Our reader “Democracy” explains why Trump chose Peter Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense. Trump has said that he wants the military to participate in rounding up, detaining, and expelling millions of immigrants. Hegseth won’t object. Trump has said he wants the military to crack down on protests or gatherings he doesn’t like. Hegseth won’t object. Hegseth also would block any prosecution of military members who are alleged to have committed war crimes.
“Democracy” writes:
What Elon Musk and others want to do in “cutting” government is to eliminate certain federal agencies, like the department of education, and to gut others, like Interior and the EPA, and to deplete the federal civil service while stocking it with Trump loyalists, competent or not.
What he’s doing with Defense appears to be a first step in weaponizing the US military, turning it into a Trump “army” to be used as he sees fit. As any sensible person knows, he IS unfit for office. That’s a genuine recipe for bad things to come.
Here’s how the Associated Press reported Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense:
“Trump passed on a number of established national security heavy-hitters and chose an Army National Guard captain well known in conservative circles as a co-host of Fox News Channel’s ‘Fox & Friends Weekend.’…He has made it clear on his show and in interviews that, like Trump, he is opposed to ‘woke’ programs that promote equity and inclusion. He also has questioned the role of women in combat and advocated pardoning service members charged with war crimes.”
On a conservative podcast, Hegseth said this:
“‘First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Any general, any admiral, whatever,’ who was involved in diversity, equity and inclusion programs or ‘woke shit has “got to go.’”
“Woke” as in being committed to democratic values and principles. “Woke” as in equality, and “liberty and justice for all.” “Woke” as in abiding by US and international law as defined in 18 USC 2441: War crimes.
As the Associated Press also reported,
“…women have successfully passed the military’s grueling tests to become Green Berets and Army Rangers, and the Naval Special Warfare’s test to serve as a combatant-craft crewman — the boat operators who transport Navy SEALs and conduct their own classified missions at sea.”
The Washington Post said this, in part, about the Hegseth pick:
“The breakneck speed of the Hegseth nomination also underscores the value Trump places on TV personalities who have used their platform to promote his agenda.”
Elon Musk. Kristi Noem. Pete Hegseth. All cause for deep concern. Is the next appointment going to be the Brainworm Boy at HHS? The McDonald’s Hamburglar at USDA?
But seriously, given who Hegseth is and what Trump has said, there’s a reason to fear. From CNN:
“There is not much the Pentagon can do to pre-emptively shield the force from a potential abuse of power by a commander in chief. Defense Department lawyers can and do make recommendations to military leaders on the legality of orders, but there is no real legal safeguard that would prevent Trump from deploying American soldiers to police US streets…it is also possible that forces could be sent into American cities if asked to help with the mass deportation plan Trump mentioned repeatedly on the trail.”
And this:
“The president’s powers are especially broad if he chooses to invoke the Insurrection Act, which states that under certain limited circumstances involved in the defense of constitutional rights, a president can deploy troops domestically unilaterally.”
AND this:
“In a video posted last year, Trump said if elected he would ‘immediately re-issue my 2020 Executive Order restoring the President’s authority to remove rogue bureaucrats…we will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them.’”
The plan is to make the defense and intelligence bureaucracies Trump subsidiaries, along with the Department of Justice. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why, and what he’ll do with that kind of “deep state” power.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is a good post but the phrase “weaponizing the US military” did make me chuckle.
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Hegseth was a major. While at one point he was a captain, one traditionally refers to military personnel using their highest achieved rank. Such as simple error calls into question all of the other asserted “facts” such as what Hegseth will and will not do.
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Give me facts instead of trying to divert my attention from this man’s obvious willingness to subvert the constitution. He would be an anathema if he were a five star general.
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Haitian immigrants are NOT kidnapping and eating their neighbor’s pets in Ohio. Nor did a liar ever have proof that Barack Obama was an illegitimate president who was not born in the US.
Such a simple error calls into question all other asserted “facts” that a certain candidate spews – the candidate who famously said his voters would let him shoot someone on Fifth Avenue if he wanted to.
Is that true or not? A simple yes or no question would inform us whether you are as evil and immoral and pro-killing as Trump (truthfully?)said his supporters are.
Are you fine with Trump shooting someone on Fifth Avenue as Trump said, or did Trump make a simple factual error that makes you distrust everything he says?
Or do you just find it “entertaining” when Trump speaks of violence against other people, but you don’t vigorously shake your finger when that violence was directed at your neighbor or your own family?
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Captain. Major. Whatever. Hegseth is unfit for Secretary of Defense.
As NPR described it,
”If confirmed, he would be the least experienced defense secretary in the history of the republic, going back to Henry Knox, the first secretary of war who was a key officer in Washington’s army.”
