The END OF DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA is coming...

Trump is ‘fascist to the core,’ Milley says in Woodward book

The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says Trump is “the most dangerous person to this country,” echoing dire warnings of others in national security circles.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/12/mark-milley-donald-trump-fascist/




Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley is increasingly dire about what a second Trump administration would mean for world affairs. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)


Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term, according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.

Milley, 66, served for more than a year as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump before continuing in the role under President Joe Biden.

Upon stepping down in September 2023 after more than 40 years in the military, Milley laid out his apparent concerns about Trump in a pointed retirement speech. “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator,” he said.

Woodward’s new book, “War,” due out Tuesday, follows Milley in the years after the Trump administration as he wrestles with escalating fears over the president he once served.

Milley was a source for Woodward’s 2021 book, “Peril,” sharing his worries about Trump’s mental stability and national security decisions, according to excerpts of his new book. Upon seeing Woodward again at a reception in March 2023, he told the author that his concerns had grown more dire.

“I glimpsed it when I talked to you back — for ‘Peril,’ but I now know it. I now know it,” he said.

“No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump,” the general told Woodward. “Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country.”

By the following year, Milley was receiving a “nonstop barrage of death threats” that he attributed to Trump’s political rhetoric and his fixation on retribution for his perceived enemies, Woodward writes.

After retiring, Milley installed bulletproof glass and blast-proof curtains at his home.

He also fears being recalled to uniform to be court-martialed “for disloyalty,” should Trump win against Vice President Kamala Harris in November, Woodward writes.

“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley warned former colleagues, according to the book, in reference to a 2020 Oval Office meeting with Milley and former defense secretary, Mark T. Esper, in which Trump threatened to court-martial two military officers, Stanley McChrystal and William H. McRaven, who had been critical of the president after retiring.

“I will order them back to active duty and then I will court-martial them!” Trump yelled, according to Woodward. Esper wrote a similar account of the meeting in his own 2022 book.

“He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him,” Milley told colleagues.

Milley, who formerly served as chief of staff of the Army, had a strained 16-month tenure in the Trump administration. In 2020, after the police killing of George Floyd, he joined the president and other top administration officials to appear outside a church for a photo opportunity in Washington, after Trump had ordered demonstrators be removed from Lafayette Square near the White House.

Milley later apologized for being there. “My presence in that moment, and in that environment, created the perception of the military involved in domestic politics,” he said at the time.

Another clash came after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Milley called his then-counterpart in the Chinese government, Gen. Li Zuocheng, to reassure him that the country and its international relations would remain stable.

“My task at that time was to de-escalate,” Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee in testimony to Congress later that year. “My message again was consistent: calm, steady, de-escalate. We are not going to attack you.”

Afterward, Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform that if Milley was giving China “a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” it would amount to “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Numerous national security officials, retired military leaders and Republicans have announced their support for Harris, according to a tally by The Post.

Milley could not be reached for comment Saturday, and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The campaign is ending. What will happen with our democracy?

Plus: A word on the endorsement decision. Republicans fail an election legal challenge (again).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/30/mailbag-campaign-close-democracy-election/




With less than a week before Election Day, I take your questions and point to a noteworthy piece of journalism and legal decision.

A reader asks: We have read about the damage former president Donald Trump could do if elected. Given the fact he always lies, some of his threats are presumably lies, too. What do you think is the most likely damage Trump will do?

Answer: He will most likely make unilateral decisions, such as replacing 50,000 civil servants with MAGA lackeys and ordering mass roundups of undocumented immigrants. I would also expect to see him end aid to Ukraine. He very well could pardon all people convicted of offenses related to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. These authoritarian actions would have horrifying consequences for democracy here and abroad.

A reader asks: Clearly, there are ways to skew aggregate polls with quick, less-scientific polls. What could help increase reliability of the aggregates and stop the troll-polls from influencing analysis?

