1. THREAD—Civilian control of the military is meant be a guard rail. “It protects and enables the process of American democracy to occur without fear of military intervention to shape or mandate a particular political outcome.”

What protects when the civilians exploit this?

2. Pondering this, I had a cynical thought. I’m not cynical but a thought crossed my mind. You see, the military teaches values like integrity, honor, courage, and commitment. It’s built in and hammered into our brains—for good reason....

3. Is it possible that bad actors who want to do damage to our country exploit this guardrail, understanding that keeping the military at bay in this manner, provides cover for civilians to be corrupt without fear of consequences?

4. Not saying the military should be political. It shouldn’t. But...that part of our oath, “against all enemies foreign and domestic”...has some new meaning to me...we seem to have some domestic enemies in our midst...

5. I think, as I’m pondering things, that the integrity and character of the individual, no matter civilian or military, is ultimately what matters. You can be a corrupt civilian and you can be a corrupt military official. Corruption is corruption. Decency is decency.

6. A lot of our system is based on the assumption that good people are going to faithfully discharge their duties. We are basically on the honor system when it comes down to it.

7. I raise the point because the thing we fear (some sort of military coup) seems less likely when people of integrity are running things and more likely when corrupted officials are.

8. All that to say, being a Military official doesn’t make you inherently decent just like being a civilian doesn’t provide inherent protection of democracy. (See Donald Trump, Bill Barr, and Tom Cotton)

We’ve seen this demonstrated the past few years.