1789 in the balance — constitutionally principled Senator Mark Kelly versus emperor Trump

© 2025 Peter Free

 

26 November 2025

 

 

The latest battle against . . .

 

. . . presidentially led American tyranny began with six Democrats' (Senator Mark Kelly included) 'Don't give up the ship' video.

 

 

And now

 

President Trump — evidently unrepentant after posting his explosive sedition-claiming Truth Social outburst in response to that video — is now attacking the US Constitution directly.

 

Via Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon.

 

Both of which, as commander in chief, Trump purportedly controls:

 

 

The Pentagon said Monday it is investigating Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired U.S. Navy fighter pilot and NASA astronaut, for possible violations of military law after he appeared in a video with other Democratic lawmakers urging active duty military and intelligence personnel to refuse "illegal orders."

 

In the case of Kelly, the Pentagon put out a statement saying that it had "received serious allegations of misconduct against Captain Mark Kelly, USN (Ret.)," and that "a thorough review of these allegations has been initiated to determine further actions, which may include recall to active duty for court-martial proceedings or administrative measures."

 

© 2025 Scott Neuman, Pentagon investigates Sen. Mark Kelly for telling troops to refuse 'illegal orders', NPR (24 November 2025)

 

 

Given that Mark Kelly is militarily retired . . .

 

. . . and his free speech right returned to him as a result of his disconnect from active military duty, the Pentagon's claimed investigation should go nowhere.

 

Unless of course, the Pentagon manufacturers evidence that then-Captain (a Navy O-6) Kelly miraculously had indulged in sedition, while on previous active duty status.

 

 

Even more legally and morally preposterous . . .

 

. . . would be the Pentagon recalled him to active duty. And then prosecuted him for something he allegedly did while retired and before being recalled.

 

The legal absurdity of such a show-trial process is so immediately obvious, that only totalitarians would think it an appropriate course of American legal action.

 

 

What is clear . . .

 

. . . is that the Trump administration is trying to intimidate its substance-oriented opponents by using tyrannically applied means.

 

President Trump should know that the Constitution protects Kelly's video-made statement about the lawful duty to refuse to carry out clearly unlawful military orders.

 

This is especially so, given the Trump administration's due process-lacking mass murders of civilians in South American boats.

 

Those executions are self-evidently blatant violations of law and military principle in every respect. They cannot be meaningfully be distinguished from World War 2 Nazi behavior that US prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials selected for punishment.

 

As, of course, is the United States' ongoing sponsorship of Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

 

 

Curious, isn't it . . .

 

. . . how the moral high ground of the past has turned itself exactly opposite?

 

And that being so, with virtually no one American-influential noticing or speaking out.

 

 

And so

 

The 'Don't give up the ship' video made a pertinent legal and moral point.

 

The continuing US-initiated boat murders — 83 at reported count — are actions that the high-ranking US military commanders involved should have, as a matter of oath-based duty, refused to carry out.

 

Yet apparently in 2025, the American military and the public are so morally comatose, that killing people abroad for no rationally strategic reason — and without first applying due process of any kind — is a finely glorious thing.

 

 

Speaking of that

 

Is payback for We the Somnolent on the horizon?

 

What happens when the same US tyranny — and its executions — cascade down on We the People?

 

Which is exactly where autocratically headed past presidential administrations — and Trump — have been headed.

 

 

The moral? — If Senator Kelly loses this battle about constitutional principles . . .

 

. . . against President Trump and the Pentagon — 1789 America will have been lost to 21st Century fascist autocracy.

 

An American president of foresight, genuine patriotic substance and (even mediocre) intelligence would have avoided such a confrontation.

 

In that regard, 'Don't give up the ship' video participant Representative Elissa Slotkin made a rationally valid point:

 

 

“To be honest, the president’s reaction and the use of the FBI against us is exactly why we made the video,” she said.

 

“He believes in using the federal government against his perceived adversaries, and he’s not afraid to use the arms of the government against people he disagrees with.

 

"He does not believe the law applies to him … which is exactly why we made the video, to give people some assurance that they weren’t alone as they watch this stuff unfold.”

 

© 2025 Edward Helmore and Robert Mackey, Pete Hegseth orders US navy to investigate Mark Kelly’s comments, The Guardian (25 November 2025)

 

 

Even though I originally thought that the Slotkin-Kelly et al video was too substantively abbreviated to persuasively bridge the American political divide, it now appears that it might become useful, after all.

 

If a legal battle ensues — and if its outcome contributes, even slightly, to clipping the imperial US presidency's autocratic wings — that would be a good thing.

 

At least so, to those of us who support the 1776-1789 Founders' experiment in representative self-governance.