Presidents Cry “Illegal Aliens!” and “Sedition!”
Contributed by David Eastman
Six Democrat Congressmen recently appeared in an online video urging soldiers and airmen not to follow unconstitutional orders.
In response, President Trump condemned the video as “sedition” and retweeted an online message saying that they should all be hung because that’s what George Washington would have done.
The growing frequency with which words like “Alien” and “Sedition” appear in headlines today is enough to give any American historian a profound sense of déjà vu.
In the 1700’s, Congress passed the now infamous “Alien and Sedition Acts” triggered by fears of a looming war with France that never materialized.
The acts became infamous after they were used to jail newspaper publishers for publicly criticizing the president. The year was 1798. The president was John Adams. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison publicly declared the acts tyrannical and lead a nationwide campaign against them.
Fortunately for us, those convicted were later pardoned by President Thomas Jefferson, and the acts themselves were dismantled when Republicans took control of Congress.
Yet it now seems that we are fighting this same battle all over again.
In a stroke of irony, ten people were convicted in France this week for insulting the wife of the president of France.
Not that I am for throwing insults at Melania, or any other first lady, but perhaps you shouldn’t send someone to prison for doing so, as France is doing today.
There is a truism I’ve come to embrace when it comes to oppressive laws:
“The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. – H. L. Mencken
Instead of encouraging us to defend human freedom, the drive to “just support the president” encourages us to wave the white flag at the very point on the battlefield where oppression must first be stopped if, in Mencken’s words, “it is to be stopped at all.”
Yes, scoundrels do awful things. So do politicians, but I repeat myself.
Would it be a good thing if Congress passed a law to jail politicians who tell soldiers to disobey unconstitutional orders from the president?
In so many words, that is the fight being waged in the public square today. It’s not about whether politicians who do these things should be re-elected, but whether such encouragements are so damaging to our national security that we should publicly punish any politician who utters them.
Earlier this week, the Department of War initiated a process to publicly punish one of the six congressmen, Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ), over his appearance in the online video.
For those unfamiliar with Mark Kelly, he was the last commander of the Space Shuttle Endeavor and is now a retired astronaut and former naval officer. His wife was critically injured in an assassination attempt while she was speaking at a public event. The Department of War has now initiated the process of demoting him and reducing his Navy pension.
A profound suspicion of government officials has been an essentially American trait, going back to 1776. Human nature often leads men and women to do profoundly immoral things when they are entrusted with power and authority.
Human nature can also lead men and women to excuse and overlook those profoundly immoral things when the person doing them is on their side of the political aisle.
When the six congressmen encouraged those in the military not to follow unconstitutional orders it undermined military discipline, the pundits say. It was akin to encouraging soldiers and airmen to disobey the lawful orders of the president, which is sedition. All six congressmen should be criminally prosecuted, or so the argument goes.
I’m not here to support any of the six. The video was clearly a political attack against the president, a president I voted for. By all accounts, whatever service they may have given the country earlier in life, they are scoundrels today, one and all. They have no business serving in Congress.
But what do we lose when we make it illegal to criticize the president by simply reminding soldiers to follow the Constitution? Do we not head straight back to that exceedingly unpleasant chapter in American history when we literally put newspaper editors in jail for criticizing the president?
Not on my watch. I may think the president was right in a particular instance, but I will still fight tooth and nail to defend your right to publicly criticize him for it. He will be wrong on occasion. When he is, you do the nation a service in helping him make the needed correction. Historically, that has been the American position.
David Eastman served in the United States Army under Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, and in the Alaska House of Representatives representing the Mat-Su Valley from 2017 to 2025. Visit davideastman.org.