Tag: Trump Administration

Is the Idea of a Military Coup Hysterical?

cincinnatus_cincinnatorum
Unlike George Washington or Cincinnatus, today’s warrior-generals don’t return to the plough.  They cash-in at the trough of the military-industrial complex

W.J. Astore

The National Review labels the idea of a military coup in Trump’s America “hysterical.” Here’s David French criticizing my recent article at TomDispatch.com:

Here we go again — another article talking about how the retired generals in Trump’s cabinet, civilians who are nominated by a civilian and confirmed by a civilian senate, represent the erosion of the principle of civilian control over the military. But this time, there’s a hysterical twist. The nomination of James Mattis for secretary of defense and John Kelly for secretary of homeland security and the selection of Michael Flynn for national security adviser is worse than a real-life coup. No, really.

French goes on to say the following:

Lots of people read this nonsense. Lots of people believe this nonsense. I’ve been arguing for some time that the prime threat to our national unity isn’t action but reaction. Activists and pundits take normal politics (retired generals have a long history of serving this nation in civilian offices, beginning with George Washington) and respond with an overreaction that pushes their fellow citizens into believing that the sky is falling.

In my article for TomDispatch.com, I made the same point that retired generals have a long history of serving this nation, beginning with Washington.  But Washington was a special case, an American Cincinnatus, a citizen first, a soldier second.  As I mentioned in my article, today’s generals are cut from a different cloth.  They self-identify as warriors first and foremost.  Even when they retire, they usually go to work immediately for the military-industrial complex, making millions in the process.

French seems to think that if a civilian like Donald Trump nominates four recently retired warrior/generals, and if a civilian Congress approves them, this in no way constitutes a coup.  And, strictly speaking, that’s true.

Yet consider this.  These four warrior/generals will direct the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the National Security Council.  Professional warriors are filling the highest leadership positions in a superpower military complex that is supposed to be overseen by civilians.  They will command budgetary authority approaching a trillion dollars annually. If this isn’t a de facto military coup, what is?

Consider as well that their boss, Donald Trump, professes to admire two American generals: George S. Patton and Douglas MacArthur.  In choosing Patton and MacArthur, Trump has all the signs of an immature military hero-lover. Mature historians recognize that generals like George C. Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, and Omar Bradley were far more distinguished (and far more in keeping with the American citizen-soldier ideal) than Patton and MacArthur. Indeed, both Patton and MacArthur were over-hyped, deliberately so, for propaganda purposes during Word War II. MacArthur was a disaster in the Philippines, and Patton wasn’t even needed during D-Day. Both fancied themselves to be warriors; both were vainglorious showboats, stuck on themselves and their alleged military brilliance.

“Retired” warriors are simply not the right men in a democracy to ride herd on the military. Warrior/generals like Mattis, Flynn, and Kelly — men defined by the military and loyal to it for their entire lives — are not going to become free-thinkers and tough-minded critics in a matter of months, especially when they’ve already cashed in after retirement by joining corporate boards affiliated with the military-industrial complex.

Look, I realize some Americans see nothing wrong with generals taking charge of America. As one disgruntled reader wrote me, “I value the experience of generals who led Soldiers and Marines in combat on the ground.”

Well, I value that too.  So does our country, which is why the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) advise our president.  But what Trump has done is to surround himself with a rival JCS, his own band of warriors, generals that he sees as the equivalent to Patton and MacArthur. He’s created a dynamic in which the only advice he’ll get on national security is from military minds.  And if you’re looking to Congress as a check on military rule, consider that the last time Congress formally exercised its authority to declare war was December 1941.  Yes, 75 years ago this month.

Hey, nothing to worry about here.  Don’t get hysterical.  Let the “civilian” generals rule! After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Further Thoughts: I think many in America equate militarism to fascism; they think that, so long as jackbooted troops aren’t marching loudly down American streets and breaking down doors, militarism doesn’t exist here.

But militarism, as a descriptive term, also involves the permeation of military attitudes and values throughout civil society and political culture in America.  Since 9/11, if not before, Americans have been actively encouraged to “support our troops” as a patriotic duty.  Those troops have been lauded as “warriors,” “war-fighters,” and “heroes,” even as the U.S. military has become both thoroughly professionalized and increasingly isolated from civil society.  This isolation, however, does not extend to public celebrations of the military, most visibly at major sporting events (e.g. NFL football games).  (A small sign of this is major league baseball players wearing camouflaged uniforms to “honor” the troops.)

Trump’s decision — to put four senior “retired” generals in charge of America’s military and national security — acts as an accelerant to the permeation of military attitudes and values throughout America’s civil society and political culture.  Again, the USA, one must recall, was founded on civilian control of the military as well as the ideal of the citizen-soldier.  The latter ideal is dead, replaced as it has been by a new ideal, that of the warrior.

