fishonjazz
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What is occurring now in the United States has very little to do with making the government more “efficient,” or rooting out “incompetence," or “depoliticizing” parts of government that should be nonpartisan.
Nor is it motivated chiefly by Trump’s desire get rid of “D.E.I.” and “woke,” or “weaponize” law enforcement, or establish white Christian nationalism, or wreak vengeance on his enemies.
The real story is this.
In every part of the government that involves the use of force — the military, the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the authority to arrest, the capacity to hold individuals in jail — Trump is putting into power people who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States.
He has purged (or is in the process of purging) at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Inspectors General, and the FBI, anyone who is not personally loyal to him.
Trump is rapidly gaining a personal monopoly on the use of force. This is his most fundamental goal. This is the essence of tyranny.
On Friday, he fired Air Force General CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, as well as the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense, and National Security Council.
This was followed by the firings of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.
The media sees the firings as “part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.” This may be part of Trump’s motivation, but it is not the major driver. The firings are part of a campaign to purge the Defense Department of leaders who are not totally loyal to Trump.
For Brown’s replacement, Trump has nominated retired Air Force Lt. General John Dan “Razin” Caine. Caine has not served in any of the positions — Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command — that nominees are legally required to have held in order to be nominated.
Trump isn’t putting Caine in this pivotal position because of the national interest. He’s putting Caine there because of Caine’s unequivocal personal loyalty to Trump. Trump boasted to an audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine had told him, “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.”
The same is occurring at the Justice Department, where Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal lawyer who’s now the chief enforcer there, is imposing a Trump loyalty test on prosecutors — demanding they comply with Trump’s demands, however unacceptable and incompatible with norms, or leave.
On Sunday night, Trump announced that MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino will be deputy director of the FBI, alongside newly installed chief Kash Patel. Bongino is a former cop, Secret Service agent, conspiracy theorist, and Fox News commentator who joined Trump’s MAGA world in the 2010s and now hosts a popular podcast.
Bongino’s most important attribute is the same as Patel’s — unswerving personal loyalty to Trump. As elsewhere, Trump is turning the FBI into an extension of his personal will.
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