U.S. Military Opposition to the Trump Administration A Matter of Concern
STARRS Hosting Town Hall on April 9.
As a 31-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, former submarine captain, and long-time follower of all things military, I became concerned recently when I read the following X post from one of my favorite personalities on X:
There is an enormous problem in our nation’s military, one that I have not seen discussed in depth elsewhere.
I have heard from multiple sources that many active duty officers openly and deeply despise the Trump Administration, and they are not at all shy about expressing their…
— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) March 26, 2025
I highlight the key parts of Cynical Publius’s (CP’s) post here so you don’t have to read the whole thing (even though you should):
There is an enormous problem in our nation’s military, one that I have not seen discussed in depth elsewhere. I have heard from multiple sources that many active duty officers openly and deeply despise the Trump Administration, and they are not at all shy about expressing their opinion both in and out of uniform. One active duty major I know estimates that it’s 1 in 4 who have this problem…
This is an astonishingly bad problem. Putting aside for the moment that this is a clear violation of Article 88 of the UCMJ, this is how military coups take place. I guess I should not be surprised given Mark Milley’s traitorous actions towards his Commander-in-Chief, but the fact that this has permeated to lower levels of the officer corps surprises me and causes me great worry. [emphasis added].
Same here.
Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice is entitled “Contempt Towards Officials” and states the following:
Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Homeland Security, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
CP continues:
For reference, in my 22 years of commissioned service (starting in the late ‘80s), it was virtually impossible to know the political leanings of ANY officer unless they were an extremely close friend. Many officers purposely had no political preferences of any kind. In fact, I knew many officers who refused to even vote because it suggested that they were somehow partisan. This was an ethos that said “We serve under the Constitutional will of the American People; whomever the People select as the Commander-in-Chief is someone to whom I have a duty of absolute loyalty.”
I had the exact same experience in my 31 years of service (27 years commissioned service and four years at the U.S. Naval Academy).
CP again:
This was a sacred bond, and still is supposed to be.
Apparently it no longer is.
This phenomenon suggests a complete breakdown in good order and discipline across our entire military, and throughout world history has been a precursor to rule by military junta. I am not exaggerating this threat. We cannot allow our military’s officer corps to continue down this path unchecked.
There needs to be a complete reversal of this trend before it’s too late. Pete Hegseth and his team need to get on top of this. But here’s the hard part—it’s not enough to just get these officers to shut their mouths. They need to also re-train their brains and their hearts to deeply understand and accept that they have a duty of loyalty both to the Constitution and the lawful orders of the chain of command the People elect under that Constitution, and that their current thoughts and actions are wholly incompatible with that duty.
I served under Bill Clinton. I know it’s possible because I’ve done it. If these officers cannot do this, they need to be separated from service. It’s better to have vacant officer positions than have them filled with people who are disloyal to their Constitutional duties.
Military officers have a solemn duty to the nation. Too many are ignoring this duty. This must change before it is too late.
Scary stuff, and CP isn’t the only former military person with his ear to the ground that is hearing these types of things:
A field grade Army JAG officer discusses how the JAG Corps Pride Affinity Network is active in opposition to President Trump’s Executive Orders regarding the new gender policy in the DOD.
The purpose of affinity groups as stated by them is “to create a sense of community by… pic.twitter.com/V4SaAX9E5Z
— Shoe (@samosaur) March 1, 2025
Shoe, or Sam Shoemate, is a retired Army intelligence analyst who regularly documents military officers’ efforts to sabotage the Trump Administration’s attempts to set the U.S. military on the right path:
“Active duty MAJ (at Joint Modernization Command) disparaging the CiC. Told many times to knock it off and just laughs.”
It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em. pic.twitter.com/JDvLqGBFqk
— Shoe (@samosaur) March 13, 2025
You can review Shoe’s X timeline to get an idea of how bad it is, or you can simply attend an upcoming online event hosted by STARRS (Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services) this Wednesday:
Looking forward to having Sam Shoemate @samosaur as the guest speaker at our next Town Hall on April 9 via Zoom. Register here: https://t.co/ZBXyFz8yYG
— STARRS (@STARRSmission) April 4, 2025
Sign up for the Town Hall here, which starts at noon Eastern this coming Wednesday.
