As former US Defence Secretary James Mattis criticises the Trump administration in an article for The Atlantic, Dr Georg Löfflmann of the Department of Politics and International Studies discusses how unprecedented his comments are.

Dr Löfflmann said: "The President's use of the military to dispel peaceful protestors for a photo-op has thrown a shadow of authoritarianism over the United States. The intervention of General James Mattis, Trump's former Secretary of Defence, is almost unprecedented given the political neutrality of the military and the loyalty to the chain of command. Mattis spoke out against Trump's actions and a dangerous and inflammatory rhetoric of 'battle spaces' and 'dominance' that risks pitting the US military against the very American people whose Constitutional rights it has sworn to protect. Mattis clearly sees Trump as a danger to American democracy.”

4 June 2020

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