And civilian control?  With four generals in command, enabled by an inexperienced civilian commander-in-chief whose ideal general is defined by Patton and MacArthur, you have in essence a repudiation of civilian control.

 

Trump’s system will gorge itself until it collapses under its own weight. Too bad it’ll take the planet down as well

richardfeynman
Richard Feynman (copyright Tamiko Thiel, 1984)

W.J. Astore

Conflicts of interest characterize Donald Trump and his cabinet even before he and they take power in January, so we can safely predict a lot of corruption will be forthcoming. I always love the way both parties, but especially the Republicans, vow to fight for smaller government and lower deficits — until they get in power. Then it’s bigger government and larger deficits in the service of crony capitalism. Kleptocracy, in a word.

A good friend put it concisely: “It makes me sick!”

But of course that’s why she’s not in Washington. The Washington-types don’t find it sickening. For them, “Greed is good.” They convince themselves that: 1) The more they have, the better. 2) They deserve more because they’re better people. 3) The little people are schmucks who deserve to be exploited.

My parents liked the saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” So the greedy are easy to find. Just look for them in the corridors of power, clustered together. For example, why do so many generals and admirals cash-in at retirement, joining corporate boards and making millions? They have six-figure government pensions, so why do they need more? They think they deserve the money. And they want to continue to play the power game, preening among the flock in the process.

As another friend of mine put it, “Money is the only thing the American elite really cares about. And I always think of Sinclair Lewis’s line that poor Americans never think of themselves as poor, only as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. One of our neighbors and friends told me he was voting Trump because with lower taxes he will be free to make a lot more money. Really? How much does anyone really think taxes will go down for people making what we make?”

The reality for us is that our taxes will probably go down by only a few hundred dollars. It’ll help us pay our air conditioning bills next summer, but that’s about it. Modest tax cuts are not going to turn us all into budding Donald Trumps (thank god for small mercies).

Yes, for people in Trump’s crowd, money is the measure of success. But so too is access. And power. Some of these people will kill themselves to be seen at the right parties, among the “right” kind of people. “Players.” “Operators.” Not people like you and me.

Trump’s government will gorge itself until it collapses under its own weight. The big question is whether its collapse will take the rest of us with it. Consider global warming, and consider the climate change deniers and fossil fuel profiteers that Trump is empowering. How long does our planet have left until we confront true disaster? A few decades, perhaps?

I always told my students the big problem with global warming was that its most serious perils – real as they are – lurked decades in the future. Problems that are decades away are difficult to address when America is driven by a quarterly business cycle and a quadrennial election cycle for the presidency. Now, under Trump, these problems won’t be addressed at all because the business moguls as well as the president simply deny their existence. Why? Because it’s convenient for them to do so. Because they stand to make a great deal of money by doing so. And because they don’t care about decades from now; they care about quarterly profits and getting reelected.

As I grow older, the words from a commercial of my youth have found new resonance in my memory: “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” Not only isn’t it nice: it’s incredibly foolhardy. For the words of Richard Feynman about the space shuttle Challenger disaster ring true here:

Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.

Trump and his cronies may fool some of the people all of the time, but they’re not going to fool Nature. Sooner or later (and sooner under Trump), nature’s bill will come.

The Trump Cabinet of Billionaires and Generals

pottersville
Coming soon to a community near you

W.J. Astore

There’s an obvious trend in Trump’s cabinet picks: billionaires and generals. The billionaires favor private enterprise, capitalism unconstrained by regulations (especially those pesky environmental ones), and a view of the world in which global warming either doesn’t exist or can be ignored for the purposes of economic growth and higher profits. The generals?  Well, they’re military men, “lifers” experienced in the ways of weapons and war, with a reputation for no compromise, especially against radical Islamic terrorism.

Trump’s latest cabinet pick (pending official announcement) is Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. Tillerson is currently the president, CEO, and chairman of Exxon Mobil Corporation.  He’s done some big petro deals with Russia and favors lifting sanctions against that country for its actions in the Crimea.  Expect relations with Putin’s Russia to improve under Trump, not necessarily a bad thing considering the nuclear arsenals that each country has.

If past is prologue, I’d say we can count on a few big changes from Trump and his cabinet in the coming months and years:

1. Privatization and profit are the bywords.  For example, expect more charter schools and lower government funding for public schools.  Expect a low federal minimum wage (it will probably remain stagnant at $7.25 an hour), sold as helping companies with job creation. Expect an emphasis on helping the “job creators,” i.e. rich people, and a revival of trickle down economics.

