It was a shrewd move by Trump to replace the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Whether the new choices were more loyal to Trump than to the Constitution is unknown, but the message was clear. Trump would not tolerate general staff that would pull a Milley, tell him what he didn’t want to hear such as it being wrong to shoot protesters in the legs. After long and distinguished military careers, they would be unceremoniously fired by the Commander in Chief if they did not do as he commanded, whether his commands were lawful, ethical or just dumb.

In a speech at the newly re-renamed Fort Bragg, Trump did what Trump invariably does.

It is too much to call it a “speech”; it was, instead, a ramble, full of grievance and anger, just like his many political-rally performances. He took the stage to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”—which has become a MAGA anthem—and then pointed to the “fake news,” encouraging military personnel to jeer at the press.

He mocked former President Joe Biden and attacked various other political rivals. He elicited cheers from the crowd by announcing that he would rename U.S. bases (or re-rename them) after Confederate traitors. He repeated his hallucinatory narrative about the invasion of America by foreign criminals and lunatics. He referred to 2024 as the “election of a president who loves you,” to a scatter of cheers and applause. And then he attacked the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, again presiding over jeers at elected officials of the United States.

While this may be dismissed as classic Trump stump-speechifying, Tom Nichols points out that the audience, the soldiers stationed at Bragg, isn’t the same as those inclined to go to Trump rallies and listen as he rambles extemporaneously for hours. These were American soldiers.

He led soldiers, in other words, in a display of unseemly behavior that ran contrary to everything the founder of the U.S. Army, George Washington, strove to imbue in the American armed forces.

The president also encouraged a violation of regulations. Trump, himself a convicted felon, doesn’t care about rules and laws, but active-duty military members are not allowed to attend political rallies in uniform. They are not allowed to express partisan views while on duty, or to show disrespect for American elected officials.

It may well be that members of the armed forces agree with Trump and support him, such that they took little issue with his speech. But then, the rank and file are often less attuned to the prohibition of politicizing the military than their commanders.

Trump may not know these rules and regulations, but the officers who lead these men and women know them well. It is part of their oath, their credo, and their identity as officers to remain apart from such displays. Young soldiers will make mistakes. But if senior officers remain silent, what lesson will those young men and women take from what happened today?

Trump doesn’t know better. And even if he did, it’s highly unlikely that he would care. Such American niceties like a non-partisan military do nothing to serve his cause, the glory of Trump.

The president cares nothing for the military, for its history, or for the men and women who serve the United States. They are, like everything else around him, only raw material: They either feed his narcissism, or they are useless. Those who love him, he claims as “his” military. But those who have laid down their life for their country are, as he so repugnantly put it, just suckers and losers, anonymous saps lying under cold headstones in places such as Arlington National Cemetery that clearly make Trump uncomfortable. Today, he showed that he has no compunction about turning every American soldier into a hooting partisan.

But as National Guard troops, about 4000 at present, plus 700 active duty Marines, have found themselves on the streets of Los Angeles, bit players in Trump’s power play, the question raised is whether anyone, any general, any commander, spoke out against putting “warfighters” on the streets of an American city, unwanted by the mayor and governor, unneeded by the police chief, where they could find themselves pointing weapons at fellow Americans.

And if these men cannot muster the courage to defend American traditions—by speaking out or even resigning—where are the other senior officers who must uphold the values that have made America’s armed forces among the most effective and politically stable militaries in the world? Where is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine? He was personally selected by Trump to be America’s most senior military officer. Will he tell the man who promoted him that what he did today was obscene?

Can they muster the courage to say “no” to Trump? Can they muster the courage to at least tell him that what he is doing, using the military as cannon fodder in the battle to make Trump great (again)? And if they did, how long would they last before Trump replaces them with General Timmy, yesterday’s corporal?

The top officers of the U.S. military wear eagles or stars on their shoulders that give them great privilege, as befits people who assume responsibility for the defense of the nation and the welfare of their troops. They command the power of life and death itself on the field of battle. But those ranks also carry immense responsibility.

It was shrewd of Trump to fire Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. And by appointing former Fox News weekend staffer Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, a guy who under any other circumstances would not be able to enter the Pentagon, no less lead it, Trump can be assured that his orders will be find their way down the chain of command. Nichols asks whether any of these men will defend the Army and other services from “a would-be caudillo, a man who would probably be strutting around in a giant hat and a golden shoulder braid if he could get away with it?” It’s a very important question, but I fear we already know the answer.