Answer: I think there needs to be less polling and far less coverage of polling. Months ahead of the race, polls have virtually no meaning. Even professional polls closer to the election are misrepresented. And when a race is within the margin of error, obsessive polling followed by hysteria over minor changes misleads the voters into thinking the race is changing. In any event, all of this nonnews takes the place of much needed, substantive coverage.

A reader asks: I’m curious why Trump (and his fellow liars) aren’t being sued more often for the many lies they tell about people.

Answer: People do not want to suffer further abuse, they might lack the resources and/or they do not want to devote time and emotional energy to years of litigation. We should appreciate E. Jean Carroll’s extraordinary legal action given the toll such endeavors take.

A reader asks: I am really dumbfounded at how so many journalists are still describing Trump as a “political candidate.” He is attempting to overthrow and destroy our entire constitution and democracy. At this stage, why are journalists talking as if this is just another election and he is just another politician?

Answer: Many are stuck in a paradigm of “neutrality,” ill-suited to a time when one candidate has no commitment to the truth or democracy. Others want to perpetuate the thrill of a “horserace.” I implore them to spend the time and effort it takes to put this election in context, starting by examining fascist movements and getting the insights of mental health experts.

A reader asks: Do you believe that women will be a deciding factor in this election? I read your book, “Resistance,” three years ago and found it quite worth while. After the Dobbs decision in 2022, I feel that women will be even more critical in this election. Don’t you?

Answer: Thanks for the plug! Yes, I do. When you consider that women vote in larger numbers than men, that most are Democrats, that Democrats have overperformed in elections since Dobbs and that Harris (with an assist from former first lady Michelle Obama) has skillfully described the issue as a matter of freedom and of women’s lives, this could be the most decisive issue of the cycle — up and down the ballot.

Further thoughts

The vast majority of the questions this week regarded Post owner Jeff Bezos’s decision not to endorse a presidential candidate (which he personally defended) — and my reaction to it. As many of you know, I signed onto a letter with 20 other columnists protesting the decision. I second the columns from my colleagues Dana Milbank, Ruth Marcus and Karen Tumulty, not to mention the ever-witty Alexandra Petri.

As I posted last weekend: To the hundreds of readers who have reached out directly through the chat or email (and thousands more on social media), I am very sad to see you cancel subscriptions, but I am touched more than I can say by your words and your loyalty. If I did not respond personally, it is because the volume has gotten out of hand. But I have read each and every one.

The conflict inherent in a newspaper owner with a major outside business dependent on substantial income from the federal government remains. That conflict can potentially endanger the independence and credibility of The Post absent courage and moral clarity from its owner and absolute transparency from its management.

I am reminded in particular of two of the seven principles handed down from Eugene Meyer, who owned The Post from 1933 to 1946: “The newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners,” and “In the pursuit of truth, the newspaper shall be prepared to make sacrifices of its material fortunes, if such course be necessary for the public good.” When we cannot uphold those maxims, The Post will no longer be The Post.

Finally, I have been among the fiercest critics of Trump and his fascist movement. I intend to continue to carry on from my present platforms — The Post, MSNBC and my podcast, Jen Rubin’s Green Room. If that changes, my readers will be the first to know.

Journalism 101

“Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had,’” reads the headline for Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg’s recent piece. The subheadline reads: “The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.” Goldberg goes on to address the story of “Vanessa Guillén, a 20-year-old Army private, [who] was bludgeoned to death by a fellow soldier at Fort Hood, in Texas” (followed by Trump’s racist, disrespectful outburst when told of the cost of the funeral) as well as Goldberg’s interview with former chief of staff and retired Marine general John F. Kelly. The piece also reviews reporting on Trump’s comments about and interaction with the military.

The enormity of all of the evidence of Trump’s contempt for servicemen and servicewomen is breathtaking. Each documented incident reinforces the reliability of other reports. Trump is nothing if not consistent.

Goldberg’s larger point should be shouted from the rooftops: “In Trump’s mind, traditional values — values including those embraced by the armed forces of the United States having to do with honor, self-sacrifice, and integrity — have no merit, no relevance, and no meaning.” And if that doesn’t send chills down your spine, I do not know what will.

