Trump’s Erdoğan Moment?

Is the hysteria around the six Democrat veterans' video a pretext for something bigger?

November 25, 2025

Donald Trump and his minions continue to call for the heads of the six members of Congress, veterans all, who participated in a video encouraging members of the military to follow their oath and refuse unlawful orders. Yesterday, The Guardian reported that the Pentagon is investigating Senator Mark Kelly, a former Naval officer and astronaut whose wife was nearly murdered in an act of political violence:

The Pentagon says it is investigating Arizona senator Mark Kelly for possible breaches of military law after the federal lawmaker joined a handful of other Democrats in a video calling for US troops to refuse unlawful orders.

It is extraordinary for the Pentagon to directly threaten a sitting member of Congress with investigation. Until Donald Trump’s second presidency, the institution in charge of the US military had usually strived to appear apolitical.

In a statement Monday on social media announcing the investigation into Kelly, a veteran, the Pentagon cited a federal law that allows retired service members to be recalled to active duty on orders of the defense secretary for possible court-martial or other measures.

This is a shocking attack on a sitting Senator and indeed on a civilian who is exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to expression. And alongside possible government action, Trump’s howls of treason smack of stochastic terrorism – since his first post, their offices say they have received “hundreds, if not a thousand” death threats.

Trump is clearly angered by the suggestion that his orders may be unlawful, as indeed they appear to be when it comes to the eighty-odd sailors killed at sea in strikes on small vessels since September. Or perhaps he is angered because he wants free rein to carry out military action, lawful or not. Or because they dared say anything.

But what if the point of this latest kerfuffle, on the Administration side, has nothing to do with “Seditious Six” at all? Perhaps this is a prelude to Trump’s Erdoğan Moment.

On July 15, 2016, Turkish military officers and troops attempted a coup d’etat to remove Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from office, citing his rejection of the secular, democratic vision of Türkiye that dates back to the founding of the modern post-Ottoman empire state by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The coup failed, and Erdoğan moved quickly, accusing coup leaders of affiliation with terrorists, and manufacturing evidence of mayhem and destruction. He arrested as many as 10,000 members of the military, along with thousands of judges and others, purging the government of potential opposition in an intimidating show of force. Erdoğan called the coup “a gift from god.”

After the failed coup allowed the government to purge the military of opposition, it provided the pretext for Erdoğan to consolidate power. Declaring a state of emergency, he suspended parliament and upended the parliamentary system, declaring himself president and creating a system that consolidated power in his person, rather than his party and the coalitions it may or may not be able to hold.

Refusing an unlawful order, as Gen. Mark Milley did in 2020, is nothing like a coup. But with some sleight of hand, perhaps it will do.

The idea that the military takes an oath to the constitution clearly rankles President Trump, who sees the implicit boss-subordinate relationship implicit in being commander-in-chief as overriding constitutional scruples¹ (or perhaps he cannot distinguish between his word and law). Everything he has said about the six veterans in the video amounts to equating even the discussion of unlawful orders with treason. At least thus far, the Administration has had a fairly broad and reliable base of amplifiers who can spread ideas quickly and far enough that, even if they are bald-faced lies, they get traction, muddy the waters, and convince ordinary people of the truth of what Trump and his people are saying.

If it is established in the public consciousness that Mark Kelly and the others are inciting the troops to insubordination, then should servicemembers refuse an unlawful order, that will be taken for insubordination (or insurrection, in the more hysterical quadrants of the Trumposphere). And at that point, the Administration can bootstrap its way into having the autocratically-minded military it wants: issue unlawful orders, fire or court martial anybody who refuses for insubordination, repeat.

Hauling Kelly before a military tribunal, if it leads to a conviction, could create legal justification and undermine the ability of servicemembers to refuse an unlawful order. This might be enough to dissuade officers and enlisted personnel from the moral clarity that we ask of them when they take their oath. But, that may not matter. Like Trump’s long-ago effort to have Ukraine launch an investigation into Joe Biden, a trial and conviction is perhaps irrelevant: the image of the veteran called back to duty in order to be thrown into the brig may well cement the public understanding of his actions, and create enough justification to fire anyone who is not willing to tacitly swear an oath of loyalty to the President himself. This might decimate the officer corps and severely downgrade American military readiness, but so what? In the world where they pull this off, Trump has already allied the United States with all the potential rogue nations who, today, pose a threat to the erstwhile leader of the free world.

A cowed military, one that is willing to test the boundaries of the Posse Comitatus Act more aggressively, is the kind of tool that plays into the Putinist wing of the Trump Administration, those who seek to undermine democracy not with electoral trickery but with the threat of violence.

This is what is at stake when Trump goes after what he is is now calling the “Seditious Six.”

1. There is some justification for this point of view. See Courtney Waller’s post from yesterday.