The timeline of American decline has a specific, rhythmic quality to it now, like a drumbeat played by a toddler who found a loaded gun. On November 24, 2025, that rhythm accelerated into a frantic, terrified tempo when the Pentagon announced an “extraordinary misconduct probe” into Senator Mark Kelly. The crime of this retired Navy captain and literal astronaut? He stood in front of a camera, alongside five other Democratic veterans and intelligence professionals, and read the instruction manual.
Specifically, they reminded active-duty troops of a concept that is printed in black and white in the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ): you must refuse illegal orders.
To Donald Trump, this recitation of basic civics was an act of war. He took to Truth Social to declare the lawmakers guilty of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” because, in the current iteration of the executive branch, loyalty to the Constitution is treason to the King. But while Trump’s all-caps rage is the background radiation of our lives—a constant, low-level hum of incitement—the Pentagon’s response was a precise, tactical escalation that should chill every American to the bone. By threatening to recall a sitting Senator to active duty for a court-martial, the administration effectively declared that the military is no longer a tool of national defense, but a Praetorian Guard for the President’s ego.
But to understand why this video exists, and why the administration is reacting with such frothing, panicked ferocity, we have to zoom out. We have to look at the “illegal orders” not as a theoretical concept from a law school seminar, but as a concrete reality that Donald Trump has been fantasizing about for nearly a decade. The “Seditious Six”—Senators Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, and Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio, and Chrissy Houlahan—didn’t make that video because they were bored. They made it because they have been listening.
The “Shoot Them in the Legs” Legacy
Let’s rewind the tape to June 2020. The streets of Washington, D.C., were filled with Americans protesting the murder of George Floyd. Inside the Oval Office, Donald Trump was not discussing de-escalation or police reform. He was discussing ballistics. According to his own former Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, the President asked a room full of generals, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
This was not a joke. It was a request for a war crime. It was a direct inquiry into the feasibility of using the United States military to maim American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. The only reason it didn’t happen is because there were people in the room—like Esper and General Mark Milley—who said no. They acted as the human guardrails, absorbing the unlawful intent and neutralizing it before it could become an order.
But the guardrails are gone now. Esper is gone. Milley is gone. In their place sits Pete Hegseth, a man who seems to view the Geneva Conventions as a suggestion box he never checks. The administration knows that the next time the President asks to shoot protestors in the legs, there won’t be a General Milley to talk him down. There will only be a “Yes, sir,” and a young lieutenant on the ground who has to decide whether to pull the trigger.
That lieutenant is the target audience of the video. The lawmakers are not inciting mutiny; they are trying to save that young officer’s soul. They are trying to save them from the fate of the “good soldiers” of history who followed orders all the way to a prison cell or a gallows while their leaders took the easy way out.
The War on Geography (and Mexico)
The threat isn’t limited to domestic protestors. Trump has spent years openly musing about launching missile strikes into Mexico to “take out” drug labs. He has reportedly discussed this as a unilateral action, an act of war against a sovereign ally and trade partner, justified by a flimsy designation of cartels as “unlawful combatants.”
This is where the rubber meets the road for the “illegal order.” If a pilot is ordered to drop a bomb on a factory in sovereign Mexican territory without a declaration of war from Congress and without the permission of the Mexican government, is that a lawful order? The administration argues yes, citing the President’s plenary power as Commander-in-Chief. International law, and likely the UCMJ, would argue no.
We are asking 22-year-old drone operators to parse complex questions of international sovereignty in real-time because the Commander-in-Chief treats the southern border like a level in Call of Duty. When Mark Kelly reminds troops that they have a duty to refuse illegal orders, he is talking about exactly this scenario. He is protecting the airman from becoming a war criminal simply because the President wanted to look tough on Fox News.
The “Enemy Within” Doctrine
Perhaps the most terrifying evolution of Trump’s rhetoric is the shift from “foreign adversaries” to the “enemy from within.” In his speeches, he has explicitly stated that the “radical left lunatics” in America are a greater threat than Russia or China. He has suggested that the military should be used to “handle” these domestic enemies.
“It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military,” Trump said in an interview.
This is not ambiguity. This is a plan. He is proposing the deployment of federal troops into American cities not to quell riots, but to purge political opposition. He is talking about militarizing the police power of the state to crush dissent. When he talks about “taking out” the enemy within, he is using the language of targeted assassination and applying it to his neighbors.
This is the context in which the Pentagon is investigating Mark Kelly. They aren’t mad that he’s “undermining morale.” They are mad that he is undermining the operational security of their upcoming purge. They know that for the “enemy within” strategy to work, the military has to be willing to turn its guns inward. Any reminder that the Constitution forbids this is an existential threat to the project.
The ICE Escalation and the Moral Hazard
Then there is the mass deportation machine. The administration has made no secret of its desire to use the military to assist ICE in rounding up millions of undocumented immigrants. They want soldiers building detention camps. They want troops in the streets.
This puts service members in a legally and morally perilous position. The Posse Comitatus Act generally forbids the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. While there are loopholes—like the Insurrection Act—using the 82nd Airborne to raid a chicken processing plant in Georgia is a profound perversion of the military’s mission.