Hegseth is a liar, and a misogynist, and a seditious traitor. He’s also a “Christian” nationalist.
Hegseth’s former rank is a teeny minor piece of who he is.
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Creating the army as an arm of the president without checks and balances is the final goal of any tyranny. Freedom only comes with the balance of powers within a body politic. Laws rise from this balance, protecting minorities (ethnic and voting minorities) and thus obtaining their consent in the government. Majority ruled but minority is protected.
This system is difficult and has suffered lapses in history. The age of white supremacy is an example, suppression of women (she could not perform many legal behaviors until the 1970s) another example. But it is superior to any other system so far.
underlying all of this is a civilian controlled army that is constrained by a court system. God help us.
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Well said. Trump seeks no resistance to his agenda. He is an ignoramus with a big mouth and an axe to grind. He will grind up many of the uninformed that were sucked into his vortex by the right wing propaganda machine as well as many other marginalized people that did not fall for the ploy. Muslims, Latinos and women will be in the crosshairs of president bone spur’s chaotic, militaristic leadership.
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We watch the predicted horror unfold. While simultaneously learning to imagine the details of a way out of this tragedy. A voice that was both ignored & silenced.🔕
“In October 2023, Dean Phillips stepped down from his role in the Democratic House leadership over his party’s support for President Joe Biden’s reelection. Later that month, Phillips sacrificed his House seat in Minnesota to launch a presidential bid, further sounding an alarm that many within the Democratic Party refused to acknowledge: If Biden runs against Trump, Biden will LOSE.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/dean-phillips-interview-2024-election/
My run wasn’t about me. It was about having a legitimate, invitational, competitive, spirited primary. That means debate. And had there been other candidates on a primary stage, I’m almost certain that Americans, at least Democratic primary voters, would have selected someone in a BETTER position to ultimately beat the MOST dangerous Republican candidate of our lifetime.”
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Biden is the only candidate who could have defeated Trump, just like he did the first time. Biden could have won, and then he could have stepped aside for Kamala.
There is as much evidence for that as Dean Phillips’- who voters soundly rejected – random thoughts.
Obviously, the being old and having dementia was NOT a problem. The Republicans know how to stand behind their candidate – and they always win when they do – and the Dems think that there is some perfect candidate out there.
Kamala Harris was an excellent candidate – unless by “better”, Dean Phillips means that someone whiter or a man should have been the candidate. But Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry etc. prove that the search for the “perfect” candidate does not exist. They were all extremely popular (at first), running against very mediocre unpopular candidates, and lost because the media decided that legitimizing the Republican narrative to make a Democrat candidate untrustworthy was their job.
They did not do that with either Clinton or Obama or Biden in 2020. The media IGNORED the right wing narratives throughout the campaigns. Instead of legitimizing them. Clinton, Obama, Biden in 2020 were treated like Republicans! The only narrative was how much people liked them or what they would do.
Imagine if Biden had been treated like Trump and Trump treated like Biden.
There is a reason that both AOC and Bernie Sanders endorsed Biden’s re-election so early, while the white men reinforcing right wing narratives like Dean Phillips were demanding Biden step aside.
If the most prominent progressives had made it clear Biden didn’t have their support, Biden would not have run. So I guess the circular firing squad will be directed at Bernie and AOC next, for their early endorsement of Biden, which means they are at fault for giving us Trump.
Or maybe – just maybe – the Dems will begin to realize that it isn’t their candidates that are problematic, it is that they are stupid enough to believe the right wing propaganda that the liberal media is on their side, when it often does everything it can to defeat their side.
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Preaching to the choir.
A majority of voters elected Trump in spite myriad of foibles.
How can we win back Congress in 2026?
In other words, have the Democrats pandered to the elites, have the Democrats abandoned the working classes?
We lost, blaming social media is futile, we must accept our mistakes and build a pathway to victory in 2026
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I think the House probably will shift back to the Dems in 2026 even without a fundamental reworking of strategy on cultural issues. The Senate looks very tough to flip back.
The strategy issue is more long term. Staying the course likely means the Dems are stuck scrapping around the margins to get out enough votes to win razor-thin electoral margins in every cycle. That means a see-saw pattern that, at best, results in a stalemate with oscillating executive orders (Dem President issues executive order X, then GOP president revokes it and replaces it with the opposite) on a narrow band of issues. Worst case, which is more likely I think, is every other election cycle or so we see a new GOP trifecta that further erodes institutional norms.
My own view is that is that the Dems need to become a party that hews closely to the cultural views of the median voter. The median voter is not particularly smart and not particularly well-informed. But the median voter votes. Much better to have a party whose lodestar on cultural issues is the median voter than the median Ivy League graduate, much less the median left-wing activist.
