You have probably already heard about the firing of US Navy Captain Brett Crozier in response to a letter to his superiors asking that the bulk of his aircraft carrier crew be moved ashore to prevent them from succumbing to the coronavirus, which had begun to spread aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Although the acting Secretary of the Navy claims that Crozier was fired for violating the chain of command when he wrote his letter, this is a case where context really is everything. The Trump administration has consistently and catastrophically played down the threat of the coronavirus, and a naval officer drawing attention to how the military has been impacted by the virus threatened to undermine the president’s case that he’s done a perfect job handling this pandemic. The direct line between serving the president’s interests and firing the captain has now been established by reporting that acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly was aware that President Trump wanted the captain relieved of command; this decision cannot be viewed outside the president’s ongoing campaign to evade responsibility for the coronavirus crisis.
Many have already pointed out the grotesque disparity between the president’s intervention in this case — firing a captain who tried to protect the lives of the sailors under his command — and his previous pardoning of multiple war criminals whose actions were incompatible with any recognizable American values. For opponents of the president interested in combatting his claims that he’s a staunch backer of the American military, this latest action provides a bookend for making the case that he doesn’t actually have the least interest in defending either military lives or American interests. While the U.S. military must always answer to civilian decision makers, a president who undermines its ability to conduct itself by basic American values — say, by abiding by the notion that we don’t kill unarmed prisoners, or that a captain has a duty to protect his crew from illness — dangerously undermines that military’s ability to do its job of defending the United States. At this point, Trump’s claim that he is somehow an unparalleled supporter of both U.S. military power and its personnel has been pretty much revealed as a fraud, as well a particular insult to American service members.
Last month, it was reported that Defense Secretary Mark Esper instructed military commanders around the globe to check in with him before making decisions on how to protect their troops from the coronavirus, in case those decisions “might surprise the White House or run afoul of President Trump’s messaging on the growing health challenge.” Given that the president’s attitude at the time was a combination of denialism and mendacity toward the threat posed by the virus, it was clear that this instruction was a way of telling the military not to take the coronavirus as seriously as it should, so as not to contradict the president. In light of this previous instruction, which seems to have put political protection of the president over the safety of American service members, Crozier’s firing should spur investigations into whether other military commanders felt they were not getting the latitude they needed to protect their charges, and if so, to what degree that was driven by the interest of the upper ranks and their civilian leadership to protect and promote the president’s deranged vision that the coronavirus was merely a Democratic hoax.
There’s also an important reminder in this baleful story about democratic practices in a time of national crisis. Of necessity, the federal and state governments need to assert powers they would and should not in ordinary times, from states issuing shelter in place orders to the federal government directing private industry to produce critical medical supplies. But the requirement for rapid and centralized action doesn’t mean that bedrock democratic principles of deliberation, openness, and public consent are no longer applicable or important. To the contrary: in such an emergency situation, where liberties are curtailed and sacrifices are demanded, vigilance, skepticism, and the tolerance of dissent are more crucial than ever. In the case of Captain Crozier, it seems that regardless of whether he did or did not violate the chain of command, he acted the way a good democratic citizen should: he raised his concerns with those in power in defense of the greater good of the sailors threatened by the coronavirus. The fact that his request was granted, with many sailors now transferred to shore facilities, shows that he made the right call even by the standards of those involved in his termination.