On Orders, Examples, and the Fascism Happening on Live Television
Mark Kelly—former Navy combat pilot, astronaut, sitting United States Senator—stated a simple legal fact on video: members of the US military can refuse illegal orders. Not as opinion. Not as political positioning. As established law codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and affirmed at Nuremberg when “I was following orders” was rejected as defense for war crimes.
The Trump Administration opened a federal investigation into him for saying this.
Jesse Watters praised the investigation on Fox News: “You have to make examples out of people.”
Slow down. Read that again. One more time. Let it register fully.
A sitting senator stated constitutional law. The executive branch opened an investigation into him for stating it. State propaganda praised this as making an example.
This isn’t approaching fascism. This isn’t fascism-adjacent. This is fascism—the actual thing, not the metaphor, happening in real time on national television while we debate whether calling it fascism is too divisive.
Let’s be precise about the mechanics. The Trump Administration isn’t investigating Kelly for corruption or lawbreaking. It’s investigating him for defending the principle that law constrains executive power. The investigation isn’t meant to find wrongdoing—it’s meant to intimidate through spectacle of state punishment. The message isn’t “we enforce laws” but “invoke constitutional constraints and we come for you.”
And Watters—state propagandist on the regime’s preferred network—praises this openly: “You have to make examples out of people.” That’s Goebbels. Not as hyperbole. As accurate historical parallel. Making examples means using state violence visibly enough that others learn to submit without needing to be targeted. The cruelty is the point. The intimidation is the goal. The investigation is the punishment.
Kelly defended the constitutional framework distinguishing American military forces from authoritarian ones—the framework saying law constrains power, that orders can be illegal, that service members have the duty to refuse commands violating constitutional or international law. This is why Admiral Holsey resigned over Caribbean boat strikes. He understood that following illegal orders doesn’t protect you—it implicates you.
And now the Trump Administration investigates Kelly for defending this principle while Fox News calls for him to be made an example.
Think about what this means. If you can be investigated by federal authorities for stating that military personnel can refuse illegal orders, then there are no illegal orders. If defending constitutional constraints on executive power becomes grounds for federal investigation, then constitutional constraints no longer exist. If senators can be “made examples of” for invoking established law, then law has been replaced by will.
This is the mechanism. This is how constitutional republics die. Not through formal coup or dramatic collapse but through making it dangerous to invoke constitutional protections. You don’t repeal the law protecting refusal of illegal orders—you just investigate anyone who mentions it until no one dares. You don’t ban opposition—you make examples until opposition becomes unthinkable. You don’t eliminate the Constitution—you prosecute people who cite it until citing it becomes sedition.
Eventually no one invokes it. Eventually no one remembers it protected anything. Eventually “the president ordered it” becomes sufficient justification for any action, any violation, any atrocity. That’s the world this investigation is building. That’s the world Watters is praising. That’s the world taking shape while we watch.
Kelly is doing what constitutional officers do: defending that law constrains power, that orders can be illegal, that military serves Constitution rather than personal loyalty to whoever holds office. This isn’t radical. This isn’t partisan. This is baseline constitutional governance—the floor beneath which lies only authoritarianism.
The Trump Administration is doing what authoritarian regimes do: weaponizing state power against those defending constitutional constraints, using federal investigation as punishment for opposition, making examples to terrorize others into silence.
Watters is doing what fascist propagandists do: praising political persecution on state television, normalizing investigation-as-intimidation, celebrating the “examples” that teach everyone else to submit.
This is it. This is the thing. Not the prologue, not the warning sign, but the actual consolidation of authoritarian power happening on Fox News while many Americans legislate on whether noticing this is “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
A senator stated constitutional law. The regime opened an investigation. State media praised making an example of him. And we’re supposed to worry that calling this “fascist” is too inflammatory?
The scandal isn’t the word. The scandal is that it’s accurate. They’re doing it. Openly. On television. While scolding anyone who names it as divisive.
Kelly is correct. The law is clear. Military personnel can and must refuse illegal orders. Stating this is not sedition—it’s constitutional duty.
Investigating him for stating it is not governance—it’s fascism.
Call it what it is. Without apology. Without hedge. Without the cowardice that mistakes silence for civility.
Because the alternative—the world where constitutional law becomes grounds for investigation, where “making examples” is normal, where all orders are legal because the leader gave them—that world is being built right now.
Not in some dystopian future. Today. On Fox News. By the Trump Administration.
With federal investigations and propaganda praise and audiences nodding along as if political persecution were patriotism rather than the exact thing the Founders built constitutional protections to prevent.
This is fascism.
And it’s happening.
Justice Robert Jackson in his opening statement at the Nurenberg trials:
“We will not accept the ‘I was only following orders’ excuse. We do not accept the self-serving doctrine that authority absolves the subordinate of personal guilt. The fact that a man acts under the orders of a superior does not free him from responsibility to law.”
and,
“If we were to admit the defense that men may excuse themselves for crimes by pointing to a superior, then we would be saying that authority may be exalted above the law, and that would be a complete defense to tyranny.”
And we should call out Watters specifically, naming him as a fascist, echoing Nazi propaganda straight from the book, asking whether America thinks Fox News is right to entertain Nazism, and whether they can be candid about it or are just cowards hiding behind big donors.