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Peter Goodman: Blaming social media may be ‘futile’ at this point, but it remains truer than true. If you want to shift to “what we can do,” then you can go to the short term of some sort of control of the media misinformation that doesn’t fly in the face of our present freedoms, or theirs. But failing to identify the problem or the blame is far from helpful.
But in the long run, the blame (in my view) lies at the door of education and a lack of Jefferson’s notion of “due diligence” where a political education (not propaganda) and other humanities including history and philosophy, have gone missing in K-12 and later . . .
. . . funny you should mention, it was/is at the hands of those who over-emphasize TECH aka: STEM, either ignorantly or with a nefarious purpose, and now the forces of privatization, the transactionalism of capitalism, and the advent of very wealthy advertisers/promoters who “din” everyone all day long in any media. And now the flood of lies and the utter craziness of the bully minds among us. CBK
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The most popular Democrat in the Congress is John Fetterman. not Ivy League lawyers
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Fetterman’s appeal is his sincerity. He actually grew up in a middle class household in York, PA, and he is well educated, but not a lawyer. His record is not about fame and fortune. His background is in public service where he actually worked to help people and rebuilt a struggling community. Fetterman can be blunt, but he does not mislead people.
What I think has hurt the Democratic party is a history of too many smooth talkers that made a lot of empty promises where they delivered on far less than promised. What these easily swayed blue collar and young voters failed to grasp is that the GOP is so much worse.
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Smooth talkers making empty promises where they delivered on far less than promised?
That is how the Republicans have seized total power! Smooth talkers making empty promises that they don’t deliver on!!
The ONLY difference is that the Republicans never admit to being smooth talkers, and the Dems keep telling voters they are smooth talkers!
Ironic because Trump v Biden is between smooth talking and not.
I am positive that the Republicans will call Gavin Newsom just another smooth talker.
Is Fetterman wildly popular because he is so pro-Israel and made the progressives so mad? Fetterman wasn’t popular with younger voters at all because of his anti-Palestinian stance.
When other Dems were pulling back from their support of Israel, Fetterman was doubling down! Is THAT what makes him popular?
Did Trump win because lying and racism and xenophobia wins elections? Remember that neither John McCain nor Mitt Romney spewed hate the way Trump did, and they lost.
What makes you think Fetterman is the most popular Democrat? I like Fetterman, but I don’t understand invoking him to undermine other Democrats and push the false narrative that other Democrats aren’t to be trusted because like Harris and Walz they talk too smoothly?
Funny how JD Vance suddenly became extremely popular when he smooth-talked through the debate!
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Perhaps some of it comes from anti-intellectual backlash. There is some of that sentiment in this country now. Some voted for Trump because many people found him relatable in a strange way. The sad truth is Trump’s life is nothing like theirs, but they didn’t look too deeply at Trump in order to see he is simply using. them. People often vote based on a superficial perception, unfortunately.
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Yup. Working-class people thought that Trump cares about them.
He with the solid gold toilet who has never had s callus does not hear them or see them. He uses them.
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I agree, but that superficial perception is created by hearing the media repeating that superficial perception over and over again.
Trump isn’t saying anything about the common man. Why is Trump a “populist”? I get that he appeals to voters who believe they have been ignored by “elites”, but why is fighting for a tax cut for the 1% or privatizing public programs like Medicare or Social Security (while repealing Obamacare) “populist”?
If the media kept saying that Kamala and Walz were “populist” instead of saying that Kamala had no plans, and was sticking to Biden’s “failure” of an economic plan, eventually the message would get through to more voters.
Trump suddenly makes “tariffs” into a populist policy?? Since when are tariffs populist?? If Democrats were offering tariffs, you can bet it would not be described as populist.
If Trump was campaigning on Bernie Sanders’ policies – regardless of whether he was planning to keep his promises – I can understand why he was called “populist”. But he isn’t. He is campaigning on the same trickle down economics, give billionaires more money and end programs that help middle and working class Americans that Republicans have always campaigned on. But now the media repeats that it is “populist”.
I think “populist” now is defined as “racist, xenophobic, and full of hate”. As that is the only thing that I see Trump offering.
Most Dem politicians are no more elite than Republican politicians.
Biden marched with unions, was the most pro-union president ever, and Kamala was bashed for not running away from his policies. The Republican narratives that Dems are elite and Republicans are populist just goes on and on.
Kamala didn’t run on identity politics. Trump and the Republicans did. Kamala tried to change the subject, and got bashed for that as well. It’s sad that Republicans can tell Americans that xxx group of people is horrible and dangerous and needs to be harmed to protect American values, and instead of making Republicans pay a price for that hate, the circular firing squad of mostly white male experts lecture to Dems that they “did it wrong” and should have joined in the hate because defending those vulnerable Americans (or not defending them enough) is the reason they lost.
