I think he really wants the military on his side for what’s coming.
What he wants is a military of partisans and ideologues, just as he wants a judiciary and DoJ of partisans and ideologues. Right out of the authoritarian playbook.
There is no bottom.
The fear that I have - I mean the fear - is the Christian Warrior. I worry about the nexus between Trump’s corruption and the evangelical right wingers in the military, who might start seeing it as ‘their’ military.
About six months ago PBS ran a series called “The Dictators Playbook” They covered several of the well known authoritarian dictators. There’s a commonality to the steps they take and Donnie is following the steps right down the line. Fetish-izing the military is one of them.
Trashing journalists is always first.
I love this tweet from Navy Chief of Information:
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](https://twitter.com/chinfo/status/1195500836673196033?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet)
An acknowledgement from a Rear Admiral to POTUS phrased this way has a palpable and barely silent “…asshole” at the end. (Note that E-7 is a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy, universally referred to as “Chief”; Petty Officer First Class is E-6. The lack of the honorific in the tweet is not insignificant.)
I’m pretty confident President Stupid doesn’t exactly have the military establishment in his corner.
Donald Trump is creating the kind of society that Vladimir Putin wants us to become.
Everything Donald Trump is doing, domestically and internationally, is playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin, and also to China, which is ironic considering the hard-on the right seems to have for the Chinese.
At the epicenter of the impeachment inquiry is behavior that benefits the Kremlin. Just today we learned that, as Trump has done with Western European and NATO generally, Trump has now threatened to charge South Korea to keep our tripwire in the region.
I can’t understand how there’s hardly a single Trumpist who can’t understand and see how Trump’s foreign policy is exactly what Vladimir Putin would want. Putin wants the US to become an unwelcome guest in the countries where it current places its military. In country after country, we’re becoming highly unpopular.
The Kremlin has the American president under their thumb. They have hacked the American political system, and there are 60 million morons who have no problem with it. “Bwuhuh, liberal tears? Keep ‘em comin’. Heh! Heh!”
I want to second this.
I’d say this represents a new low for Trump, but really his politicizing of refugees and asylum seekers (starting with one of his opening-salvo EOs, which had the effect of banning Iraqis who had aided the war effort as interpreters, among others, from immigrating for 90 days, just on a whim) is far worse, at least from a humanitarian stand point.
I do believe this is the most dangerous political decision he’s made in terms of military policy, though. I mean, if you want to undercut military discipline and expose US forces to greater danger in the event of capture, then sure, but otherwise…
The ironic thing is that Trump would never make it as a dictator. He lacks the skills; real dictators like Putin or Xi need to outthink and outmaneuver their rivals. Trump’s an idiot; he would have been killed off in a week and replaced by some smarter rival.
Forget politics.Imagine it’s that scene in The Godfather where the heads of the Mafia families meet. But instead of Vito Corleone, it’s Donald Trump at the table. Does anyone think, for even a moment, that Trump would have won the war? Of course not; Barzini would have beaten him with ease. Hell, Moe Green would have beaten Trump.
The only reason Trump is staying in power is because we have a stable system of government that respects the rule of law. And Trump, who as I mentioned is an idiot, spends every day undermining the rule of law.
Fredo would have beaten Trump.
I think you’re underestimating Trump. He’s ignorant, but he’s not an idiot. He understands human nature and the nature of human power. He, more than any single person, is destroying our institutions, and at breathtaking speed. If he were as ‘stupid’ as his critics assumed, he would never have won a single primary.
Doesn’t this make two pardons for war crimes/crimes against humanity now?
Julie Bloom, NYT:
More:
I’ve come to the same conclusion, but another factor i’ve come up with is Trump is too much of a backstabber for even the mob. If not for the rule of law, one of his backstabbings would have caught up with him by now.
He has a hard enough time finding enough gullible underlings to work for him. It would be much harder if they knew that getting betrayed often meant getting killed.
Yes it’s a distraction, a patheticly obvious one.
Lame
Twitler in Chief says, nuh-uh, you will not:
The Navy will NOT be taking away Warfighter and Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher’s Trident Pin. This case was handled very badly from the beginning. Get back to business!
Yeah, I’m guessing overriding their internal house-cleaning and maintenance of their own reputations and honor would tend to piss off the Admirals and Generals.
In effect, they said that Gallagher’s behavior is outside the pale for a US Navy sailor, and that they were going to remove him and punish him for it. In effect, this guy made all the organizations he was associated with (SEALs, Navy) look bad through his actions, and the Navy decided through their internal legal system that he had to go.
Then the President steps in apropos of nothing, and countermands the Court Martial sentence and orders that he be restored to his rank, etc…
I can see how that might really rankle with flag officers; first of all, he’s meddling in much lower level business than Presidents should. Second, what’s next- favorites being promoted via Presidential fiat? Presidential interference in operations and deployments? This is basically banana republic type stuff- as CinC, the President’s actual chain of command ought to be through the Secretary of Defense, not directly to some random officers through a tweet (most likely).
However, it looks like the Navy’s not quite done- they haven’t acknowledged a pardon, just the restoration of the rank (in the snarky tweet), and are not only looking to yank Gallagher’s trident, but those of the rest of his SEAL team.
The kids who ran the numbers for the family in Little Italy could have kicked his ass.
The Navy can and will make assignments as THEY see fit.