Trump Is Dismantling America’s Last Defense Against Dictatorship
He is methodically remaking the military into a fighting force loyal to him instead of We the People
The most dangerous moment in the most dangerous presidency in U.S. history was not the preemptive attack on Iran (which might be justified, if not fully constitutional); the all-out assault on the Judiciary; the subversion of the Justice Department and FBI; the normalization of an Executive Branch-led kleptocracy; or the appointments of inept cronies to lead departments and agencies critical to national security, economic health, and the betterment of everyday Americans.
The most dangerous moment was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on June 10. The speech by the Draft evader Donald Trump was in theory honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States Army — a fighting force he squirmed out of serving in during the Vietnam War. What Trump delivered instead was a rabidly MAGA address that was both inappropriate and ignorant. Most importantly, it radically violated the long-honored American tradition of keeping politics out of our military.
It’s worth reading the transcript to see how the President turned what should have been a nonpartisan event into a barely coherent, rhetoric-laden rally honoring himself, denigrating his predecessor, and pushing a right-wing vision of the services’ role in the government ecosystem. Here’s a snippet:
“Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third-world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California…. We're not going to let that happen. Remember, millions of people were allowed to come into our country totally unchecked and unvetted by stupid people or radical left people or sick people. But regardless, open border policy, the dumbest policy yet. I would say even dumber than men playing in women's sports, transgender for everyone, even dumber than that….
“A lot of those people were let in here by the Biden administration. They just poured right in…. And by the way, I've known this guy [Biden] for a long time. He was never the sharpest bulb, but you know what he was, he wasn't a radical left lunatic. He never dreamt about open borders. He never said that when he was of sound mind, which actually was a very long time ago. So sad what they've done to our country.”
A handful of editorials and columnists decried the blatant introduction of politics into an address before a crowd in battle fatigues, but mostly the reaction was muted. Trump being Trump. More of the blather and horn-blowing to which we have all become depressingly inured.
But the importance of the Bragg braggadocio cannot be overstated. It was a blatant step toward co-opting the military and making it a political arm of the presidency, an effort begun in the first Trump Administration.
On June 1, 2020, the President enlisted General Mark Milley, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to join him in a photo op in Lafayette Square across from the White House after a peaceful crowd protesting the killing of George Floyd was tear-gassed and cleared out. (He reportedly asked Milley: “Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”)
Immediately before that, Trump had threated to use active-duty soldiers to quell riots that were rocking the country, and the inclusion of a uniformed general was intended to underline his threat.
Ten days later, Milley publicly apologized for taking part in the show of force. “I should not have been there,” he said. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
That was the beginning of the end of Milley’s relationship with Trump, and one of the President’s first moves after regaining office was to have his minion Pete Hegseth, the former low-level military officer and Fox News host who is now Defense Secretary, cancel the security detail protecting the retired general.
Around the same time, Hegseth suddenly dismissed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown Jr., Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff of General Jim Slife. And last month he ordered a twenty percent reduction in the number of four-star officers across the services and the National Guard, gutting the senior ranks of the military. Such officers, each with decades of service, are the most likely to hew to the rigid standard of non-political behavior.
In the issue of The New Yorker dated June 23, Ruth Marcus wrote that since his first term, Trump has been itching to invoke the Insurrection Act, which after authorization by Congress allows a President to use National Guard troops like cops to quell civil unrest. He came close to finally pulling the trigger earlier this month, but instead used a 1903 law to order the state’s National Guard and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles to quell rioting against ICE deportation tactics.
The law he relied on allows a President “to call up the National Guard if there is ‘a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States’ or if ‘the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,’” according to the Brennan Center for Justice. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was bypassed, sued the Administration, but last week an appeals court empowered Trump to retain control of those troops.
“The Insurrection Act in [Trump’s] hands is a terrifying prospect,” Marcus wrote. She also quoted James Madison, who warned, “The means of defense against foreign danger have always been the instruments of tyranny at home.”
But it’s more than that. Congress has been neutered, and if the President chooses to ignore the Judiciary today, Lord knows what he’ll do over the next three and a half years. Should he try to retain power after 2028, there will be no apolitical Pentagon even to consider the unprecedented step of forcibly removing him from the Oval Office.
Trump is insuring that a justified military response to a potential effort to subvert American democracy can never happen.
The Odious & The Awful
Please Shut Up and Go Golfing
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
—Bob Dylan, 1964
Do something new or stay home.
—Clint Eastwood (reportedly referring to
the plethora of movie sequels and remakes) 2025
The breathlessly awaited news that former Democratic President Bill Clinton was endorsing former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City finally dropped last Sunday, and the reaction in these environs was: Who gives a flying fuck?
Apparently that sentiment echoed across the canyons of New York.
Yesterday, the young progressive Zohran Mamdani blew the cobwebs off the city’s Democratic Establishment with a smashing victory over Cuomo in the party’s primary, positioning him as the frontrunner to be the next mayor. His promise to make New York livable for all with affordable housing, rent relief, fare-free buses, and no-cost child care resonated.
At the same time, his triumph sent two messages:
It put MAGA on notice that the Resistance is real.
And by repudiating old-line Democrats, it said, “Get the hell out of the way!”
Both Clintons, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and dozens of other former Democratic leaders should do the country, their flailing party, and themselves a big favor and take a vow of silence — permanently. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer should hand the reins to someone with fire in their belly, not a bagel with a schmear. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries should grow a set. And Democrats now holding office should stop using every hideous move by the Trump Administration or personal slight as an excuse to raise money.
That goes for Gavin Newsom, freshman Senator Rubén Gallego of Arizona, and all the elected others ineffectively countering the MAGA onslaught and victim-texting for cash.
A letter to the Dems, purportedly from Liz Cheney, was posted on Facebook in April and has been revealed to be fake. But its complaints about the fleckless opposition could not be more on point. It said in part:
“Dear Democratic Party,
You keep sending emails begging for $15, while we’re watching fascism consolidate power in real time.
This administration is not simply ‘a different ideology.’ It is a coordinated, authoritarian machine — with the Supreme Court, the House, the Senate, and the executive pen all under its control.
And you?
You’re still asking for decorum and donations. WTF.
That won’t save us.”
Texts often arrive from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asking for five bucks to help bankroll the Resistance movement that she and Bernie Sanders have mounted. But AOC doesn’t whine. She bare-knuckle jabs and counter-punches.
We are being governed by aggrieved Whites. Time for moaning liberals to button it, step aside, and let younger fighters (and Bernie, of course) keep taking off the gloves.
New Political Comedy Show?
Last Saturday evening, with SNL on hiatus for the summer, we clicked into a brief but hysterical TV trailer featuring a porcine man with a long red tie and three supporting clowns acting grave.
The fat man was playing the President of the United States, and he proceeded to announce with bombastic flair that America had bombed key Iranian nuclear sites and “the attacks were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear-enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
Then he thanked a lot of people, including Israeli Prime Minister “Bibi” Netanyahu and his brave flyboys. That was really a chuckle since Bibi (short for Beelzebub, we imagine) is a mass murderer whose air force has become quite deft at raining destruction down on gaunt civilians and staving babies in Gaza who can’t fight back.
Sunday morning, the clown with the heavy eye makeup popped up on Meet the Press to carry the joke forward, though he was considerably lower key about the damage done, as well he might have been.
Anyway, the show’s working title could be “Washington Night Lies.” And if last weekend’s trailer is any evidence, an SNL competitor could be in the making. As someone once said, “Stay tuned!”
This was a good one - thanks for the insights laced with humor...Washington Night Lies indeed!