Donald Trump is desperate to anoint himself with the mantle of “peace-maker,” and is poised to hand Putin huge territorial gains in Ukraine, the destruction of its democracy, a weakened NATO, a dysfunctional American military and an open door to invading NATO members. Putin reminded Trump that he promised to end the war in “24 hours” and urged the president to “go faster.”
In a rush to get there, Trump’s already wrapping Putin’s gifts. He fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented and debilitating shake-up of the U.S. military leadership. Trump’s also replacing the head of the U.S. air force, its Vice Chief of Staff and removing the Judge Advocates that oversee military justice so he can trample on treaties and abuse members of the military who aren’t obedient. He also joined Russia, North Korea, Iran and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries in voting against a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression. Is there any doubt where his allegiance lies?
Trump’s replacing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Brown with retired Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine—the first appointee forthat position who since 1949 isn’t a full General or Admiral. For 30 years, no one has risen to Chairman without first serving as a member of the Joint Chiefs. But Razin will leapfrog all of its current members. Before Trump chose Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, he called Trump’s military shakeup “The War on Warriors … the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”.
Then, after Trump picked him for Secretary of Defense, he joined Trump’s band of sycophants and backed Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act — a law that gives the president the power to use the military as a police force to quash any public protests. Hegseth also warned of civil war if Democrats win an election and urged conservatives to “crush our leftist opponents,” to “attack first” and end their “sedition” and echoed Trump’s threat to unleash the military on the “enemies within.”
Lt. Gen. Razin will be the highest-ranking military officer in the Pentagon and principal military adviser to the president. Both roles create the risk of dangerous aggression and a nuclear crisis. You’ll remember that it was Trump’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milly, who had to stop Trump from mishandling America’s nuclear arsenal in the last month of his presidency. The word of a threat spread and Milly had to call the head of China’s military to avert a crisis. Who will be there to stop him next time? An alcoholic Fox News host and sex offender? No, Hegseth will cheer Trump on.
“A clear message is being sent to military leaders that failure to demonstrate personal and political loyalty to Trump could result in retribution.” If Trump reaches for the nuclear button again, the threatened leaders would have to choose to support him or suffer retribution consisting of a court martial or being fired.
Trump’s planned terminations have already rattled 2.2 million U.S. government employees. Many of them have been fired without cause or notice, locked out of their officesand had their emails sabotaged. They will feel betrayed and return the betrayal by revealing secret information to interested countries, preventing our allies from sharing information with our military and intelligence agencies.
If we listen very carefully, we can hear Putin, Il Jung Kim and Xi Jinping laughing as Trump and Musk wreak havoc in our military, let them win the global arms race, supplant America’s global influence and destroy its respect around the world.
Trump’s already usurped the role of the legislature with his obedient Republican majorities. And the Supreme Court has enabled him to test the borders of criminality by giving him immunity from prosecution .
Now that he’s coopting the military, the insurrection he started on January 6 is near complete. He will certainly attempt to use America’s troops against his overly-broad variety of “enemies within.”
Although voters are migrating away from Trump, it may be too late to rid the country of him. Who would do it? Certainly not the Congressional Republicans who had to check their spines at the door when approving the most unqualified and dangerous cabinet picks in our history. Not the Democrats, who seem to be snoozing through the dismantling of our government and the transfer of its control to two psychology unstable madmen — Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Only the voters can do it. The Republicans need to see that they won’t be reelected if the voters finally see how dangerous Trump is. Sadly, most of his supporters remain misinformed and will continue to be until he harms them directly – which has its start with the increases in the cost of groceries and gas. Hopefully, it won’t take a Trump-initiated nuclear crisis (narrowly avoided in his last presidency), a depression or a Russian invasion of European NATO members, especially while we no longer have a fully functioning military.