Legal highlight

In a major win for voting rights, “The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that counties must count provisional ballots cast in person by voters who mistakenly submitted ‘naked’ mail-in ballots that lacked an inner secrecy envelope,” Democracy Docket reported. The 4-3 ruling concluded:

Following the commands of the Election Code as interpreted by this Court, the Board properly disregarded Electors’ mail-in ballots as void. However, it erred in refusing to count Electors’ provisional ballots. Subsection (a.4)(5)(i) required that, absent any other disqualifying irregularities, the provisional ballots were to be counted if there were no other ballots attributable to the Electors. There were none. Subsection (a.4)(5)(ii)(F) provides that the provisional ballot “shall not be counted if the elector’s absentee ballot or mail-in ballot is timely received by a county board of elections.” Again, there were no other ballots attributable to Electors, so none could be timely received. Therefore, Subsection (a.4)(5)(ii)(F) is inapplicable and the command of Subsection (a.4)(5)(i) controls: “the county board of elections … shall count the [provisional] ballot.”
The case illustrates the degree to which Republicans will try to disqualify perfectly valid ballots on hyper-technical grounds. The win is a victory for voting rights and common sense. However, it should also put us on notice. We should prepare for the dozens, if not hundreds, of absurd challenges the GOP is prepared to launch before, on and after Election Day.

Becomes second president to win nonconsecutive terms, first felon

Donald Trump won the White House after a criminal conviction and two impeachments by riding a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the direction of the country under four years of Democratic leadership.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/06/donald-trump-wins-presidential-election/


What this U.S. election showed the world about America

Harris and her allies cast Trump as unprecedented, fascistic threat. Trump, meanwhile, stewed in the same angry ultranationalism that powered his earlier presidential bids.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/11/05/us-election-world-america-trumpism/




The world beyond the election: So much for democracy vs. autocracy

Over the course of his time in office, the light of Biden’s pro-democracy fire has dimmed. Neither Harris nor Trump appear set to stoke the flames.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/10/30/trump-harris-election-democracy-autocracy/

For much of his time in office, President Joe Biden framed the central challenge of our age as a struggle between “democracy and autocracy.” The liberal democracies of the West and their like-minded allies were arrayed against the threat posed by authoritarian states such as China and Russia, which in Biden’s view were intent on smashing international norms, bending the rules of the road in their favor and exporting their politics elsewhere. The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine crystallized this vision, and the White House and European partners cast the fight for Ukraine as an existential clash between ideologies and political futures.

Every year of the Biden presidency, the White House convened a “summit for democracy,” with dozens of countries participating. It bolstered partnerships with numerous Asian countries in a bid to reinforce deterrence against China, the world’s most powerful single party state. Then there was Biden’s more delicate reckoning at home, fresh from his victory over Donald Trump (and the lies that stoked the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection).

Many Western democracies, gripped by the ascent of far-right nationalist and populist politics, faced their own domestic perils. Biden’s much-touted “foreign policy for the middle class” — centering on an embrace of industrial policy and massive investments in high-tech and green-tech manufacturing — was a bid to address the inequities fueled by years of unfettered globalization.

But along the way, the light of Biden’s pro-democracy fire has dimmed — and neither candidate in next week’s presidential election appears set to stoke the flames.

Wary of global oil prices, the Biden administration made accommodation with a monarchic Saudi regime that the president had vowed to make a pariah — and later would yoke much of its strategy for the Middle East on tighter ties with Riyadh. Whenever strategic interests came into friction with liberal political concerns, the former always won out, such as in the case of the deepening U.S. relationship with an India under the sway of an illiberal Hindu nationalist government.

In the past year, the war in Gaza that followed militant group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, strike on Israel has reshaped Biden’s legacy. The shocking Palestinian death toll and the ongoing devastation of the Palestinian territory have fueled criticism of the United States’ ironclad support of Israel’s war effort.