Biden had a populist presidency and Kamala refused to run away from his successful policies and Trump offered trickle down economics and tariffs and Trump was deemed by liberal media as a populist.
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“…diversity, equity and inclusion programs or ‘woke shit has “got to go.’”“
Social, cultural, and academic issues are just that. They are concepts and intellectual. How we interact, open access to programs, level the playing field, and work as one nation.
That is NOT THE PURVIEW OF THE MILITARY.
In a the U.S., 1) Diversity – we are diversely populated country – 2) Our country provides Equity already through policies, laws, and economic strategies that provide access to resources; and 3) We legally hold to Inclusion in Supreme Court decisions and federal law (IDEA, Title IX)
The only governments that use FORCE and MILITARY to enforce social, cultural, and religious beliefs and concepts are dictatorships.
“Woke shit?” Is that what a the leader of the PENTAGON – of MILITARY POLICY – of DEFENDING US FROM FOREIGN ENEMIES WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS should be thinking about?
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This is easy to understand if you equate “corrupt” with “disagreeing with or objecting to Trump.”
If that’s the case, then certainly, “rogue bureaucrats” fit the bill. CBK
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IS TRUMP A RUSSIAN “ASSET”?
Newsweek reports that Putin’s personal intelligence aide, Nikolai Patrushev, declared that Trump has “obligations” to Putin that Trump is now “obliged to fulfill.”
Trump’s choosing outrageous people like Gaetz, Kennedy, and Hegseth isn’t just “Trump being Trump” — it is Trump fulfilling his obligations to Putin by carrying out Putin’s plan to make America’s government and our military forces dysfunctional, giving Putin all the opportunity he needs to achieve his military and political goals in Ukraine, in the Republic of Georgia, and in Syria while America is in chaos.
Putin is likely also planning to invade Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Moldavia, knowing that European NATO nations won’t go to war without the support of the United States, which Trump will withhold. NATO will be ended, and Russia will be free to take over its entire post-World War II empire and eventually all of Europe.
THE QUESTION IS — Are there enough members of Congress who have the backbone and the love of America to stand up to Trump, to not allow “recess appointments” of Trump’s hand-picked Putin heads of our government departments?
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A: That’s just the hate side of the love-hate relationship that ignorance has with the educated and with the products of, guess what . . . intelligence gone wild!
If it is true that some become arrogant with a college education, especially for those who become technofascists, it is also true that underneath it all for a non-college educated person in THIS culture is often an abiding jealousy and a hurtful sense of distorted class consciousness.
(I think this because I didn’t go to college until my 30’s and remember well, in reflection, just those feelings of jealousy and a hurtful sense of class consciousness, though I am generalizing here probably too much, and I don’t remember dwelling on those bad feelings or wishing bad things on anyone.)
Also, while I’m at it, the idea that the electoral differences hinged on the difference between the college educated, and not, there is a need in such thinking to drill a little deeper: into the difference between those who have gained a POLITICAL/HISTORICAL education, and those who have not. One need not be “college educated” to become so-educated, nor is having one a guarantee that one is actually prepared to live in and be discerning about political matters in a democracy. Such an education should be an open and active part of one’s cultural training.
Historically speaking, a lot flowed from having been imposed on everyone by the horrors of WWII, but by now that cultural learning apparently has thinned out, and every aspect of a democratic culture needs to do its diligence of keeping democracy in place and fully conscious, that is, if one wants to “keep it.” Every time someone says “woke-shit” or the like, they need to be called out. CBK
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The whole plan to use the U.S. military domestically is illegal under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1898.
Not that Roberts will care.
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Donald Trump does not like DEI and “woke” because when all are considered properly he would easily fall by the wayside. Whether or not he had someone take his SATs for him (which his late sister, a retired Federal District Judge, says he did) he would never have gotten into Wharton (from which he graduated with no honors or distinction and one of his professors called him the dumbest f*&^ing student he ever taught) with his grades at Fordham had his older brother not leaned on a personal friend to admit him. But Trump was white, male, nominally Christian, and through his father very wealthy. Put him on an equal playing field he would have stayed at Fordham, and if he graduated from there would also have done so with no academic distinction. And remember, his lawyer threatened anyone who released his HS records from the now closed military academy from which he graduated, to which he was sent because his immigrant mother could not stand him, and at which he was apparently removed from a leadership position because of abusing his authority.
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“his immigrant mother”
She was Scottish. She went back every summer, likely to get away from Donald.
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His mother was a drunk. Since liquor was frowned upon, she drank vanilla extract–alcohol content 40%. Wine is usually 13%.
Her alcoholism is understandable.
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