A Case for Zeal
I have many friends in Europe. I was a hobbyist game developer and over the Pandemic I had developed a relationship with them. We talk about science, history, philosophy, and politics. They have often remarked to me that in American Culture, fidelity to our Constitution and our national identity has the valence of a civic religion. Our money is decorated with the faces of founders and heroes that some of us on both sides of the aisle will venerate and quote like saints. Our capital city is decorated like Rome with museums, statues and architecture, speaking to both the honor in our past and the memory of our bad judgements. Our anthem rings out at every ball game from Little League to the Super Bowl. We take pride in the bold audacious colors of the star spangled banner, and it decorates every city square, red or blue. We drink beer, eat hog dogs, and watch things explode on our most patriotic holiday. We treat the Bill of Rights as if they were interpretations of sacred texts rather than simply ink on a page written by mere men. In no other nation on Earth does its founding documents take on the shape and dimensions of a civil reliquary. Our oaths of service—both military and civil—are not to a person, to a land, or even to a people—but to that nearly 250 year old document and the ideals it was meant to encode and carry through generations.
Now an American battlefleet supported by a murder of warplanes has cast a long shadow and a storm of ordnance across the skies of Iran. These orders were executed with precision and skill by those same men and women in uniform who swore that oath to something that to many of us, is sacred. We can only imagine that officers and enlisted doubted the wisdom of those orders. But the dubious constitutional grounds under which they were ordered still qualify them as lawful.
The fog of war is thick but there is reason to believe the strikes were overwhelming in force and intensity. The United States, without the remit or even notice to Congress and the American People, has unilaterally, and at the whim of a single man and a small cabal of conspirators, sunk the fleet of a sovereign nation, assassinated its leader, and devastated the Iranian command structure. Thousands are dead in the attack including hundreds at a girls’ school, hit with a Tomahawk missile in Tehran. The constraint on the use of military power to congress—as bound by that same revered constitution—has been broken. This attack has no more the legality, morality, or strategy of a mob boss ordering a hit on a rival.
On January 5th we captured the Venezuelan Dictator Nicolás Maduro Moros using a smaller commando strike force. This Iranian attack is the second decapitation strike we have executed in a few months. This new attack represents both an escalation and pattern of war making and posturing that is increasing in intensity, violence and scale. The intent to both use military force and abuse power is increasing dramatically. There is no plan that we know about—the administration responds to legitimate questions with delay, obfuscation and contempt.
The American War Machine as well is a truly terrifying thing. Whatever you believe the merits to the use or misuse of American power in history there is a cool, effective and ruthless logic to the design of our security ministries that should be appreciated. In the military there is a common aphorism. Amateurs talk about tactics. Professionals talk about logistics. Our armed forces are primarily an expeditionary force—it is trained, equipped, and doctrinally focused on deep penetrating strikes behind enemy lines to prevent a front line from even forming. We sequence targets to disrupt enemy command and control, communications, power, logistical hubs, airfields and political leadership.
When we are able to prevent the enemy from building military mass—we can then establish a bridge head using rapid response light infantry divisions like the 82nd Airborne or Marine expeditionary brigades. Then we surge our mass into the breach to reinforce, as it is mustered behind a massive global logistics footprint with hundreds of bases all around the world. It is a machine built to go after military targets in far off lands at the long end of complex supply chains that move vast quantities of fuel, munitions, and personnel around the world at combat speed. We invest in the most advanced systems that can sustain combat for long periods of time, at range, and out numbered.
The US Military is a powerful tool that can be used to change the shape of human destiny—for good or for ill. It is also a tempting one that, even when utilized with good will, can result in great damage if used unwisely. As the pathologies of this administration reveal themselves to the American people, it shouldn’t be lost on us that the same foul motivations that have governed this regime's behavior since the beginning, are now starting to infiltrate and make their way through our command and control structures. The US military is an awesome power—that should be bounded by constitutional limits and the moral fiber of the leaders we elect.
Trump is a creature that respects strength and in his mind being strong means taking what you want from the weak. Trump once said in 2022 that Vladimir Putin was ‘savvy’ and a ‘genius’ for his illegal, immoral assault on the free people of Ukraine. He does not respect the people of Ukraine for defending their liberty but he does respect the evil man who has sent a million of his own people into a lead wall of Ukrainian guns for a few scraps of blood-soaked land.
