That has literally happened in the United States before.

Officer's oath swears to protect and defend the Constitution, no mention of the president.

Enlisted oath adds they will obey the orders of the president.

So a president or his intermediary just needs to find the right Master Sergeant. In theory.

But not to worry, there are plenty of authoritarian-friendly colonels available. Their oath doesn't prohibit them from following a president's orders.

Wrinkle: all officers and enlisted are required to refuse illegal orders. But if you do so, you better be right.

Of course, in this new United States that the Supreme Court created this week, summary executions could become a motivational tool.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_A...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Uniformed_Serv...

https://www.acslaw.org/expertforum/what-the-law-of-military-...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_execution

This only works if the head of the executive branch doesn't select for loyalty.

They must refuse to follow unlawful orders. They never get a choice. They always must follow the law. Refusing a lawful order is a crime, and following an unlawful order is a crime. But they never get a choice.

You must not have seen "A Few Good Men"

Who ordered that code red? Not LT Weinberg, that's for sure.

but they will comply when the law will back the POTUS and not them.

It's no longer unawful for the commander in chief to consider an opponent a threat to the country and have them killed.

That's the problem.

No, but they can give him a really big tip if he asks for one.

Many Republicans have shown themselves to be unabashedly evil. What has happened to them? Apart from being reelected and getting more veto power? And what has happened to the principled ones who put country before party? Apart from losing or being pushed to retire?

One single indiscutable example: Trump is a draft-dodger. How many troop-supporting, valor-praising Republicans support him?

Oh, another one: Trump is a liar and a filanderer. How many Republican "values-first" voters and officials have refused to vote for him?

> Well, if they don't, it shows how evil they are. Same if it went the other way.

See, the problem is some of us don't want to get to the point where we derive petty satisfaction of definitively knowing how evil someone can be. That's why we have (had) checks and balances: to prevent us from knowing -- in the most real way -- how evil someone can be. A significant check on presidential power was removed yesterday.

Where once the president was bound by law and constitution, now he is bound only by his ambition and personal moral compass.

Part of the ruling was that the conversations between the Department of Justice, the main law enforcement arm of the US federal government, and the President -- which are among his "official duties" -- cannot be entered into a criminal proceeding as evidence against him. Part of the criminal case brought against Trump regarding his attempted coup on January 6 relied on evidence and testimony from conversations where he requested unlawful things or showed an unlawful motive, but he did so within the framework of his official duty as President. The case now returns to a lower court and the prosecutor must prove it without that evidence.

So henceforth from this Supreme Court ruling, the President can call up the Attorney General ("official duties," remember) and say, "find a reason to investigate and arrest my political opponent."

That act, that conversation is now protected. And that action will be carried out, and there is no legal recourse, at least not long after much damage has been done.

At many junctures, not only the January 6 capitol riot, but many others, Trump was only prevented from disastrous anti-democratic actions by principled staff and officials around him. This time around, Trump (or any other dictatorial pretender) will not make the mistake of filling their administration with anyone but sycophants. Trump installed many federal judges. Even leaving it up to the courts to decide if something is an "official" or "unofficial" act, after the fact, is now left to fiat.

You would think so right?

The problem is, the way things have been for the last couple of decades, many of us are not absolutely certain that the Senate would ever convict a sitting president unless it was 2/3rds of the opposite party -- which is pretty rare.

Probably, if a sitting president (regardless of party) assassinated a political rival, the Senate would convict. Probably.

They are almost certainly hyper-partisan Senators (of both parties) who would not convict a president from their own party no matter what.

The reasons for that would be multiple... greed, fear, a weird sense of loyality to the person, or even just a warped view of reality.

For example, if you thought Trump was Hitler 2.0 coming to take over the government and hunt down minorities and LGBTQ people, then you might feel justified in doing anything possible to prevent that -- including assassination.

What’s happening in the U.S. isn’t politics. It’s a quasi-religious schism that goes to fundamental beliefs about the nature of human society, how government should work, etc.

It doesn’t map on in obvious ways to what you see in Europe. In Denmark, for example, immigration was a political issue. When it turned out the people wanted to restrict immigration, the left of center government supported “far right” immigration restrictions.

In America, a large part of the left sees immigration as a moral issue, not a political one. When Trump was first inaugurated, the left refused to even accept Trump as legitimate because of his opposition to immigration. Hilary Clinton called his supporters “deplorables” and said he was “illegitimate.” This was long before any of the bad things he did.