TREASON IN TWO FORMS: What the Mark Kelly Episode Reveals About Accountability in American Democracy

Senator Mark Kelly seems to think treasonous acts are a "shoo in" for his Presidential run in 2028.

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.” Cicero

America has always treated treason as the gravest possible offense against the republic. But in the modern political environment, a dangerous confusion has taken root: the belief that unless someone appears in court in handcuffs and a prosecutor utters the literal word treason, then no betrayal has occurred.

This belief is not only false — it is how republics die.

To understand what is happening with Senator Mark Kelly, the “illegal orders” messaging campaign aimed at U.S. service members, and the rising willingness among partisan actors to undermine the military chain of command, we must recover a crucial lost distinction:

There is “treason as a legal charge,” and there is “treason as a civic act.”And while the first is rare and tightly constrained, the second is alarmingly widespread.

The Kelly episode reveals exactly why the distinction matters — and why America must treat civic betrayal with far more seriousness than it currently does.

I. The Narrowness of Legal Treason

The Constitution defines treason in the tightest, most procedural sense:

“Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.”

There are only two pathways:

1. Waging war against the U.S.

2. Assisting the nation’s enemies.

Even then, constitutional treason requires:

• Two witnesses to the same overt act, or

• A confession in open court.

This extremely high bar exists because early Americans feared that political factions would accuse one another of treason casually — as the British Crown had done.

The result?The legal charge is intentionally difficult, slow, cautious, and rarely used.

And yet — moral reality does not wait for a judge’s gavel. Republics fall long before prosecutions begin.

Which brings us to the second, more dangerous form.

II. Treason as a Civic Act — The Older, Broader, and More Relevant Definition

For most of Western history — from the Roman Republic to the American Founding — treason meant something much broader:

• Undermining the structures that hold the nation together

• Corrupting civic loyalty

• Subverting military discipline

• Weakening the sovereignty of the state

• Using one’s power to aid enemies of the constitutional order

This is the kind of treason George Washington warned about: the internal disloyalty that opens a republic’s gates long before foreign armies arrive.

Civic treason is not about courtrooms.It is about the deliberate erosion of the public loyalty required for a self-governing nation to function at all.

And that is why the recent actions of Senator Mark Kelly and several of his colleagues matter.

III. The Kelly Episode: Legal Nothing, Civic Earthquake

In the now-infamous video, Senator Kelly — a retired Navy captain, astronaut, and sitting U.S. senator — joined several Democratic lawmakers in warning U.S. servicemembers that they could refuse “illegal orders.”

On the surface, this seems unobjectionable. It is true that no soldier must obey an unlawful order.

But context is everything.

This message was:

• Delivered in the middle of an election cycle

• Aimed explicitly at the U.S. military

• Timed to the day after a speech by President Trump

• Framed as a political warning rather than a neutral legal reminder

• Immediately weaponized by progressive media as a check on a future Trump presidency

And the consequences were immediate:

• Several enlisted service members were investigated or punished after echoing similar political “selective obedience” rhetoric online.

• Retired officers began openly discussing what orders they “would not follow.”

• Commentators on the left applauded the video as a way to “inoculate the military against Trump.”

In plain terms:

It was a political instruction directed at the armed forces to question their future Commander-in-Chief’s legitimacy.

Legally, this may not meet the constitutional definition of treason.Civically, it lands squarely in the category the Founders feared most:

Teaching soldiers that loyalty to a political faction supersedes loyalty to the Republic.

That is treason in every meaningful civic sense.

IV. Why This Behavior Is So Dangerous

Civic treason does not require a battalion crossing a border.It requires something far simpler — and far more corrosive:

1. Undermining the chain of command

If troops believe they may substitute personal judgment or partisan preference for lawful obedience, military cohesion collapses.

2. Conditioning the military to view the Commander-in-Chief as contingent

If the wrong party is elected, obedience becomes “optional.”This is how fragile democracies disintegrate.

3. Politicizing military loyalty

In free societies, civilian control of the military is absolute.When politicians toy with selective obedience messaging, they trespass on a sacred boundary.

4. Using the military as a pressure lever in partisan conflict

This weaponizes the one institution meant to be above factional warfare.

5. Punishing enlisted troops while elites remain untouchable

Young servicemembers get court-martialed.Senators get book deals.

This is precisely how morale collapses — and how nations slide into a divided, brittle, pre-crisis posture.

V. “But They Don’t See It as Treason.” Exactly. That’s the Problem.

One of the most insidious aspects of civic treason is that perpetrators rarely view themselves as traitors.

Instead, they develop a worldview in which:

• Disobedience is “courage”

• Undermining the chain of command is “saving democracy”

• Politicizing the military is “standing up to authoritarianism”

• Loyalty to party replaces loyalty to country

This is not new.

It is the exact psychology behind:

• Anti-military propaganda during the Vietnam era

• John Kerry’s Winter Soldier hearings

• Domestic demoralization campaigns in past conflicts

• Foreign intelligence strategies aimed at weakening U.S. institutions

The belief system self-justifies the betrayal.

That does not make the civic damage any less real.

VI. Accountability Must Begin With Naming the Behavior

No republic survives if treasonous behavior — legal or civic — is treated as an unfortunate misunderstanding.

The American people must be able to say:

“This conduct, even if not criminally charged, is an act of civic betrayal.”

And elected officials, retired officers, and media elites must know that:

• Their words have consequences

• Their political games endanger enlisted soldiers

• Their rhetoric risks destabilizing the nation they claim to serve

• Their status does not place them above scrutiny

The republic cannot function if its guardians become its saboteurs.

VII. Conclusion: We Don’t Need a Trial to Recognize a Betrayal

Senator Kelly may never see the inside of a courtroom on treason charges.That is not the point.

The point is that:

• He used the weight of his former rank

• The platform of his Senate office

• And the credibility of his uniformed past

to send a message that muddied military obedience along partisan lines.

That is civic treason — and civic treason, left unchallenged, becomes civic collapse.

The United States must return to a basic truth once understood by every citizen of every serious republic:

You do not need a judge to tell you when you have witnessed a betrayal of the country.You only need the courage to name it.