U.S. Air Force Major Jason Watson metaphorically accomplished what U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell did for real in February 2024, that is, he set himself on fire to make a point. In the case of Bushnell, he was protesting Israel killing Hamas terrorists and their enablers; see USAF Member Sets Himself on Fire Outside Israeli Embassy, Dramatic Scene Caught on Video – RedState. Major Watson is still alive, but his career is in ashes over his gratuitous diatribe against President Trump.
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My RedState colleague, Rusty Weiss, has the details in his post: Watch: Active-Duty Air Force Major Arrested on Capitol Steps in Uniform Calling for Trump’s Impeachment – RedState. Watson, who is a U.S. Air Force Academy grad (Class of 2009) and serving as a logistics staff officer stationed in Bydgoszcz, Poland, was a featured speaker at a rally organized by the (lol) Removal Coalition. This organization’s mission is “We are explicit and united in our mission to constitutionally remove the illegal Trump administration from power, NOW.”
Before the protest, Watson held a press conference alongside Democrat Texas Representative Al Green (TX-09), Removal Coalition founder Jessica Denson, constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, and members of Defenders of Our Republic and About Face Veterans, calling for the impeachment and removal of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Two notes: Al Greene lost his primary election, so he’s basking in his last moments of marginal relevance, and I thought Bruce Fein was dead, but apparently he just looks that way.
In an unprecedented act of dissent, active-duty USAF Major Jason Watson was arrested on the Capitol steps after calling for the impeachment & removal of Donald Trump. Risking his career to uphold his constitutional oath, his arrest marks a historic moment. ✊🏻✊🏿✊🏼✊🏾✊🏽#DemsUnited pic.twitter.com/quFmuxKxoQ
— TizzyWoman 🗽 ☮️ ~ Keep moving forward (@tizzywoman) July 1, 2026
“When the President of the United States orders military action against foreign countries, absent an emergency scenario, where American interests are under imminent, dire threat — as was done with Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran — that’s an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’ authority, and a violation of the War Powers Clause. These violations resulted in the deaths of 13 service members, and injuries of hundreds more.”
“For this, the president and vice president must be impeached, convicted, and removed.”
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There are a lot of moving parts here. First and foremost, I think Watson has already burned down his career. He has 17 years in the Air Force. He should have been on the lieutenant colonel’s promotion list by now. Seventeen years is pretty much in sync with his second pass over for promotion and mandatory removal from active duty. I wouldn’t be shocked if the reason he was in the U.S. on leave was that he was in the process of separating from the Air Force.
It would also explain his insouciance at making the speech in uniform and then contriving to get arrested. He’s probably thinking that the Air Force will not hold him on active duty for a court-martial and he’ll skate away wearing the cheap grace of a fake martyr.
Somewhat unsurprising was Watson being hailed as a hero by left-wing X.com accounts for his “courage” in standing up to the Trump administration.
We need a flood of military personnel to follow his lead. He is very courageous and very brave to stand up and make his voice heard. pic.twitter.com/ceCJKeMVpJ
— Sarrah Bellus (@sarrah_bellus) July 2, 2026
I don’t think that Watson’s fluffers have completely thought through how this may play out.
One of the blessings of the United States, one that is fully in keeping with the belief in American Exceptionalism to which I firmly adhere, is a non-political officer corps. Military officers have political beliefs. What they don’t do is exhibit those beliefs while on active duty. What they also don’t do is sandbag an administration with which they don’t agree, either through benign neglect or malicious compliance. Under Obama and Biden, we did see a shift. We saw a slice of the officer corps become active and vicious advocates for progressive shibboleths that had been confined to the civilian world, particularly academia. We saw general officers go full force into selecting and promoting military members based solely on sex and sexual proclivities. We saw the one institution that most closely represented the world envisioned in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech turned into a Marxist, intersectionalist hellhole where group identity rather than ability and lethality was paramount.
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This is not the left’s first rodeo in encouraging the military to disobey, or outright refuse orders from an administration which the left opposes. During Gulf War 2.0, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius demanded that generals “push back” against Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld’s efforts to “transform” the military.
This only runs one way. When Marine Sergeant Gary Stein made disparaging comments about Barack Obama on Facebook, he received an other-than-honorable discharge and had editorials written against him. When General Stanley McChrystal and his staff made disparaging comments about Obama and his senile vice president in what they thought were private conversations, he was forced to retire. Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller was court-martialed, dismissed from the service, and fined for criticizing the Abbey Gate fiasco.
More to the point, I don’t think the partisans of Major Watson have fully considered what it means to have large numbers of armed and trained men who are free to refuse to obey orders received from their commander-in-chief. I also think the left has really overestimated the number of officers and men who oppose their worldview.
But, if these are, in the words of Towhall colleague Kurt Schlichter, “the new rules,” then who am I to say they are wrong?
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