If you can’t make it, don’t worry, I’ll be on it and will give you a data dump after it’s complete.
Here’s hoping SECDEF Hegseth and his people can turn this around ASAP.
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Comments
Nault’s experience mirrors my own: I never knew the politics of any one of my fellow servicemembers, nor do I recall such creatures as the “JAG Corps Pride Network affinity group.”
There’s no “retraining their brains and hearts” here. Charging active duty officers with Article 88 violations, court-martialing them, and then separating them from service is the only proper path.
Dishonorable discharge and loss of all pension and retirement benefits. All of them. This is not a time when you want to make an example of only a few,
Start with Miley. He is the poster child for this behavior.
Miley got one of the Autopen pardons. Unless those can be revoked in some constitutional manner, that traitor is safe.
This may be a problem in the officer corps.
Obama and Biden did promote leftist/DEI/careerist officers over merit based promotion.
And there has been a problem with female, trans, and gay soldiers getting preferential treatment and avoiding punishment.
This is still a small minority among the non commissioned soldiers, sailors and airmen.
The great majority are conservative.
And even among lower ranking officers the clear majority are also conservative.
It is only among the “ perfumed princes” that leftism is popular.
Trump and Hegseth are doing a great job rooting out DEI and we are seeing improvements in every aspect of our military.
Hopefully these traitorous higher ranking officers will e moved out of positions of power and sanity will be restored as the armed forces focus on war fighting not societal change.
Global warming is no longer considered our greatest threat in military planning
Never in my American Historical realm would I have ever thought loyalists and Tories would return from the era of political violence.
Disheartening to hear, but not surprising I guess, considering all the years that Clinton, Obama, and Biden shit all over the military.
In my full career I never knew others’ political beliefs and they never knew mine. The subject was simply not discussed, not as a prohibited thing, but just a matter of how it was. It seems today EVERYTHING that has the most remote aspect of one’s life is expected to be out in the open. Privacy has been given away by many, as expected many others.
Between eight years in RegAF and sixteen in AirNG, all enlisted, I discussed such things as politics and religion only with close friends and not everything with some of them. In spite of our personal opinions, we took our oath of enlistment seriously and followed orders, doing our duty as we promised. Apparently, these officers don’t take their oath seriously, which begs the question: If they openly defied their CinC and the Constitution, would anyone under them arrest them and hold them for their refusal to honor their oath? I wonder if it will come to that.
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I’m a retired USNR O-5 ,SWO, 8 years active, an additional 20 years reserve, serving from 1982-2010. In only very rare cases did I know the political leanings of the officers I served with. Even at sea, when you lived with them 24-7 for seven months at a time. We didn’t discuss politics. There was no doubt in my mind that every one of us would follow the orders of the POTUS. I personally disagreed with just about everything that Bill Clinton did, and I disliked Obama to the point of shredding the certificate I signed by him upon my retirement. But I would have followed any orders either of them gave, (absent obvious unconsitutionality, which neither of them did)
[edit/correction] should read “I disliked Obama to the point of shredding the certificate I received that was signed by him upon my retirement.”
Clean house in the officer corp.
Democrat judges operating in DC and Democrat officers operating in the military. Democrat operatives organizing in the streets. There is a pattern here. The left overs from the Obama years.
Officers. The further they advance in rank, the less military and more political they become. Eventually, they become not military at all.
