Back in November, a sitting congressman tweeted that if Donald Trump "seizes power" by winning the 2024 election, he will put tanks in the streets against his enemies. He even accompanied this warning with a graphic of a tank on a suburban street with a Trump bumper stick on it and said he'd "post this repeatedly so no one can say they haven’t been told."
Why didn't Trump do that in his first term? Why didn't he send tanks to the Capitol?
Remember back when we learned that now-retired General Mark Milley secretly called his Chinese counterpart four days before the 2020 election and assured him that if the United States were going to attack China, he would give them advance notice? That sure sounded like treason to a lot of people, but progressives praised Milley as a great patriot.
NBC News is reporting that some deep-staters are "quietly devising plans" to foil any effort by Trump to pressure the U.S. military to carry out his political agenda:
"Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House," reads the headline.
Peter Nicholas, Katherine Doyle, Megan Lebowitz, and Courtney Kube report:
Donald Trump is sparking fears among those who understand the inner workings of the Pentagon that he would convert the nonpartisan U.S. military into the muscular arm of his political agenda as he makes comments about dictatorship and devalues the checks and balances that underpin the nation’s two-century-old democracy.
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Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return, a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs.
Those taking part in the effort told NBC News they are studying Trump’s past actions and 2024 policy positions so that they will be ready if he wins in November. That involves preparing to take legal action and send letters to Trump appointees spelling out consequences they’d face if they undermine constitutional norms.
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Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said.
"To challenge Trump from day one," huh? How is that any different from 2016? They were calling for Trump's impeachment before he was even sworn in.
This is disturbing.
This is really disturbing, and not in the way NBC News thinks it is. Trump's campaign rhetoric is over the top, they say. And they're taking it all literally.