“Today’s Outrage” is a new feature. Since January 20, outrages at the federal level have been coming so thick and fast that trying to absorb them has been like trying to drink from a fire hydrant.
We thought we’d try to slow things down, and focus on one at a time. These articles are in-depth, meant to provide you with a solid understanding versus memes. BEST READ ON LAPTOP OR NOTEPAD.
We’re not worried about running out of material.
Many thanks to our authors!
From the Editor’s Desk
In a chilling escalation, the President of the United States took to social media on November 20 to accuse six Democratic members of Congress—veterans of the military and intelligence community—of committing a crime “punishable by DEATH!” The president amplified a supporter’s post calling to “HANG THEM,” prompting a wave of backlash and warnings from Democratic leaders about the dangerous consequences of such rhetoric.
At the heart of the controversy: a video in which those lawmakers restated a legal truth—that under military law, service members must disobey illegal orders. The White House insists this was sedition. Critics say it was a warning against authoritarianism.
This piece explores the law behind the lawmakers’ message, the volatile political context surrounding it, and the deeper question their video raises: If the president gave an illegal order, would the military obey—or resist? In a nation already “soaked with political gasoline,” as Senator Chuck Schumer put it, this is not a hypothetical worth ignoring.
TODAY’S OUTRAGE:
Punishable by Death? On Nov. 20, in a social media post, the president accused six members of Congress of committing a crime “punishable by DEATH!” He also shared a supporter’s post that said “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
The Trump Administration denies that the president was threatening lives. It says the persons in question – two Democratic senators and four Democratic congressmen, all veterans of either the military or the intelligence community – posted a video in which they committed the crime of sedition, and, while the president claims those members of Congress are “in big trouble,” the White House says he is not calling for anybody to be killed. One hopes that message filters down to the president’s supporters, who are known to violently threaten, and sometimes go beyond threatening, anyone who displeases him. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Senate Democrats, has accused the president of “lighting a match in a country soaked with political gasoline.” It’s not as if we can’t smell the fumes.
What is sedition? The term is often used alongside ‘treason’: sedition is speech which attempts to bring about the overthrow of rightful authority, while treason is action which attempts to bring about the overthrow of rightful authority. Since Americans have robust First Amendment rights, sedition is rarely prosecuted, but there are laws against it on the books.
What did those six members of Congress do? They released a video telling the U.S. military and intelligence communities that, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, they have both the right and the duty to disobey illegal orders. That statement is accurate. Article 92 of the UCMJ tells military personnel that they are required to obey lawful orders and to disobey unlawful ones.
How do we tell a lawful from an unlawful order? There’s obviously a large grey area. It is illegal to massacre peaceful villagers, but it is not illegal to cause the deaths of those same villagers by bombing a military target, or even a target mistakenly believed to be military. When innocent people get caught up in a war zone, some of them die, and we do not prosecute soldiers for, say, involuntary manslaughter. At the same time, we don’t want American military personnel to run around killing whomever they please. The rights that come with a uniform are hedged round with responsibilities.
It is inherently difficult to impose the rule of law on something as violent and chaotic as war, and for most of human history, no one even tried. For millennia, victorious armies raped, pillaged and slaughtered at whim. Serious attempts to alter that tradition began in 1864, with the passage of the first set of Geneva Conventions, which tried to codify laws of war and define the idea of a war crime, a phrase that first found its way into print in 1872.
Since 1864, the Geneva Conventions have been updated many times, most notably in 1949, after the Nuremberg Trials. Famously, Nazi defendants at Nuremberg contended that they were “only following orders,” but that defense was ruled invalid because some of those orders were so monstrous. For instance, when prisoners got off the train at Auschwitz, babies (because they were too small to work) were sometimes thrown into trenches of burning gasoline. Eight hours a day, with a lunch break, certain soldiers had the job of throwing babies into burning gasoline. Most of us probably don’t think those soldiers should have just done as they were told. But since directing people to disobey monstrous orders seems a bit subjective, we use the term “illegal.”
At present, it doesn’t seem likely that American military personnel will be ordered to behave like guards at Auschwitz, and it isn’t practical to expect a soldier in the field to pre-clear his orders with a lawyer. In the real world, the only orders a subordinate might push back against are ones that are obviously illegal – say, to machine-gun a huddle of unarmed civilians and dump them into a mass grave. But what about a situation that is less clear-cut? Is it legal to snatch people off the street and deport them to a hellhole without due process of law? Is it legal, under an emergency decree, for the National Guard to patrol a city which the guardsmen can see at a glance is not experiencing an emergency? Is it legal to blow up a fishing boat that is alleged, without evidence, to be smuggling drugs? If you blow up that boat, and there are two survivors in the water, is it legal to launch a second strike to “kill them all”? If you are a low-ranking soldier or sailor, and the legalities are at all unclear, you are likely to shut your mouth and go along. That’s what almost everyone did when directed to torture prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
The six members of Congress who made the video have pointed out that all they did was “restate the law,” i.e. remind public servants that their duty to the law and the Constitution outweighs their duty to the chain of command. But of course there is a sub-text. There is a reason why those representatives bothered to make that video in the first place.
