The soul of America is at stake amidst political gamesmanship. As concerning – the soul of the military continues to be a battleground. An arena that consists of an enemy more potent than China or Russia; instead, the egos of General’s and former senior officers threaten to undermine national security. But Generals’ answer to political leaders. In fact, even when they become political leaders, former officers can be held responsible for the oath they took while in uniform. General Mark Milley is probably the most prominent architect of subsuming the military’s integrity in the hubris of his own ego. He engaged in direct subterfuge when he called the President a fascist. But worse Milley created a more subtle blueprint of subversion in which an equilibrium of balancing facts and fallacious intentions were anchored in his self-service.
General Mark Milley’s public quotations sketch a portrait of a commander constantly positioning himself as the Republic’s necessary conscience—ever visible, ever declarative, and ever at the center of the frame. His defenders call it candor and constitutional fidelity. His record of remarks, however, reads like a running performance of moral self-positioning that places “I” at the apex of every crisis. Taken together, the pattern suggests an ego that treats public controversy as a stage and the uniform as a microphone.
Consider his most famous mea culpa. After appearing in the Lafayette Square photo op in June 2020, Milley recorded an unusually personal video address: “I should not have been there,” he said, adding, “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” Those lines were praised for contrition. Yet the form—high-production apology, spotlight on his own judgment—also elevates his role in the narrative. Rather than reinforcing institutional boundaries quietly, he made himself the protagonist of rectitude. He did not simply correct; he performed correction, casting his judgment as the moral hinge on which public trust ought to swivel.
He adopted a similar posture in the culture-war hearing that vaulted him into cable-news orbit. In June 2021, pressed about curriculum at West Point, Milley declared, “I want to understand white rage. And I’m white,” then followed with, “I’ve read Mao Zedong. I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a communist. So what is wrong with understanding … having some situational understanding about the country for which we are here to defend?” On the merits, intellectual curiosity is defensible. On the optics, he again placed himself center stage—casting himself as the enlightened arbiter who both defies accusations and instructs the nation on what it means to be informed. The effect was not to depoliticize the institution but to thrust its most senior officer into a partisan spectacle with himself as a conscientious foil, a posture that flatters the speaker more than protects the force from political crossfire.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member