Erika D. Smith: Mark Kelly is the White House’s latest free-speech victim

In the days since the Trump administration has doubled down on its beef with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, announcing plans to demote the retired Navy captain for reminding members of the military that they must refuse illegal orders, Kelly has done what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth probably hoped he wouldn’t: keep talking.

“I will fight this with everything I’ve got,” the Democrat wrote Monday on X, “not for myself, but to send a message back that Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump don’t get to decide what Americans in this country get to say about their government.”

“They’re trying to intimidate all of us,” he told host Jon Stewart during an appearance on “The Daily Show.” “Don’t say something they don’t like – especially for members of the military, retired members like me – keep your mouth shut or they’re coming after you.”

“I’m a U.S. senator. I was an astronaut … I flew 39 combat missions,” Kelly told MS NOW host Rachel Maddow. “If (Trump) is successful in getting me to not speak out against him or the government or Pete Hegseth or whoever, and not do my job, what does that say to all these other retired and ex-service members? What rights do they have anymore?”

At first blush, this sounds like exactly the sort of self-aggrandizing rhetoric (and tour of liberal talk shows) one would expect from a politician who is thought to have presidential ambitions. But it’s rhetoric that also happens to ring true.

Indeed, attempts to chill speech and suppress dissent from political opponents – often through boundary-breaking, bare-knuckle tactics – have been hallmarks of the second Trump administration. Targets have run the gamut, from law firms (Perkins Coie) and universities (Harvard University), to talk show hosts (Jimmy Kimmel) and news networks (CNN), to average Americans who’ve been threatened with arrest for protesting immigration raids to foreign tourists who soon must turn over their old social media posts to enter the U.S.

It hardly seems like a stretch that the latest in this long line could be military veterans who might be tempted to criticize the administration.

To recap, Kelly was one of six congressional Democrats, all veterans, who released a video in November, reminding service members that they are required to disobey illegal orders – a mere recitation of the law. Yet, in response, Trump called the Democrats “traitors” and said their words could be “punishable by death.” Hegseth also singled out Kelly – the only one who served long enough to officially retire and, therefore, be subject to discipline under military law – for a possible court-martial.

Instead, Hegseth announced Monday that he would censure Kelly and begin proceedings to reduce his rank in retirement and his pension. Kelly has 45 days to appeal and has said he intends to do so.

In the meantime, Kelly isn’t the only one sounding the alarm about the broader implications of what’s happening to him.

The grassroots veterans’ group Common Defense insisted that the Trump administration is trying to “send a message to every retired service member and every veteran in public life that speaking honestly about unlawful orders and constitutional limits will put a target on their back.”

And as Mark Hertling, a retired lieutenant general and former commander of U.S. Army Europe, recently wrote for the Bulwark: “If someone like Kelly – whose service record is unquestioned and whose statement was legally accurate – can be threatened with loss of rank and pension, then every service member should ask what protections remain when the rule of law and the requirement to follow only lawful orders become inconvenient to those in power.”

All of this is especially troubling given the Trump administration’s recent, all-out push for a might-makes-right version of foreign policy, escalating from legally dubious strikes on alleged drug boats to last weekend’s equally legally dubious military operation to grab Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Now Trump has cast his eyes toward Cuba, Colombia and Mexico, with some in his administration leaving open the possibility of some sort of military takeover of Greenland.

“We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN’s Jake Tapper this week. “These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

Only 33% of Americans approve of the U.S. military getting involved in Venezuela and 72% say they worry about the U.S. getting too involved in running the country going forward, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. Unsurprisingly, Republican voters harbor fewer misgivings than Democrats or independents.

Imagine how much more politically problematic those poll numbers could become if there were a sudden upswell in criticism from military veterans.

There already has been some. In Congress, Kelly was among the first to chime in. Arizona’s other U.S. senator, Democrat and Marine veteran Ruben Gallego, also has been adamant about not getting involved in another “illegal war” and has introduced legislation to preemptively block military action in Greenland. New York Representative Pat Ryan, a Democrat and Iraq war veteran, recently told CNN that Americans don’t want “open-ended conflicts with no plan.”

There are roughly 1.4 million retirees from active-duty military service in the U.S., and close to 16 million veterans in total, including those who served but didn’t complete a full retirement-eligible career. More than a million are currently serving, not including reservists or members of the National Guard.

Polls show most Americans – 60%, according to Pew Research – hold positive views of the military, making it one of our polarized nation’s most trusted institutions. Americans value veterans’ opinions. Kelly knows this. Trump does, too.

Erika D. Smith is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. She is a former Los Angeles Times columnist and Sacramento Bee editorial board member.