We are asking soldiers trained to fight foreign armies to become jailers of families. We are asking them to participate in a system that, as we have seen in Adelanto and elsewhere, is rife with neglect, abuse, and death. When a soldier is ordered to herd children into a tent city in the desert, is that a lawful order? Or is it a violation of human rights treaties the U.S. is signatory to?
The administration wants the soldier to stop asking that question. They want the uniform to be a blindfold. The “Seditious Six” are trying to rip the blindfold off.
The Nuremberg Lesson: The Leader Always Escapes
The most important history lesson here is the one the right wing refuses to learn: “Following Orders” is not a defense. It hasn’t been a defense since 1945.
When the dust settled on the atrocities of the 20th century, the leaders—the ones who gave the orders—often found the “easy” way out. Hitler took a cyanide pill in a bunker. Others fled to South America. But the foot soldiers? The mid-level officers? The guards? They stood trial. They stood in the dock at Nuremberg and Hague and tried to say, “I was just doing what I was told.”
And the world said: “That is not enough.”
The world decided that a uniform does not absolve you of your humanity. It decided that you have a moral obligation to know the difference between right and wrong, even when a General is screaming in your face.
Donald Trump will never stand trial for a war crime he orders. He will be insulated by layers of executive privilege, legal counsel, and the sheer machinery of the state. If he orders a strike on Mexico, or a massacre of protestors, he will be watching it on TV from the safety of the Residence. He will be eating a cheeseburger while the young men and women who carried out his will are led away in handcuffs by international tribunals or future Department of Justice officials.
Mark Kelly knows this. Jason Crow knows this. They are veterans. They know that the officer carries the burden of the order forever, while the politician just moves on to the next news cycle. They are trying to protect the troops from becoming the collateral damage of a lawless presidency.
The Patriotism of Refusal
The irony is that the “Seditious Six” are the only ones in this equation who are actually treating the military with respect. Trump and Hegseth treat the troops like unthinking automatons, programmable meat-robots to be pointed at whatever target annoys the President that day. They assume that a soldier’s loyalty is to the person, not the principle.
Kelly and his colleagues assume the opposite. They assume that American service members are intelligent, moral agents capable of discernment. They assume that the oath to the Constitution means something. They are treating the troops like citizens, not subjects.
Refusing an illegal order is not sedition. It is the highest form of patriotism. It is the failsafe built into the system to prevent exactly this kind of tyranny. It is the realization that the flag represents a set of laws, not a king.
When the Pentagon investigates Mark Kelly for “conduct unbecoming,” they are really investigating him for “conduct unbecoming a lackey.” They are punishing him for reminding the country that the military serves the people, not the President.
The Broken Norms and the New Reality
We have to look at this probe in the context of everything else. The 5,000 fired DOJ employees. The death threats against political opponents. The cozying up to Putin. The dismantling of the Department of Education. The “enemy within” rhetoric.
This is not a series of isolated incidents. It is a coordinated assault on the checks and balances of the American republic. The administration is systematically removing every obstacle to total power. The courts? Stacked. The DOJ? Purged. The civil service? Gutted.
The last obstacle standing is the military. The military is the only institution with the physical power to stop a tyrant, or to enforce his will. That is why Trump is so obsessed with it. That is why he calls generals “pussies” when they talk about the law. That is why he wants to execute the lawmakers who speak to the troops directly.
He needs the military to be broken. He needs it to be a personal militia. And Mark Kelly is standing in the way.
The “misconduct probe” is a show trial. It is designed to intimidate. It is designed to tell every other retired officer, “Keep your mouth shut.” It is designed to tell every active-duty soldier, “Do not listen to them.”
But the message has already been sent. The video is out there. The words are in the air. “You must refuse illegal orders.” It is a simple sentence, but it carries the weight of history. It carries the weight of Nuremberg. It carries the weight of the Constitution.
And no amount of bluster from Pete Hegseth, no amount of all-caps rage from Donald Trump, can erase the fact that somewhere, in a barracks or a briefing room, a soldier watched that video and thought, “Wait. I don’t have to do it.”
That hesitation is the only thing saving us. That split-second of moral clarity is the thin line between a republic and a dictatorship. The administration knows it. That’s why they are terrified. That’s why they are lashing out. They aren’t afraid of Mark Kelly the Senator. They are afraid of Mark Kelly the reminder that they are not gods.
Receipt Time
Let’s be clear about the stakes. The “misconduct” here is not a retired astronaut making a YouTube video. The misconduct is a Commander-in-Chief who has openly fantasized about shooting Americans, bombing allies, and suspending the Constitution. The misconduct is a Defense Secretary who views the UCMJ as a weapon to silence dissent. The misconduct is a party that stares at its shoes while the President calls for the execution of their colleagues.
The history books will not be kind to the people who “just followed orders” in 2025. But they might have a chapter for the people who stood up and said, “No.” Mark Kelly just wrote the first paragraph of that chapter. And if the Pentagon wants to court-martial him for it, they better be ready to put the entire Constitution on the stand with him. Because that’s who he was quoting.