No dictator or would-be dictator on day one has ever assembled before him in one room the entire senior officer corps of his armed forces in order to have them belittled as failures and humiliated for their slovenly personal appearance, while degrading whole classes serving in the army, navy and air force degraded as inferior and unworthy. No dictator has ever pleaded for generals and admirals to applaud his remarks, followed by deafening silence.<\/p>\n
Donald Trump<\/a> is used to entering to the din of a mob jazzed up with YMCA. \u201cI\u2019ve never walked into a room so silent before,\u201d Trump said when he addressed the country\u2019s highest-ranking military leaders at the Marine Corps Base Quantico on Tuesday. \u201cDon\u2019t laugh. Don\u2019t know if you\u2019re allowed to do that.\u201d He was trying to force some tittering, an old lounge act gag to rouse a dead audience. \u201cYou know what? Just have a good time.\u201d The comedian who felt his routine was bombing before he even began sought to relax the room. Then Trump instinctively replaced the ingratiating gestures with threats. \u201cIf you don\u2019t like what I\u2019m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s syllogism perfectly encapsulated his psychology of victimhood and politics of retribution. If you do not bend the knee to him, he is personally wounded. Your failure to worship him must be punished. Your slight of his majesty condemns you to ruin.<\/p>\n Trump cannot grasp that the silence of the commanders during his unprecedented address to them demonstrated their highest duty. Their discipline showed fidelity to uphold their oath to the constitution. By their stillness they presented themselves as models for the rest of the officer corps and the troops. They are not loyal to Trump or any cult of personality, but to his constitutional role. They were being used as a backdrop for a campaign-like rally, but they were resistant to serving as partisan players.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s inability to understand their stolidity in the face of his provocations showed his incomprehension not only of the military but the presidency under the law. When he took offense at their stoney silence his rebuke disclosed that he saw them merely as his pawns. They were to his mind no different from his personal attorneys he had installed at the Department of Justice to do his bidding, including the suppression of the Epstein files<\/a>.<\/p>\n Trump had come on an urgent mission for them to carry out. He was there to tell the military chiefs they were to be his unquestioning agents for the greatest reversal of military strategy since the \u201cwar on terror\u201d \u2013a new war to be waged against his perceived political opponents at home in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the domestic deployment of the US military<\/a> as a police force.<\/p>\n All the senior generals in all the world had been gathered for the unprecedented event at the Marine Corps Base Quantico on the order of secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth<\/a>. They had no inkling for what momentous occasion they were being summoned. They dared not speculate that Hegseth brought them to be his captive audience for his self-referential vanity Ted talk attempting to rehabilitate his image and assert his authority. That would have seemed too stupid for words.<\/p>\n But the commanders could have gotten more than a hint that they were being rounded up for the latest episode of It Can\u2019t Happen Here, by reading Trump\u2019s executive order of 22 September, Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization, an \u201corganization\u201d that does not exist. This was followed by a National Security Presidential Memorandum No 7<\/a> on 25 September citing the murder of Charlie Kirk<\/a> and a series of disparate events as pretexts: \u201cThis political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organized campaigns \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n According to NSPM-7, a new \u201cnational strategy\u201d would be implemented against an ideology of \u201canti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.\u201d Jimmy Kimmel was not mentioned.<\/p>\n These vapors were not a description of an ideology so much as a hodgepodge of Maga shibboleths. If there were any ideology expressed it was an inchoate fascism based on a repressive impulse that conjured up an all-purpose enemy called \u201cAntifa\u201d. Any sense of irony, of course, was completely missing. In fact, January 6<\/a> was the last attempt to overthrow the US government, incited by Donald Trump. The leadership of Trump as a paragon of \u201ctraditional American views on family, religion, and morality\u201d defies satire and only underscores the recurrent demand for the release of the Epstein files.