Prelude to a Coup

Mike Esper’s firing could be more than mere sour grapes

Donald Trump, the outgoing president of the United States, fired the nation’s secretary of defense today.

Taken in the context of Trump’s denial of his loss in the presidential election, the support he’s getting from his GOP enablers, and the mob that is his core group of supporters – the MAGAts – this should cause patriotic U.S. citizens pause.

Mike Esper has not been on Trump’s happy list since the summer of 2019, when the then-secretary of defense advised Trump to release funds that Congress had appropriated as military aid to Ukraine. Trump was attempting, at the time, to blackmail Ukraine into making public statements that would put Hunter Biden, the son of his presumed rival in the upcoming 2020 election, Joe Biden, in a bad light.

To put it more plainly, Trump wanted dirt on Hunter Biden that he could use against Joe Biden in the election campaign. 

Esper also was against pulling troops out of northeastern Syria in 2019, a move that left U.S. allies there flapping in the wind and that ultimately benefitted Iran, Russia and Turkey. It was a move widely criticized by U.S. military and diplomatic experts.

Finally, Esper was vocal in his opposition to allowing Trump to use U.S. troops to quell unrest in our nation’s cities following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests. Which, by the way, was a position in line with U.S. laws that limit a president’s power to use the military on American soil and especially against U.S. citizens.

Those are all reasons an insecure person like Trump would use as justification for firing Esper. 

But there could be a deeper, more duplicitous reason for Trump’s firing of a secretary of defense who is against using the U.S. military against U.S. citizens.

Esper’s firing looks to me like preparation for military participation in a coup d’é·tat. Esper goes away and Trump puts in his own yes-man (Christopher Miller, who has been serving as director of the National Counterterrorism Center). Then, when Trump wants them, U.S. troops will be in our streets to put down protests, riots or insurrections as he continues his refusal to concede defeat to Biden, and digs in his heels about exiting the presidency.

The threat to our national security likely won’t end here, either. According to CNN, “Esper’s firing has raised concerns that other top national security officials who have earned Trump’s wrath may be next in the line of fire.”

Then what?

I realize this might sound far-fetched, but ask yourself – what other things has Trump done that you never thought you’d see in the United States of America? Based on what you’ve seen, how deranged and narcissistic do you believe he is?

Plenty, from where I’m sitting.

With this man it’s possible, so it won’t hurt to be prepared if this is where the continuing nightmare of Trump is headed.

If it is, we average citizens will have to hope members of our military insist on remaining true to their oaths to uphold the Constitution; that they’ll keep the faith with their fellow citizens and our democratic institutions; and that they’ll side with decency rather than the desires of a self-serving egomaniac.

IV Words comes to you thanks to my own resources, donations and sponsorships. Please consider helping out. Click here to become a reader-supporter or here to become a sponsor. Thank you!

Featured image from the U.S. Department of Defense website.