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TPM: Beware Of Trump's Coming Purge Of The U.S. Military
TPM - Beware Of Trump’s Coming Purge Of The U.S. Military
By David Kurtz
December 11, 2024 10:00 a.m.
What We Take For Granted
Among the institutional pillars of democracy – a free press, an independent judiciary, robust civic and religious organizations – a nonpartisan professionalized military may be the one we take most for granted and overlook.
Set aside for the moment your concerns about American imperialism, the military-industrial complex, and the deep streak of jingoism that has long infected domestic politics and foreign policy. All legitimate concerns in their own right, but they can mask the U.S. military’s mostly sterling record at staying out of the partisan political fray. That includes developing and sustaining an highly educated officer corps that provides continuity and professional judgment regardless of which party is in the White House.
Like he has with other democratic underpinnings that represent a threat to his power, Trump is promising to remake the military into a compliant, servile, compromised husk of its former self. Trump has surrounded himself with some of the loudest, most extreme right-wing advocates for bringing the military to submission.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Pentagon secretary, emerges from this right-wing subculture. It’s fortuitous that Hegseth is a dim bulb with a sordid personal and professional life that may ultimately scuttle his own nomination. But Hegseth is not alone, and the vision for the military that he represents is shared in Trump’s circle and by Trump himself, who had praised Hitler’s generals because he perceives them (wrongly) to have put personal loyalty to the leader above all else.
Trump’s undermining of the military fits neatly into our matrix of Trump II threats – retribution, corruption, and destruction. Among those, it’s destruction first and foremost, which almost inevitably leads to opportunities for corruption. The retribution element is more nuanced than, say, Trump’s jihad against the Justice Department. But having surrounded himself in his first term by “my generals” – nearly all of whom ended up betraying him in his own mind – Trump’s urge to bring the military to heel isn’t that hard to figure.
/snip
By David Kurtz
December 11, 2024 10:00 a.m.
What We Take For Granted
Among the institutional pillars of democracy – a free press, an independent judiciary, robust civic and religious organizations – a nonpartisan professionalized military may be the one we take most for granted and overlook.
Set aside for the moment your concerns about American imperialism, the military-industrial complex, and the deep streak of jingoism that has long infected domestic politics and foreign policy. All legitimate concerns in their own right, but they can mask the U.S. military’s mostly sterling record at staying out of the partisan political fray. That includes developing and sustaining an highly educated officer corps that provides continuity and professional judgment regardless of which party is in the White House.
Like he has with other democratic underpinnings that represent a threat to his power, Trump is promising to remake the military into a compliant, servile, compromised husk of its former self. Trump has surrounded himself with some of the loudest, most extreme right-wing advocates for bringing the military to submission.
Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for Pentagon secretary, emerges from this right-wing subculture. It’s fortuitous that Hegseth is a dim bulb with a sordid personal and professional life that may ultimately scuttle his own nomination. But Hegseth is not alone, and the vision for the military that he represents is shared in Trump’s circle and by Trump himself, who had praised Hitler’s generals because he perceives them (wrongly) to have put personal loyalty to the leader above all else.
Trump’s undermining of the military fits neatly into our matrix of Trump II threats – retribution, corruption, and destruction. Among those, it’s destruction first and foremost, which almost inevitably leads to opportunities for corruption. The retribution element is more nuanced than, say, Trump’s jihad against the Justice Department. But having surrounded himself in his first term by “my generals” – nearly all of whom ended up betraying him in his own mind – Trump’s urge to bring the military to heel isn’t that hard to figure.
/snip
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