Outside the West, it led to mounting cynicism over Washington’s insistence on being the custodian of an international “liberal order.” Rights groups have documented alleged Israeli war crimes and even internal assessments by U.S. agencies concluded that Israel had stymied the flow of humanitarian aid to civilians. Yet the United States has not enforced its own laws to condition military support to Israel.

Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor Trump back the ongoing investigations of Israel for genocide and war crimes at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and Washington does not recognize the jurisdiction of either. But the trauma of the war will leave its imprint on the region for a generation to come and will shadow the next American presidency.

Harris and Trump indicate they would take different approaches to the Middle East — Trump has complained that Biden put too many restraints on Israel and, during his presidency, allied himself to Israel’s far right — but both would work to enlist a clutch of Arab autocracies to help forge a peace that eluded successive U.S. administrations. More than a decade after the upheavals of the Arab Spring, democracy has slid from the agenda.

Critics have pointed to the apparent double standard between the United States decrying Russia’s blatant violations of international law, while effectively shielding Israel from global censure. In the wake of the Israeli parliament’s decision Tuesday to ban the main U.N. agency responsible for aid to Palestinians, U.N. diplomats said the impunity afforded to Israel made a mockery of the U.N. system and the post-World War II order. (That system was already crumbling, some have argued, after Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, invaded Ukraine and faced no consequence in the chamber.)

There may be deep consequences. “The implications of allowing international law’s fabric — always fragile but extremely precious in the U.S.’s efforts to hold notoriously abusive actors like Russia and Iran to account — to be rent in a manner so alarmingly brazen to so many people across the region and the world, could empower authoritarians and rights-abusers to commit similar abuses,” Monica Marks, a professor of Middle East studies at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, told me.

Picking through Biden’s record, Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, suggested: “Given the massive suffering and loss of life in Gaza, the outrage at Israel’s exemption from the so-called rules-based order is probably greater than the discontent over the various autocratic exceptions to Biden’s promotion of democracy.”

Biden once framed the successful defense of Ukraine as a rejection of a world “where might makes right.” But by next year, the grim reality of the conflict may yield a scenario where Russia largely gets its way. Kyiv’s forces are desperately trying to hold the line in the country’s east but are losing ground in some areas. Visions of an absolute victory are fading. Western support is also sagging. “Western industry cannot produce anything like the number of artillery shells Ukraine needs,” analyst Anatol Lieven noted. “The U.S. cannot provide sufficient air defense systems to Israel and Ukraine and keep enough for a possible war with China. And above all, NATO cannot manufacture more soldiers for Ukraine.”

The prospect of Ukraine settling for a compromise with Russia — conceding territory in return for some Western security guarantees — is getting easier to envision. It would lead to an unhappy peace that would roil European politics for years. Trump, it seems, favors such an accommodation. His advisers are open about the need to prioritize U.S. strategic assets against China. It’s a contest they do not frame in terms of “democracy” vs. “autocracy,” but rather as old-fashioned great power competition to match Trump’s broader motte-and-bailey politics.

Harris is a more traditional liberal internationalist, but her administration might also feel compelled to strike a humbler pose. She would have to work with nationalist politicians consolidating power in Europe, where ascendant illiberalism could refashion the principles of the European Union. U.S. lawmakers are also aware that American voters in general are no longer keen on their country overasserting itself on the world stage.

“The isolationist streak now dominating American body politic is a warning to the rest of the world that has become far too dependent on the U.S. as the key guarantor of global security,” notes Harsh Pant, vice president of the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian think tank. “Even if Trump doesn’t win a second term in the White House, his candidacy is reflective of deeper trends that are shaping American politics today and will have a great bearing on the complexion of the global order in the future.”

Trump may not be an actual isolationist, but his transactional approach to international politics and conspicuous rapport with autocrats reflects a departure from the Washington status quo. “It’s all about power,” said Fiona Hill, a Russia expert and former Trump White House staffer, in an interview with Politico, in which she linked Trump’s coziness with tech billionaire Elon Musk to the oligarchic circles around the Kremlin. “These are guys who see themselves in the same class of the rich and powerful, who transact with each other, and the result is a breaking down of the international system.”