The military isn't at war with the public. Trump seems to want to change that.

[Zorro]

His threats to use active-duty troops to quell protests may do lasting damage

President Trump has made little effort to mask his contempt for the norms guiding the relationship between military and society in the United States, leaving a long trail of events that have risked politicizing the military’s ranks and damaging the relationship between the military and society. As protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd and racial injustice continue, the Trump administration’s alarming choices concerning the military pose the biggest threat to the institution’s standing among the public since the Vietnam War. A war does not exist between our military and American citizens, and the Trump administration should stop attempting to manufacture one.

Consider several previous attempts by Trump to exploit the military for blatantly political purposes. Trump — who has incorrectly boasted of “my generals and my military” — started his term on the wrong foot, using a Pentagon setting dedicated to Medal of Honor recipients to sign a highly controversial immigration-related executive order. He has brazenly pushed domestic messages unrelated to the military while speaking to service members. In a striking political stunt leading up to the 2018 midterm election, Trump deployed thousands of active-duty service members to the U.S.-Mexico border to address a group of migrants who posed no national security threat.

But the Trump administration’s choices in response to the protests have politicized the military in a way that dangerously pits it against American communities, inflaming the current racial injustice crisis and severely jeopardizing the military’s relationship with society. Even though active-duty military units have left the Washington, D.C., area (and National Guard troops from other states are withdrawing), Trump may have already done significant damage. He suggested shooting U.S. citizens and threatened that if state and city officials didn’t put down protests to his satisfaction, he would “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”

Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper echoed Trump’s call for governors to use military elements to “dominate” American communities, which Esper referred to as a “battle space.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, whom Trump claimed to put “in charge” of the response to protests, became the visible face of the protest response effort last week, appearing in his camouflage uniform in the Rose Garden and then parading with Trump and Esper through Lafayette Square, which police had just aggressively cleared of peaceful protesters, on the way to their photo op in front of St. John’s Church. Esper has since vacillated between admirably making public his opposition to invoking the Insurrection Act to send active-duty forces to America’s streets for law enforcement purposes and expressing regret for his “battle space” comment and seemingly bending to Trump’s apparent intent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/08/military-isnt-war-with-public-trump-seems-want-change-that/

[qazplm135]

1. ain't happening

he may have the politics of a majority of military members (barely), but most are plain tired of his constant division. There are few places in our society where unity is more of a religious belief than the military. It's one thing to have differing beliefs or positions in the military, but the moment you start putting one group against another, everyone is going to turn their eyes towards you.

That's why the polling shows him dropping so much military support. He's. Just. Tiring.