Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic

by David Frum

Vice President Pence enjoined the 2017 graduating class at the US Naval Academy to “follow the chain of command without exception. Submit yourselves, as the saying goes, to the authorities that have been placed above you. Trust your superiors, trust your orders, and you’ll serve and lead well.”15 But that is not the American way. American officers are bound to obey only lawful orders. The unthinking obedience recommended by the vice president is the mentality of authoritarian states, not rule-of-law societies. Ten years after the ratification of the Constitution, the US Supreme Court rejected forever the “I was just following orders” defense. Instructions from a superior officer “cannot change the nature of the transaction, or legalize an act which without those instructions would have been a plain trespass.”16 Most American officers do understand and will comply with that principle—which leads to the second directional risk to civilian-military relations under President Trump: the risk that the military will quietly cut an unfit president out of the chain of command.