POLITICS
James Mattis Denounces President Trump, Describes
Him as a Threat to the Constitution
In an extraordinary condemnation, the former defense
secretary backs protesters and says the president is trying to turn Americans
against one another.
JEFFREY
GOLDBERG
JUNE 3,
2020
James
Mattis, the esteemed Marine general who resigned as secretary of defense in
December 2018 to protest Donald Trump’s Syria policy, has, ever since, kept
studiously silent about Trump’s performance as president. But he has now broken
his silence, writing an extraordinary broadside in which he denounces the
president for dividing the nation, and accuses him of ordering the U.S.
military to violate the constitutional rights of American citizens.
“I have
watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled,” Mattis writes. “The
words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States
Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a
wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind.
We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are
defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we
live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.” He goes
on, “We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a
mockery of our Constitution.”
In his
j’accuse, Mattis excoriates the president for setting Americans against one
another.
“Donald
Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the
American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,”
Mattis writes. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate
effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature
leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our
civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we
owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our
promise; and to our children.”
He goes on
to contrast the American ethos of unity with Nazi ideology. “Instructions given
by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded
soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.”
Our American answer is “In Union there is Strength.”’ We must summon that unity
to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.”
Mattis’s
dissatisfaction with Trump was no secret inside the Pentagon. But after his
resignation, he argued publicly—and to great criticism—that it would be
inappropriate and counterproductive for a former general, and a former Cabinet
official, to criticize a sitting president. Doing so, he said, would threaten the
apolitical nature of the military. When I interviewed him last year on this
subject, he said, “When you leave an administration over clear policy
differences, you need to give the people who are still there as much
opportunity as possible to defend the country. They still have the
responsibility of protecting this great big experiment of ours.” He did add,
however: “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s
not going to be forever.”
That period
is now definitively over. Mattis reached the conclusion this past weekend that
the American experiment is directly threatened by the actions of the president
he once served. In his statement, Mattis makes it clear that the president’s
response to the police killing of George Floyd, and the ensuing protests,
triggered this public condemnation.
“When I
joined the military, some 50 years ago,” he writes, “I swore an oath to support
and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same
oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional
rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the
elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.”
He goes on
to implicitly criticize the current secretary of defense, Mark Esper, and other
senior officials as well. “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a
‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate.’ At
home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare
occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in
Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and
civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond
between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and
of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian
state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable
to them.
Here is the
text of the complete statement.
IN UNION
THERE IS STRENGTH
I have
watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal
Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme
Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a
wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind.
We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are
defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we
live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I
joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend
the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be
ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their
fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected
commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must
reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed
military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only
when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors.
Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a
conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes
the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform
and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a
part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best
understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James
Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops,
or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign
ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for
combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to
unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are
equal before the law.
Instructions
given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion
reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and
Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon
that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our
politics.
Donald
Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the
American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We
are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We
are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We
can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.
This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our
fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to
our children.
From the
June 2020 issue: We are living in a failed state
We can come
through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and
respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our
troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the
community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere
have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and
their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority
that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable
those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time,
we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to
unite.
Only by
adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of
our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home
and abroad.
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