The desperation of the ‘Seditious Six’

Two weeks ago, six US lawmakers, all military or intelligence veterans, released a cryptic YouTube video where they spoke directly to American service members. They were Senators Mark Kelly (Arizona) and Elissa Slotkin (Michigan), and Representatives Jason Crow (Colorado), Chris Deluzio (Pennsylvania), Chrissy Houlahan (Pennsylvania) and Maggie Goodlander (New Hampshire) “Right now, the threats to our Constitution aren’t just coming from abroad, but from right here at home,” one of them said. “Our laws are clear: You can refuse illegal orders,” said another. “You must refuse illegal orders,” said a third. “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

The video seemed to come out of nowhere and took anyone who was paying attention by surprise. What “illegal orders” were they talking about? Regardless, President Trump didn’t like it. On social media, he declared that the six lawmakers were traitors who should be “arrested” and “put on trial.” He called the video “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR … punishable by DEATH.”

After Trump threw oil on this kitchen fire, the White House had to walk things back a bit. The press office said that Trump didn’t mean it literally, but that the lawmakers had “conspired … to defy the president’s lawful orders.” The fallout since has been minor. Most people agree that what the lawmakers did isn’t sedition, since all they said was that troops should only follow legal orders, which is true. Regardless, the Department of Defense has launched an investigation into Kelly, one of the “Seditious Six” and a retired Navy captain, citing “serious allegations of misconduct.”

In recent days, the heat around the Seditious Six has died down, but that video hasn’t left my head. It was so weird and so out of place. What in the world were they talking about? One possibility is the presence of the National Guard in Washington D.C. In November 2025 Slotkin introduced the No Troops In Our Streets act, and said on a Sunday talk show that the military “should always remain apolitical and should never be used as a domestic police force.” Then an Afghan National shot down two Guardspeople unprovoked, so suddenly Slotkin was on the very wrong side of history.

Another possibility is the shooting down of Venezuelan drug boats, and, in particular, the “second shot” on one of the boats that currently has Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in the media and Congressional crosshairs. But while the drug-boat attacks did seem to come out of left field, they’re not particularly inconsistent with the Administration’s policy of aggressive action toward drug cartels, so it hardly seems to constitute “illegal orders.”

Some more paranoid commentators on the pro-Trump right are saying that the Seditious Six are trying to foment a “color revolution,” a mass protest movement aimed at overturning a government or forcing mass political change. Threatened governments use this term derogatively toward protesters, indicating that the impetus behind the revolution comes from foreign entities or politically-motivated NGOs. In other words, the Seditious Six are a thinly-disguised branch of No Kings, Inc.

There may be some truth behind the conspiracy theories, but it’s also true that this particular color revolution isn’t particularly colorful. Trump’s D.C. National Guard deployment and drug-boat attacks have their loud detractors, but are actually quite popular with the majority. Trump and his Administration enjoy broad support in the new “no fatty” Armed Forces, which seems more willing than ever to carry out the wishes of the Commander in Chief. Anyone who thinks that there’s a platoon of Manchurian Soldiers out there ready to carry out the whispered wishes of Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly and Maggie Goodlander is just being a nutter. The troops are listening to Trump and Hegseth and their generals, not Representative Jason Crow.

In reality, the Seditious Six’s audience isn’t actually the US military, but what remains of the anti-Trump “Resistance.” It’s a video to be played on loop in the social-media feeds of the likes Rick Wilson and Randi Weingarten, and for the millions of permanently terrified Heather Cox Richardson readers. It’s an MSNBC special report.

The US military isn’t behaving any more illegally than it ever does, and Trump’s usage of it isn’t unusual. As the Trump era enters its fourth quarter up 24-0 with the ball and all of its timeouts, the Resistance’s plays are getting loopier and riskier. That very odd video from a couple of weeks ago may not have been seditious. But it was certainly desperate.