If a president wished to establish an authoritarian state, one of his first priorities would be to suborn the military. Where law and politics break down, power returns to its roots in violence, and the military is the institution that does violence best. Historically, the most common way to establish a dictatorship has been through a military coup, which was why the Founding Fathers were so suspicious of the idea of a peacetime standing army. As James Madison said at the Constitutional Convention, “The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home.” His prime example was Ancient Rome, where governments were frequently overthrown by an army loyal to a single man.
The Founders’ concern left its mark. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, America built up its military during wars, then built it down again radically in peacetime. For a long time, our military power was tiny in comparison with our economic power: before World War I, although we had the largest economy in the world, Europeans thought of the U.S. military as “a few nice boys with BB guns.” That changed decisively with World War II, after which, because of the threat of the Soviet Union, we did not build down. Since then we have maintained the most powerful military on Earth, and the question has been how to keep it from becoming an “instrument of tyranny at home.”
Our most fundamental protection has been the tradition of civilian control. Both the Secretary of Defense – sorry, the Secretary of War – and the President outrank the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and deference to civilian authority is deeply engrained in American military culture. That’s how we’ve kept rogue generals from seizing power, as so many Roman generals did. But what if the rogue element is a civilian? What if he is the elected commander-in-chief?
President Trump is clearly worried about the 2026 midterm elections. Virtually every off-year election since 2024 has gone against him, and his approval ratings are at a low point. If the Democrats take over either house of Congress, his life becomes considerably more difficult. That is why he is pushing Republican states to re-gerrymander their congressional districts, and why (in Louisiana v. Callais) conservatives are trying to gut the Voting Rights Act. What will happen if, in 2026, the president directs the armed forces to help him steal an election?
In his second term, this president has done many unprecedented things to increase his personal power. He has justified many of those things by declaring an “emergency” – a border “emergency” which justifies harsh anti-immigration measures; a trade “emergency” which justifies tariffs – because in times of emergency, we traditionally expand executive authority. What can we do if a president, to grab power, declares a bogus emergency? The answer, at least with this president, isn’t clear. The Congress could probably do something, but this Congress won’t. Federal judges have tried to do something, but the Supreme Court for the most part hasn’t had their backs. What do we do about a commander-in-chief who respects neither the letter nor the spirit of the law?
For now, no troops have been ordered to shut down polling places in Democratic neighborhoods – but what if that changes? For now, no troops have been ordered to fire on a No Kings rally – but what if that changes? In the current climate, neither scenario is unimaginable. If U.S. troops are given such orders, will they obey them? That, I think, was why the six members of Congress made their video. They were urging the nation’s ultimate source of power – citizens in uniform – to stand up for the rule of law.
TODAY’S WIN: Oversight is Back–And Even Bipartisan
This week, something rare and hopeful happened in Washington: a bipartisan group of lawmakers launched a formal investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in the U.S. military’s deadly “double-tap” strike on a suspected smuggling boat in the Caribbean. That investigation is a big deal—and a real win for democracy. For too long, this administration has operated behind closed doors, feeding the public a steady diet of secrecy, spin, and scapegoats. But now? The veil is cracking. Oversight is back. And it’s coming from both sides of the aisle.
Let’s be clear: Pete Hegseth is not qualified to lead the world’s most powerful military. His record is one of media bluster, not strategic leadership. Yet under his direction, U.S. forces carried out a follow-up strike that reportedly targeted survivors—an act that some military experts are calling unlawful. What’s different now is that members of Congress—Republicans included—are demanding answers. That’s a sign of democratic muscle memory kicking in. It tells us that even in a time of extreme polarization, there are still leaders willing to choose accountability over allegiance.
For those of us in Boone County who have spent years defending truth, equity, and constitutional checks, this is the kind of moment that reminds us: our system isn’t broken—it’s bruised, but still fighting. Every hearing, every subpoena, every demand for transparency moves us closer to a country that leads with integrity, not intimidation. And if bipartisan oversight can reemerge on something this serious, maybe—just maybe—it can grow. Let’s celebrate this win. Then let’s keep organizing to make sure it’s not the last. Sign up to volunteer on our website boonecountydems.org