One thing I never quite understood about the conservative mindset, or perhaps it is uniquely among conservatives here in the United States, is the automatic assumption that everyone agrees with them. And loves them, of course. That people support them no matter what, basically.
Certainly, if you listen to Donald Trump, or his supporters, you would possibly get the impression that everyone but a narrow few are on their side. Indeed, you might get the feeling, if you only listen to them and those who agree with them
(Fox News)
that they are in the vast majority, and that there is no possible way that they could lose an election. Indeed, if you believe that, then it is a short step to assuming that the only way that Trump could lose an election is if it is rigged. After all, you and all of your friends support him, it seems. And you see a whole bunch of Trump flags and bumper stickers in your neighborhood, which again suggests that everyone is behind him. Plus, news sources that conservatives seem to stick to and never deviate from, like FOX News or OAN, seem to suggest that all patriotic Americans love Trump, and so you do not question that, either. So how could he possibly lose?
It is not a long step from this to conspiracy theories, where you believe that the only way he could or would lose is, indeed, because of some grand conspiracy. You begin to believe that Democrats are trying to flood the country's borders with illegal immigrants, who will soon be able to vote and will sap the country's resources. Hard working taxpayers will be dishing out money to pay for these "illegals." Then, they vote for Democrats, who are known to be involved in things like Pizzagate and eat babies and are actually lizards. And you see this evil all around you, and you believe that you are piercing through to the truth. Anyone who does not believe in these things like you do is blind or willfully naive.
Meanwhile, you ignore inconvenient facts, such as Trump lying all of the time. Even his political allies concede that he lies, but that somehow does not bother you. And he never polled very high in terms of political support, peaking twice at 49 percent, which means he never got the support of a majority of the American people. And you forget or ignore some other things, like the seeming evidence that buttresses charges that he is racist or xenophobic, or perhaps not the "very stable genius" that he himself of course proclaims himself to be.
So when Trump actually loses the 2020 election and claims that, in fact, he won the election, and that he was cheated, you agree. And when throngs of Trump supporters gather in Washington, then storm the Capitol building by breaking in, on a day when a few people were killed and a number of other seriously injured, and many seriously shaken up, you feel that they have good cause. And when the Democrats and some others whine about it, you feel that they are making a big production out of nothing, and that they should instead look into the allegations that Trump and his political allies have continually cried out about some massive voter fraud. Of course, you ignore that, in fact, the Trump legal team refused to actually argue any massive voter fraud when they had their day in court, and that they in fact produced zero evidence to back up those allegations of massive voter fraud that could reverse the 2020 election results in favor of Trump.
Of course, if you feel this way, there is a good chance that you are one of those among the mindless mass of unquestioning Trump supporters and loyalists, willing to believe whatever he tells you to believe without question. Sometimes, I am almost convinced that more people support him than actually do. That is why it is refreshing to hear that, in fact, this is not the case.
You might assume that the United States military would surely support Trump, which would be bad news if Trump actually did try a coup, which he sure seemed to on January 6th. So man, is it ever nice to know that the op military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley, was adamantly opposed to Trump and his attempted coup on January 6th.
According to an article that documents just how opposed Milley in fact was to to coup attempt (see link below), and how determined he was to see it fail, we see Milley seeing Trump as clearly a dictatorial figure, and a threat to democracy:
In the days leading up to January 6, Leonnig and Rucker write, Milley was worried about Trump’s call to action. “Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military.”
That's not it. We get Milley's own words in this:
Milley viewed Trump as “the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose,” the authors write, and he saw parallels between Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric as a victim and savior and Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides, according to the book. “The gospel of the Führer.”
Nor does it end there. Milley begins outright to liken the MAGA pro-Trump crowd with fascists of another era, in another country:
Ahead of a November pro-Trump “Million MAGA March” to protest the election results, Milley told aides he feared it “could be the modern American equivalent of ‘brownshirts in the streets,’” referring to the pro-Nazi militia that fueled Hitler’s rise to power.
Milley understood just how fragile our American democracy actually is, even before it became obvious to most of the rest of us:
“What they are trying to do here is overturn the government,” said the friend, who is not named, according to the authors. “This is all real, man. You are one of the few guys who are standing between us and some really bad stuff.”
Finally, Milley did not beat around the bush. He outright likened the MAGA and Proud Boys crowd to Nazis, and stated that they were every bit a threat to the United States as Nazis in Germany were at the height of their power:
Milley told a group of senior leaders, “Here’s the deal, guys: These guys are Nazis, they’re boogaloo boys, they’re Proud Boys. These are the same people we fought in World War II. We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in.”
Here is the link to the article from which I obtained much of the information and all of the quotes used in the above post:
‘They’re not going to f**king succeed’: Top generals feared Trump would attempt a coup after election, according to new book Jamie Gangel Jeremy Herb Marshall Cohen Elizabeth Stuart Barbara Starr By Jamie Gangel, Jeremy Herb, Marshall Cohen, Elizabeth Stuart and Barbara Starr, CNN, July 14, 2021:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/14/politics/donald-trump-election-coup-new-book-excerpt/index.html?fbclid=IwAR3a0necM10C1SFA7gwPtONPF2bMGBngwTD-VEI3Bu7EKWIWs4qI2VBHEvs
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