The New Oath for the American Armed Forces (if Putin's Poodle Wins)

"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the United States and its people, Donald Trump, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God!"

If you think that is far-fetched, then I implore you to think again:

During his first term as president, Donald Trump tested the limits of how he could use the military to achieve policy goals. If given a second term, the Republican and his allies are preparing to go much further, reimagining the military as an all-powerful tool to deploy on U.S. soil.

He has pledged to recall thousands of American troops from overseas and station them at the U.S. border with Mexico. He has explored using troops for domestic policy priorities such as deportations and confronting civil unrest. He has talked of weeding out military officers who are ideologically opposed to him.

Loyalty tests for military officers? How's that going to work? Are they going to troll the FEC's webiste to see who donated to what? Put them on a lie detector and ask whom they've voted for? Put MAGA zampolits in each unit? Court-martial those who are not Trumpies? Putin can tell him how to do that.

The scary thing is that Trump, who has been getting more and more racist in his blatherings, is all but promising a military dictatorship and most Republicans seem to be on board with that.

Which brings me back to a point that I have made time after time: Republicans are loyal to their party and its leader, not to their country. In short, at the current day and age, you can be an American or you can be a Republican.

You cannot be both.