TSgt [E-6} Rusty Bill
USAF/ANG
once merit was removed and socialism >>favoritism took over it sends the signal that there is a fundamental break down in civility within the ranks
but instead of it being limited to the bad parts of a city…the lefts agenda of spreading the misery is once again…on track
I’m not too worried. The officers most likely to oppose Trump AND publicly speak about that are the least likely to organize a successful coup. They must recruit, but doing so publicly FORCES the potential recruit to take a public position either with them or opposed to them. Unless the plotters can demonstrate a string likelihood of success it becomes too dangerous to hang around with them. One must publicly disassociate oneself from them and finally it becomes a question of survival to turn them in.
the gov has already helped them during the obama/fjb admin
now they are a core holding inside the military
I remember the west point female blck cadets raising their fists in the blk power salute and after the “investigation” no actions were taken as the excuse was
they are young they didnt really know what they were doing
oh but they’re old enough to serve the country and have weapons etc
I don’t believe the numbers are 1 in 4. It may be in certain units like the JAG corps but not in front-line warrior units. When I served as a Marine pilot, we were way too busy to sit around and whine about the CiC.
You willing to bet your country on that?
I served 27 years and this wasn’t an issue until the end of my career in the Obama Admin. I saw some of this sort of derision directed at Obama’s domestic policies but certainly not any attempts to evade the policies imposed by him or denigrating his military/foreign policy policies/decisions. Been just over a decade since I hung it up and there were some indications of trendline in the opposite direction. Things like NCOs going unsupported by Officer Corps when enforcing regs on some females or particular categories of males. If one of the ‘Alphabet people’ was out of reg Commanders went out of their way to avoid disciplinary actions. I suspect that sort of thing has exploded since in a snowball effect and emboldened others towards more openly defiant acts. Relief of Commanders who refuse to apply UCMJ to stop this and cracking down hard on the examples of wilfully malicious compliance of ending DEI is required. The Sec Def needs a few retired O6/E9 as traveling hatchet teams as a sort of supercharged IG but empowered to relieve BN and Company CDR and to recommend relief for BDE/DIV/Corps and have those recommendations immediately acted upon. Do it publicly, loudly and if any pushback do it in a mercilessly humiliating way; Unit formation and read orders reducing in grade/immediate retirement and cut the rank off their uniform. Probably only take doing it a few times before everyone figures out the Sec Defang and POTUS ain’t playing.
we saw some of this frontline action recently
the helo crash in dc?
the fight inside the dc act ????
the obama dei hiring of atc street over college educated (wht) people etc???
how soon until they put maj hasan in charge?
This story is already known to SecDef. That’s why he fired all the TJAG’s when he took office. The best way to do this is let them have enough rope to qualify for a less than honorable discharge. Of course they can always resign their commission to avoid public humiliation. As others have said, I served my 4 years 1976-80 and I did not know the political leanings of anyone I served with. I didn’t want to know.
“I knew many officers who refused to even vote because it suggested that they were somehow partisan.”
In 1974 I enlisted at the age of 17. I had this ethos during my service. I guess I was one serious teenager. Today, I’m less serious but more cynical.
Shawn Ryan Cyber Truck Source DEBUNKS His Own Story: Sam Shoemate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLdhH2hA9Q
Absolutely irrelevant spam.
Why has this occurred? A lot of possible reasons.
1) Election of POTUS who never served and who had contempt for the military (Clinton, Obama, Biden)
2) Selection for promotion of officers under such POTUS especially to general rank.
3) Increases of women officers at higher levels.
4) Radicialization of colleges feeding into military (academies, VMI, ROTC programs) and indoctrination
5) Radicalization of law schools (JAGs)
6) Interference in military operation by congress critters with radical agendas.
Others?
That’s a good list but I’ll add a couple to it. One smart phones and access to bogus web sites like Tik Tok and many left wing propaganda sites. Two, no wars or serious duty for most military personnel and the spare time on their hands to indulge in gossip.
Remember when Obumbles cleaned out the middle officer corps? Mostly Majors and Lt. Col.’s were forced out. Most of those were ones with combat experience in favor of Politicians in Uniform.
Did no one think there was a reason for that? Well here it is.
“I served under Bill Clinton. I know it’s possible because I’ve done it”
I put in my papers for retirement effective April 1992. Silly me, I thought Slick Willie would be the worst ever. Little did I know…