It’s remarkable how often protecting “democracy” from the clutches of Donald Trump means engaging in anti-democratic activities.

“The Patriot: How General Mark Milley protected the Constitution from Donald Trump” is Jeffrey Goldberg’s 6,500-word ode in The Atlantic to the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Although the article also suffers from cloying revisionism, its biggest flaw is failing to provide a single instance proving its proposition—quite the contrary…

Yet not even The Atlantic’s retelling of Milley’s heroic tale offers any evidence that Trump attempted to escalate tensions with any “nuclear-armed adversaries,” or anyone else, to provoke an “eruption of wars” or any conflict before or after the election chaos of 2020. Or even that Milley dissuaded him from trying.