(Dobbs) “You can refuse illegal orders.”

“What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law.”

How many times in a week can our president become unhinged?

This week alone, plenty.

How many times a week can he berate and bully anyone who doesn’t fall to their knees in worship?

This week and every week, plenty.

After the president’s thin-skinned temper tantrum Tuesday in the Oval Office when a reporter put hard questions that he didn’t like to him and his guest, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, yesterday he exploded on six Democratic members of Congress. In a series of angry posts, he called for them to be “ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.” He accused them of “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

The catalyst? A video they put together earlier this week, telling members of the military and the CIA, “You must refuse illegal orders. No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

These aren’t just ordinary members of Congress. They boast patriotic credentials that few other lawmakers have, certainly including our bone-spur president: Navy veteran and former astronaut Senator Mark Kelly, former CIA analyst Senator Elissa Slotkin who served in Iraq, former Army Ranger with service in both Iraq and Afghanistan and a Bronze Star for his heroism, Representative Jason Crow, former Air Force captain Representative Chrissy Houlahan, former Naval officer Representative Maggie Goodlander, and Iraq War veteran Representative Chris Deluzio.

When they spoke in this video, they spoke from experience. “Like us,” they said, “you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution, right now. The threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad but from right here at home. Our laws are clear.”

They’re referring to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which says that while our armed forces are required to follow lawful orders whether they agree with them or not, they also have the right, and indeed are required, not to follow “manifestly unlawful orders,” because their oath is to the Constitution, not to the president. They have that right, they have that duty.

What might “manifestly unlawful orders” from Donald Trump be? Extrajudicial executions with no due process against suspected narcotics smugglers in the Pacific and the Caribbean.

Deploying armed soldiers to American cities for the purpose of law enforcement, a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 which is meant to protect local law enforcement against the encroachment of the military. Just yesterday afternoon a federal judge in Washington ordered the Trump regime to pull troops out of the nation’s capital. “From the beginning,” she said, “we made clear that the U.S. military should not be policing American citizens on American soil.” Without mincing words, she called it “unlawful.”

That’s the kind of thing the Democrats are talking about. “Our laws are clear,” Senator Kelly says in the video. “You can refuse illegal orders.” That’s another way of saying that the excuse of “I was just following orders” is not an acceptable defense. Nazis learned about that at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. Ultimately, if a service member does refuse to execute an order considered illegal, a military judge would decide whether he or she is right.

But a guy like Trump doesn’t have the patience or the patriotism to wait for anyone else’s interpretation of the law. In a series of berserk posts yesterday, he kept blasting. “This is really bad, and Dangerous to our Country. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT.” Then he reposted someone else’s message on his website, complete with a Nazi Iron Cross, that said, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

George Washington shouldn’t have his name even mentioned in the same breath as Donald Trump’s.

However, the six Democrats in the video all got to where they are by being fighters. After Trump lost it, they put out a new statement that framed what we’re watching in real time: “What’s most telling is that the President considers it punishable by death for us to restate the law.”

What’s also telling is that a proclamation by a guy like Donald Trump doesn’t have the staying power of a soap sud. After Trump’s ally Charlie Kirk was shot dead in September, the president said from the Oval Office, “It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”

Could Trump have hatefully and despicably demonized anyone more than he just demonized these members of Congress? Now, as outspoken critics of the president, they’ll have to look over their shoulders even more than they ever had to before.

The whole story is ironic because of how yesterday’s dark stars aligned. Which was scary. On the same day Trump spit his vile bile on his rivals, it was revealed that starting the middle of next month, although the swastika and the noose are two of the most obvious hate symbols of the past century, the United States Coast Guard will no longer call them that. Rather than “hate symbols,” it will merely define them as “potentially divisive.”

The Coast Guard answers not to the defense department but to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. When the Trump regime talks about modifying policies across the government to be “aligned” with its mission, this move speaks volumes.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: About 24 hours after news broke about the new Coast Guard policy, and after this piece was published on Substack, the Coast Guard reversed itself. As if it needs reinforcement, the swastika once again, officially, is a hate symbol.

Also yesterday was the memorial service at the National Cathedral for former vice president Dick Cheney, who was probably the most reviled politician in this century until Donald Trump came along. But it was a reminder that even Cheney had no use for this president. Last year when the lifelong Republican endorsed Kamala Harris, he called Trump a “coward” and said, “As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.” Then he declared what so many Americans are thinking today: “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.”

That’s what the six Democrats meant when they closed their video with this: “We need you to stand up for our laws, our Constitution, and who we are as Americans.”

Not that Donald Trump would understand a word of it.

Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 39-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.

You can learn more at GregDobbs.net