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Don’t Count on the Military to Save Our Democracy
That’s not its job — it’s ours
A few weeks ago in these pages, I interviewed my friend, the filmmaker Ramona Diaz, whose new feature documentary A Thousand Cuts (out now) details Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s persecution of his chief domestic critic, the dissident journalist Maria Ressa. He hasn’t yet had her poisoned, like Putin did to Sergei Navalny, but he’s arranged for her to be convicted of libel in a kangaroo court and sentenced to six years in prison. (She is out on bail while appealing.)
This week Ramona sent me a note about the upcoming US election:
As a person who grew up under martial law, I saw that Marcos needed the full support of the military. Which he did get but that had grave consequences for the morale of the military and hard lessons learned. So much so that today they don’t fully support Duterte. As someone told me, they’re tired of all the adventurism. And that’s why Duterte has not proclaimed martial law, because he’s not fully backed by the military. (Though now the pandemic has helped him consolidate power.)
So in the US, how will this work? I cannot imagine Trump has the support of the military, seeing as how he despises vets, right?
Her question is especially pertinent as we approach the most consequential US presidential…
