I am delighted with the roster of people Donald Trump will have at his side as he heads into the White House. (Some more than others, of course, but all are good.) Trump 2024 is a far cry from the naïve neophyte who entered the White House in 2017 when the Republican establishment treated him as if he had the plague and left him dependent on people who proved to be weak or damaging. I don’t even consider this “Trump 2.0.” This is MEGA MAGA TRUMP, and the administration comes in loaded for bear, ready to rip apart the entire Democrat government infrastructure that is smothering America.
What I love most of all is Trump’s decision to appoint Pete Hegseth to act as his Defense Secretary. The military is both America’s last and first line of defense against foreign enemies inside and outside of America’s borders—and for decades now, the Democrats have been chipping away at it.
Democrats have demoralized the military by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Vietnam (we won the Tet offensive), Iraq (we’d won until Obama pulled us out, leaving a vacuum for ISIS and Iran), and Afghanistan (we were at least maintaining until Biden gave us the most humiliating retreat in American history).
Image by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
Democrats have structurally weakened the military by focusing on climate change, not defense.
And Democrats have corrupted the military at a core level by bringing racial identity politics to what was once the best-integrated institution in America and by flooding it with people who have a deviant sexual agenda.
Pete Hegseth promises to stand against all of that. The worst thing I can say about Hegseth is that he’s Ivy League educated, which is always something to worry about in those who graduated after 1984 when those institutions became ideologically corrupted. His B.A. from Princeton and Masters in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government make him suspect in my eyes.
However, everything else about the man offsets those concerns. A member of the Minnesota Army National Guard (just like Tim Walz), Hegseth actually served as an infantry officer in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He eventually received two Bronze Stars and a combat infantry badge. Since leaving active duty, Hegseth has worked hard to improve life for military veterans. He’s also written multiple books with strong conservative themes, including The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, which attacks the Democrats’ relentless war on troops and the military itself.
Just to provide a contrast, remember that the left loved Obama’s Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, who served two years in the Army (1964-1966), and then spent the rest of his life as a politician and Deep State operative.
Speaking of Panetta, Hegseth is rightly opposed to Panetta’s greenlighting women in combat roles. As I wrote when Panetta made this decision, it’s an appallingly bad idea:
Hegseth also has practical solutions to achieve good outcomes without exposing the troops, such as giving Israel free rein in fighting Iran:
You can see why leftists would hate Hegseth.
Some of the attacks are funny, as with Elizabeth Warren’s completely clueless take on his qualifications:
Joe Walsh, a NeverTrumper, sounded equally foolish:
However, there’s a frantic fury to the attacks against Hegseth that goes beyond the usual leftist animus toward anyone Trump would choose. They’re throwing everything at him—such as the fact he’ll be immune to lobbyist dollars (which Democrats clearly see as a negative):
Other attacks on Hegseth’s qualifications came from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) (“I’m shocked... [B]eing a serviceman does not make you qualified to lead the Department of Defense...”); actor Wendell Pierce (“Pete Hegseth is the epitome of white privilege”); and the inimitable Joy Reid (who laughs about a Fox weekend morning show host helping to fill Trump’s “clown car”). The rank and file are even bringing up Hegseth’s obvious joke about washing his hands (and I say that as someone who is very OCD about clean hands).
Reid may be laughing, but, as I said, there’s more than a whiff of panic here; there’s a stench. Why would that be? I think it relates to the CNN report that the Pentagon is mapping out ways to stage what is effectively a coup against President Trump by classifying his orders as “unlawful” and refusing to follow them.
Were I the only one saying this, I’d take me with a grain of salt. However, Lee Smith, one of the smartest political analysts you’ll find, thinks that a coup is on the table, and he traces this to Barack Obama’s last hurrah.
In a must-read essay entitled “Obama Isn’t Going Anywhere,” Smith examines how Obama has been running a shadow presidency since he left the White House in January 2017. It was he who seeded the Russia Hoax, got Biden into the White House when Kamala, his preferred candidate, flamed out in 2015, controlled Biden’s policy, and gave Biden the boot to give Kamala a second chance. Obama also refused to leave D.C., breaking a presidential tradition going back to George Washington.
Looking back, every one of Obama’s efforts failed to cement his legacy, as evidenced by the fact that he could not keep Trump—the new, fully-loaded Trump—out of the White House.
This is where we begin to see what will be Obama’s last hurrah: Getting our constitutional military, once the most trusted part of the American government, to undermine President Trump, effectively staging a military coup (something previously unimaginable in America). Or as Smith writes, “Now Obama is looking for another play, and it appears that it involves splitting the armed forces.”
Smith analyzes in some detail what the CNN report has to say about how Pentagon officials are gaming ways to prevent Trump from exercising his constitutional powers as president and commander-in-chief of U.S. military forces. While I urge you to read the whole essay, it’s the conclusion that may explain the panic about Pete:
Does the resistance really intend to move pieces in place to split the military or are they just bluffing to get Trump to back off on campaign promises that will topple two of its pillars? It might seem strange to threaten to destabilize the country on behalf of defense bureaucrats and illegal aliens, but the former constitute a crucial part of Obama’s network, and giving the latter the vote, as Trump’s landslide victory shows, may be the Democrats’ best chance to win national elections in the near future. It’s tempting to read the Brooks scenarios and the CNN report as resistance porn—a performance of the rituals and motions that this class has accustomed itself to over the course of the past eight years, as it now braces for the return of the president it did its best and failed to destroy.
Would Obama fracture the military to once again cripple Trump’s term in office? The former president is in a decidedly weaker position and facing a battle-hardened Trump. Still, it would be reckless to assume the best from the man who already proved his willingness to weaponize the national security apparatus against his political opponent. The president-elect shouldn’t take any chances.
Trump’s appointment of Hegseth, a battle-hardened veteran and a trustworthy outsider, shows that Trump isn’t taking any chances. I just hope that Hegseth is prepared for the Pentagon rebellion he may be facing and, if it occurs, moves swiftly and courageously to end even the whiff of sedition or a coup.
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