This is the very essence of the difference that should exist between a President and a King. From Federalist 69:
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.
The failure of the Republican party to support this kind of check on Presidential power is why we’re having this crisis now.
As a veteran, I remain 100% convinced that the Pentagon has and has always had a plan for “a dictator becomes president.” However, also as a veteran I’m sure there is a very specific checklist of things that must be true for that plan to be activated.
As a low ranking veteran I don’t have any better guess than anyone else what things are on that checklist, but I feel sure it exists, and that if we aren’t seeing them mobilize it’s only because it’s an extreme event and the conditions required to execute on that plan are many.
I’m sure they always have since the 25th amendment was written, maybe POTUS is incapacitated because he’s an aspiring dictator, who knows. I’d bet there’s mountains of folders in the Pentagon with various contingencies. Mostly inaction I’d expect, if a boomer Captain is ordered to fire on Kyiv he just ignores the message etc,
With every passing year there seem to be more and more anti-choice Christo fascists appointed to benches and local govt though so all I can do is hope my compatriots remember the oath we all swore and stand up to the wannabe dictator.