going back to Trump’s first administration, which called for the use of military force against the president.
That line of thinking went all the way to former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, while he was still very much an active duty officer. Though such behavior may shock many Americans, it has been on display for years now in public forums for those who knew where to look. It came to my notice in 2018.
I have long warned about the deepening left-wing partisanship infiltrating America’s military, a trend that echoes troubling historical precedents. The communist revolutionaries who overthrew the Russian monarchy for totalitarian oligarchs in 1917 had to first win over the military. Before Hitler unleashed terror across Europe, he had to replace military professionalism with allegiance to a party. The same rings true of the communist revolution in China, which turned an American ally into one of the world’s most repressive regimes.
In each case, military officials abandoned their responsibility to protect and conserve their nations and became complicit in subverting them. Military officials who signal longing for a similar shift in our time demonstrate belief that their status entitles them to supremacy over, rather than service to, their fellow citizens. This is a warning Americans must take seriously.
Retired Maj. Gen. Donahoe is one of the most senior military figures associated with what was an online confederacy of left-wing military members, known as #miltwitter. As Twitter gained popularity, a grouping of primarily mid-grade military officers embraced it as a way to share knowledge and build a new sort of online professional development community. The idea seemed good on the surface.
But in the old days of Twitter, the platform prioritized left-wing, progressive points of view. Military-affiliated users quickly learned that the way to increase views and grow large online followings was to break from the tradition of Huntingtonian military professionalism in favor of creating content that was often abrasive, unapologetically progressive, and sometimes vulgar. Certain among them, such as @ladylovestaft, @callsignbarbie, @cpt_blondie, @pptsapper, @V_Kositz, @ndkirschmann, @lethalityjane, @jimgolby, @easydeepblue, @broadcastmike - among others - amassed tens of thousands of followers. It was not unusual to find some among them speaking contemptuously of President Trump during his first term without consequence, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice’s Article 88.
Several have since locked down or deleted their accounts. A few of them, including U.S. Army Gen. Xavier Brunson, announced moves to the overtly left-wing Bluesky social platform once Twitter became X, with a changed algorithm that brought the ideological playing field closer to level. But in #miltwitter’s heyday, these personalities found safe harbor among a handful of senior Army officials who frequently engaged, and thus platformed, military-affiliated accounts that embraced a left-wing worldview.
These included now-retired General Robert Abrams, Lt. Gen. Ted Martin, Maj. Gen. Pat Donahoe, Major General Tammy Smith, and Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Grinston, among others. The appearance of endorsement from such senior officials provided institutional cover for growing ideological fervor in the ranks, aligned to progressive ends.
By late 2019, this movement had gained legitimacy to the point of gaining a panel at the Association of the United States Army annual conference in Washington, D.C., entitled Risky Business--Leadership in the Information Age, followed by a formal commentary penned by three general officers.
The mantra was that military leaders should all get online because ‘that’s where your soldiers are.’ Unfortunately, this misled many into importing left-wing ideologies into the ranks based on the mistaken belief that Twitter reflected the majority view of military members. Things came to a head in 2021 when Donahoe picked a fight online with Marine veteran and Hillsdale College doctoral student Josiah Lippincott and Tucker Carlson. The fallout prompted President Biden’s Army Secretary Christine Wormuth to weigh in, and ultimately forced Donahoe’s retirement. An arranged commentary in the Washington Post defending the general for—as his allies framed it—“calling out MAGA lies.”
This had no effect, especially as the Army went into the worst recruiting crisis since the post-1973 all-volunteer force. Top Army officials were finally done looking the other way as the group of military online personalities contributed to alienating conservative Americans from an institution that needed their youth to join. The #miltwitter tide washed out faster than it washed in.
It’s important to note that, as a private citizen, Donahoe is entitled to First Amendment protection and is free to express his views, even those I consider unwise. Yet the retired general retained Army branding in his X profile and a self-sought profile of high public visibility. The context of his previous online activity while in uniform, and his recent post that the military should ‘protect’ Americans from the president they elected, reignited the appearance of a man using his military status for—at a minimum—partisan purposes. In earlier years, Donahoe called for senior military officials to increase their online engagement, saying, “The richness of the discussion outweighs the risks.” But last week it seems he had a change of heart, and deleted his X account—a move announced on LinkedIn.
His positions, it seems, were not worth defending. If one truly believes the sitting president to be an existential threat to the nation, why run from making the argument? What we find instead is a belief system built on sand all along, one apparently not worth defending.
This is not an isolated case. Another troubling example surfaced recently when Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Douglass Sims leaked to The New York Times about a dispute with Pentagon leadership over his nomination for a fourth star. Senior Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Stu Scheller responded by exposing incidents of Sims refusing to work with the new team at the Department, because they’re ‘political.’ That didn’t stop Sims from instituting draconian COVID policies that placed restrictions nearly equivalent to house arrest on troops visiting Fort Riley to conduct military exercises when he commanded the 1st Infantry Division there.
When it comes to cooperating with political directives, it was not a matter of whether, but for which side Sims will cooperate. Many others like these men remain, working from within to undermine the administration’s efforts at reforming the Pentagon.
America’s military swears an oath to the Constitution, but too many of its influential members seem to believe in the supremacy of the Pentagon over democratic accountability. Our founders were wary of standing armies in peacetime for this very reason. The Trump Administration has a heavy lift ahead to halt the Defense Department’s slide away from any semblance of accountability toward the essential practices of oligarchy. They need our help in doing so. That can begin with America taking off the blinders of an ‘apolitical’ force and getting involved in military matters at all levels. It is not about whether the military is a political force, but for whom it wields that power.
We must force the military back to the vision of conserving America, and make it unthinkable for generals to call for, or work toward, a military coup against rightly-ordered liberty.