<\/p>\n The theatrical presentation at Quantico began with Hegseth darting back and forth on the stage. He was a motivational speaker as a drill sergeant with a book to hawk \u2013 and a warm-up act for the headliner. Observing him was like seeing the negative of a photograph. The darkest parts were reflections of his own grievances at the criticism and censure provoked by his past behavior.<\/p>\n The former national guard major said he had been been \u201cdeemed an extremist<\/a>\u201d; he was flagged<\/a> as a possible \u201cinsider threat\u201d by fellow officers. (Hegseth has denied that he is an extremist). Despite numerous accounts of his alcoholism<\/a>, he told Megyn Kelly in an interview: \u201cI never had a drinking problem,\u201d but then reportedly promised a senator<\/a> that he would \u201cnot touch alcohol while I have this position\u201d. Hegseth was accused of sexual assault in 2017<\/a>, and settled a lawsuit<\/a> brought by the woman who had accused him. (The settlement terms were confidential. Hegseth has said the allegations were false).<\/p>\n As a Fox News host, Hegseth had been a prominent advocate for pardoning or granting clemency to service members accused or convicted of war crimes. Hegseth described them as \u201cwarriors\u201d rather than \u201cwar criminals\u201d. \u201cIf he committed premeditated murder, then I did as well … Put us all in jail,\u201d he said about one of them. Hegseth voiced support for members of his own unit in Iraq killing three unarmed detainees<\/a> who were told to run and then shot. Once Hegseth was confirmed, he purged the top-rank judge advocate general<\/a>. He\u2019s pushing a plan<\/a> to send many of the rest to work in immigration courts.<\/p>\n Hegseth said that the military should not \u201cfight with stupid rules of engagement\u201d, his long-time complaint against rules designed to protect civilians and enforce military law against war crimes.<\/p>\n Now, in his speech, Hegseth declared he was clearing away \u201cthe debris\u201d. He encouraged loosening regulations aimed at preventing forbidden violence within the armed forces. He announced the \u201coverhauling\u201d of the inspector general and whistleblower complaint process, which would undermine legal protections and shield violent or reckless offenders from accountability. He would, he said, impose discriminatory measures of \u201cgender-neutral\u201d or \u201cmale level\u201d physical standards for combat roles, stating: \u201cIf that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.\u201d (In 2023, more than 17% of the military force was composed of women, with thousands in combat roles.)<\/p>\n Hegseth swaggered in front of the commanders, barking obscenities \u2013 \u201cFafo\u201d, or Fuck Around and Find Out. \u201cNo more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction or gender delusions. No more debris. As I\u2019ve said before and will say again, we are done with that shit.\u201d<\/p>\n The generals sat expressionless at his vulgarity that could be charged under the Uniform Military Code of Justice as a violation against indecent language that \u201cneglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline\u201d.<\/p>\n According to Pete, it was the flabby generals who needed to work out like Pete. \u201cIt\u2019s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It\u2019s a bad look,\u201d he said. \u201cNo more beardos.\u201d That means you, Gen Grant.<\/p>\n Hegseth, at last, was seemingly getting his revenge for being tagged as an \u201cinsider threat\u201d. He shouted: \u201cNo more side-tracking careers, no more walking on eggshells.\u201d He accused the brass of harming the military by evaluating the mental stability of officers: \u201cWe\u2019ve weeded out so-called toxic leaders under the guise of double-blind psychology assessments, promoting risk-averse, go-along-to-get-along conformists instead.\u201d Then he plugged his book: \u201cYou might say we\u2019re ending the war on warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.\u201d The title of his book was The War on Warriors.<\/p>\n Not once did Hegseth mention \u201cRussia\u201d or \u201cUkraine\u201d. He made not the slightest reference to Russia\u2019s huge missile attacks bombarding Ukraine, Russia\u2019s drones over Romania, Estonia and Denmark, the tensions over US wavering within the western alliance, or utter anything that might be construed as a strategic thought.<\/p>\n