Trump intends to use the military and other power ministries like DHS or the FBI against all of his perceived enemies, foreign or domestic. While neither the Ayatollah of Iran nor Maduro are men worthy of our respect or moral concern, they are emblematic of a disregard for the rules of the international order we helped to build after World War 2. This is an accelerating pattern driven entirely by Trump’s desire for revenge and personal gratification. We cannot fall into the trap of hating the target of his abuse so much that we overlook the crime. It is the tactic of a conman or a bully—first find a mark and then exploit them to steal something else. In an office with as much power as the American Presidency, this is incredibly dangerous.
Trump’s corruption goes beyond the material. His malfeasance and his shamelessness allows him to interface with some truly scary characters. The Military Freedom Foundation released a statement recently, through Journalist Johnathan Larson, about numerous complaints it’s received about the mixing of religious fundamentalist rhetoric with recent orders. They claim that soldiers are being told that Donald Trump was "Anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.” This incident is not isolated—hundreds of complaints were filed around the time hostilities were announced.
This is the agenda of Christian Nationalism. To them our forces are meant to be a rain of fire and steel upon apostasy in the holy land. They seek to use our power as a kind of religious manifest destiny. Trump's corruption is seen as a blessing, or rationalized as God seeking an imperfect vessel to be the avatar of deliverance. The zealot’s eyes widen with excitement when their prophetic nightmares shade into truth and this bleak psychology is now an influence on the use of hard power by the most powerful military in the world. Recently Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator of South Carolina, has floated regime change in Cuba with sociopathic glee, on multiple news programs while the craters in Iran are still smoldering from this latest abuse. The possibility for conflict to spread rapidly across the planet cannot be underestimated.
But our nation is not defended by robots without souls. The oaths we swear are not empty words—they profoundly bind the heart. Our civil servants are connected to a culture of deep respect for the value of American Institutions. They feel a deep affinity and obligation to a few simple abstract principles—human dignity, rule of law, and the consent of the governed. It unites us across political lines, and it helps us build the trust needed to do public service well. I have no doubt there is resistance in the shadows of that government now, and they are fighting hard to preserve those institutions against the moral rot this administration brings.
Our nation is also defended by all of us—the men and women of the No Kings movement whose numbers, strength, and capacity grow each and every day. As we learn skills, as we make friends, as we build bridges, and tear down the old walls that don’t matter anymore, some of us are slowly rediscovering something about ourselves that we didn’t know we had.
This old muscle, the patriotism and idealism that my European friends find so peculiar, was baked into the American Project from the very beginning. The preamble of our declaration is known in part or in whole by school children. Our history, our songs, our flag, are symbols that are meant not to be lost in time or held as a shield against critique, but as a demand to live up to the ideals they embody in our darkest hour.
That was always part of the social contract. The founders were aware of the flaws of human beings, and many were aware of the flaws of the original constitutional design. The people are the 4th branch of government—unwritten into the articles but implied in the design of our national fabric. They always intended speech, dissent and resistance to unjust authority as fundamental to the principles that must govern a free people. The prose of our founding documents was chosen carefully and with intent to bind us culturally to the trifecta purpose of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We are no more evil or good than any other people on this Earth. We are just as capable of horrors as we are capable of charity, grace, and courage. The Ideals of liberty and justice are only part of the fabric of American character and they are not the largest part at most times. But it can be the defining trait if we choose to embrace it, and redefine it again for all the generations after us—as the many heroes of our history have done.
My European friends had something else to say about this—the size and scale of our resistance has impressed many of them. The people of Europe are cheering for us. One who remembers the color revolutions in the Baltic states told me that it took almost a decade to build the kind of mass we have achieved in but a short year. If reform movements are games of energy, we have ample supply in reserve on account of an ancient motive power that was always there. The founders gave us many tools, but ideals are the least appreciated and the most important. The symbols are a shield on the wall and a sword in a scabbard—peaceful above a fireplace—but always there to be picked up by the people when our liberty and prosperity is at risk.
The fires of war now being lit by zealots can only be opposed by the inner fire of people of all types, committed to a common cause that is greater than themselves. It’s an ancient idea, proud and powerful; it’s pride wounded by our national inadequacies. But I do believe that we are up to this greatest of tasks as were those who came before us and prevailed. I have seen the needed zeal already—in the streets—with you.
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