(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)Thursday afternoon, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned after two years of frequent policy friction with the commander in chief. Only a day earlier, President Trump overruled Mattis and many others serving in senior national security roles by announcing a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria. Whatever Mattis’s immediate reasons for resigning, he and Kelly have already let Trump use their military credentials for political purposes. In some cases, Trump wanted to use the military’s credibility to support political policies. And they’ve been taking to social media, political scientist Heidi A. Urben finds, cultivating increasingly partisan followings there.

Source: Washington Post December 21, 2018 11:02 UTC