Malicious Compliance

There’s an old Army saying:  “The surest way to change an order is to obey it fully.”

By this they mean enforcing every last stupid detail in it, throwing sand in the gears, inconveniencing ranking officers, creating needless problems until at last the top brass goes, “Okay, forget what we said, do this instead…”

There is justifiably a lot of worry about Donald Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, deploying U.S. military personnel to aid ICE, and calling off the midterm elections.

If he tries that, malicious compliance will get in his way.

First off, exactly what can he tell the troops to do?  Constitutionally they’re not allowed to arrest anyone; at best they can push protestors back, detain violent protestors who attack them until the police arrive, and if fired upon may return fire.

So exactly what would those orders look like?  Doubtlessly they would contain some language to the effect that they are to secure an area ICE wishes to operate in to make sure there are no protestors to observe of thwart them.

I can see how that will play out:

“Sir, for your protection, you and
your ICE agents need to stay in this
vehicle until we secure the area.”

“How long will that take?”

“Shouldn’t be more than ten,
twenty hours – twenty-four tops.”

And then you have U.S. military personnel loudly announce, “ICE operations to begin immediately.  All non-essential personnel leave the area.”
And once they finish their umpity-first sweep of the area to make sure there are no protestors, only then do they let ICE out of the truck.

At three o’clock in the morning.

In an empty parking lot.

And Diaper Donnie can call off all the midterm elections he wants.

The Constitution puts the elections in the hands of the states.  They will hold elections regardless of what he wants (well, possibly some deep red states won’t, but that’s on them, not the Feds).  Try as he might, Donnie can’t refuse to let those duly elected senators and representatives be seated because if he does, he throws out the rule of law.

The rule of law is the only thing that compels the U.S. military to obey Diaper Donnie.  If the law is thrown out, I guarantee there’s a bunch of colonels who think they can run the country a whole lot better than Donnie.

Groucho Marx sang a song in Duck Soup that highlights what happens next:

“We line ‘em up against the wall
Pop goes the wease!”

Now mind you, Diaper Donnie and those around him may think they can pull something like this off, but history bears to the contrary.  Remember TACO:  Trump Always Chickens Out.  The moment things really start to look bad he’ll cut and run, leaving the mess behind for others to clean up.

He always has.

He always will.

© Buzz Dixon