Democrats have committed many outrages in their war against Donald Trump, and indeed against Republicans, going back to the time when Obama's intelligence community began spying against media figures and the United States Senate. 

Few people seem to recall that the CIA was spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee as it investigated abuses, or that it bugged the phone of James Rosen and hacked Sharyl Attkisson's laptop. There were so many abuses during Trump's term, up to and including lying to the FISA court to illegally spy on Trump's associates, leaking false information to the media, and #resist lawful orders of the president. 

Remember all those stories celebrating the #resistance? 

For me, among all the evil things done that undermined our Republic, perhaps the worst betrayal was General Mark Milley's admission that he collaborated with the Chinese, promising to inform them of any moves President Trump made that might threaten them. 

When Democrats talk about "democracy," they simply mean rule by the Democrats. 

This is insurrection. https://t.co/D8yKfnw5dR

— Chart Westcott (@ChartWestcott) November 19, 2025

This latest video from Democrats encouraging intelligence and military officials to disobey orders with which they disagree is an extension of this principle. 

The encouragement relies on a sound principle: members of the military have a right, indeed a duty, to disobey illegal orders. It is a principle that is embedded in our system of military justice for a reason. If an officer orders you to commit what is an obvious crime, such as massacring a village of unarmed civilians, a soldier has a right and duty to refuse. 

But this principle is not exactly a blank check to empower members of the military to substitute their own judgment for that of their superiors. There is a reason why there is a chain of command, and why everybody in the military is expected to follow it except in the most extraordinary circumstances. 

That's especially important when it comes to the military, not just because the stakes are so high and almost no soldier has a grasp of the strategic situation that can only be seen from the highest vantage points. And, of course, civilian control of the military is based on the military actually controlling itself. It is a norm. 

So when I see Members of Congress—all Democrats—encouraging soldiers and intelligence community members to disobey orders, it scares the hell out of me. Not because I expect soldiers and others to obey illegal orders, but because they are blurring the line between orders that are illegal and those they merely dislike.

How do I know that? Simple: they do it all the time. Arresting somebody is now called "kidnapping" by Democrats. Kidnapping is an illegal act, while arresting somebody is enforcing the law. The whole point is to invert reality for their purposes. 

Since these Democrats don't like that certain lawbreakers whom they like are getting arrested, they simply deny that the arrests are legal. 

They do this all the time: redefine words, and by doing so redefine what is and is not lawful. We see it in DEI, where they institute obviously racially discriminatory practices in the name of fighting discrimination. They redefine terms as basic as "male" and "female." 

And they are redefining "legal order" and "illegal order" to mean nothing more than "orders I like," and "orders I don't."

Even the term "norms," which are actually an important part of any society, has come to mean "things I like." It used to be a "norm" that going after your political opponents for anything but the most egregious violations of the law was seen as a bad idea; then Trump got elected, and a feeding frenzy of lawfare broke out. 

The point of that video isn't to state a fact that every soldier already knows; it's to move the Overton Window in the military and intelligence communities to include substituting your judgment for that of the civilian authorities. More specifically, it is an attempt to convince soldiers to do what Democrats want. 

Outside of tactical decisions, military policy should be downstream of civilian decisions. Mark Milley has no right to decide when and whether Donald Trump uses our military for strategic purposes. If he disagrees with a decision, his sole recourse is to resign or disobey and get fired. Not to go over to the other side. 

Democrats, though, are celebrating the idea of committing treason. The same sort of thing that every spy who committed treason for ideological reasons has done. Jonathan Pollard thought he was doing the right thing when he spied on the US. He was rightfully put in jail. 

Democrats lost the election. They hate that they did. So they are asking members of the military to make them commanders-in-chief in a stealthy way. Just using fine words to do so. 

Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.