En norrlänning

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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • You might want to read this https://web.archive.org/web/20230921232415/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/general-mark-milley-trump-coup/675375/

    During the George Floyd protests in early June 2020, Milley, wearing combat fatigues, followed Trump out of the White House to Lafayette Square, which had just been cleared of demonstrators by force. Milley realized too late that Trump, who continued across the street to pose for a now-infamous photo while standing in front of a vandalized church, was manipulating him into a visual endorsement of his martial approach to the demonstrations. Though Milley left the entourage before it reached the church, the damage was significant. “We’re getting the fuck out of here,” Milley said to his security chief. “I’m fucking done with this shit.” Esper would later say that he and Milley had been duped.

    For Milley, Lafayette Square was an agonizing episode; he described it later as a “road-to-Damascus moment.” The week afterward, in a commencement address to the National Defense University, he apologized to the armed forces and the country. “I should not have been there,” he said. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” His apology earned him the permanent enmity of Trump, who told him that apologies are a sign of weakness.