General James Mattis
When Marine general James Mattis resigned as Donald Trump’s secretary of defense at the end of 2018, he promised that he would avoid criticizing the sitting president. But he added, “There is a period in which I owe my silence. It’s not eternal. It’s not going to be forever.”
Yesterday was the day the dam broke. Mattis came to the conclusion that Trump is a direct threat to our nation and wrote a stinging rebuke against his former boss, published in The Atlantic. If you follow the link and scroll down a ways, you can see the original text.
Mattis accuses Trump of violating the constitution, and of deliberately dividing the nation. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try.”
Mattis also criticized Trump’s current secretary of defense, saying “We must reject any thinking of our cities as a ‘battlespace’ that our uniformed military is called upon to ‘dominate’.”
And Mattis defends the protesters:
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. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution.
