To this point, the military has remained an independent institution that has followed rule of law–the Iraq War, however awful, was legally authorized (note: I am not saying that soldiers haven’t done illegal things, but the military writ large has been beyond the reach of the president to be wielded like a weapon to do explicitly illegal things).
Trump mused bombing antiquities in his presidency, and the military swiftly responded that they are bound not to follow illegal orders.
My fear now is that if military leadership falls into the wrong hands, immunity can be used to argue that the conduct is no longer considered illegal, or the line becomes so blurred that it ceases to functionally exist.
If that happened under a president like Trump, God help us, every horrible nightmare outcome could be on the table.
Agree with everything except why Biden won’t do it–its a paradox of trying to maintain our status quo democracy with the traditional tools of our status quo democracy.
I recognize that its a horrible asymmetry of power that they will have presidents that abuse power while dems will try to respect traditional lines of power…but the populace and parties themselves are also a correlary assymetry—cult 45 will cheerlead any horrible thing their guy does (or pretend it isn’t real, or isn’t really that bad, whatever the moment requires to avoid cognitive dissonance), but it Joe abused power, both Republicans and Democrats in power and as citizens across the nation would cry out for accountability.
It’s a right clusterfuck, that is for sure.