2. An embrace (or re-embrace) of fossil fuels.  You can forget about major funding for alternative or green energy.

3. A rejection of global warming/climate change as “speculative” and “unproven” by science, thereby enabling more fossil fuel exploration and production.  Remember, there are still trillions of dollars to be made by extracting fossil fuels.  With that much money at stake, it’s not staying in the ground, America.

4. A repudiation of environmental protections as making America “uncompetitive” in the global marketplace.

5. More military interventionism in the cause of combating radical Islamic terrorism.  And more endless wars as those interventions fail to end the threat, creating blowback and more conflict instead.

6.  A health care system that is increasingly privatized, complicated, and expensive, making many people long for the days of Obamacare.  (People are going to love shopping for their own health care in the private sector under Trump, right?)

7. Renewed emphasis on an ethos based on endless work, knee-jerk patriotism (“We’re Number One!  At something!  Military spending!  The number of hours we work for low pay!  And for no health care!  America!”), and violence both here and abroad.  The rejection of diversity and attacks on “the Other” in the false (and dangerous) cause of “making America American again.”  Prejudice and vulgarity disguised as principled rejection of “political correctness.”

Despite Trump’s thin-skinned nature and relative ignorance of foreign affairs, I don’t see nuclear war in the immediate future.  But I do see creeping militarism and growing authoritarianism, always disguised as “necessary” and “to keep us safe.” I see more people suffering, some even dying, due to cutbacks in government aid, also in the name of “security,” e.g. cutting the deficit. I see more passion directed against marginalized people and less compassion for the afflicted. This will be couched as “realism” and as “fiscally responsible.”  I see “rugged individualism” extolled, even as government welfare is extended to corporations and financiers, again in the name of “competitiveness” and “job creation.”  In the meantime, life will indeed become more rugged for individuals as government welfare for them is cut.

As the holidays approach, many of us will watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” yet again, starring a true war hero, Jimmy Stewart.  In that movie, he wages a long battle against Mr. Potter, a greedy and unprincipled banker, the Trump of his community.  In a brief scene near the end of the movie, Stewart’s character is given a glimpse of how his beloved community of Bedford Falls would have fared if Potter had ruled unchallenged.

pottersville_burlesque
Pottersville: Trump’s kind of place

The lurid and tawdry streets of “Pottersville” are a vivid reminder to Stewart of the value of principled resistance against petty tyrants.

Whether you call it Pottersville or Trump Towers, naked greed and exploitation must be fought.  Just remember: the Potters and Trumps of the world do not fight fair.

Trump and the Art of the Con

trumps-wall-l

W.J. Astore

The ink hasn’t yet dried on Trump’s victory and we’re already hearing about how his campaign promises are being “modified,” i.e. reneged on.  Trump’s infamous wall along the border with Mexico is already becoming more virtual than real, with admissions that Mexico will not pay for it. Trump himself has suggested he favors certain features of Obamacare (no denial of coverage based on preexisting conditions, and coverage extended to “children” until the age of 26), so there’ll be no wholesale “repeal and replace,” as he promised.  He also promised to appoint a special prosecutor to go after Hillary Clinton, to “lock her up,” as his followers chanted, but he’s backtracked on that as well.  Talk about draining the swamps of government, of bringing in fresh faces and new ideas, has produced tired old faces like Pence, Gingrich, Giuliani, and Christie.  In a classic case of nepotism, the “fresh” faces are those in his own family, his two sons and daughter Ivanka (she seems to be the one with the most smarts).

Many Trump voters appear to have voted for him because he represented “change,” a rejection of the usual suspects in the establishment.  Yes, the Clintons and their fellow travelers are out, but the hardline Republican establishment is back in, complete with the usual corporate hacks and think tanks.  And if you think these “conservatives” are going to start embracing the working classes and helping them financially with higher wages and better job prospects, I have a Chris Christie bridge for you that’s named after our first president.

These events are hardly surprising.  Trump is a con man.  For him, “the art of the deal” is basically the art of the con.  Consider his promise of bringing back American jobs.  How is that supposed to happen?  Simply through higher tariffs against foreign goods?  Who’s going to replace those with American-made goods at an affordable price to the working classes?

Here’s an example.  I got dressed this morning with no thought about using my clothes as an illustration for this article.  My jeans are made in Mexico (of fabric from the USA, so why weren’t they made here?).  My shirt is from Thailand.  My leather belt is from China, and so too are my shoes.  We all know why.  Labor costs in those countries are much cheaper than those in the USA.  Profits to corporations are thus much higher.  How is Trump going to change this dynamic?

I actually try to buy clothes that are made in America.  I got a nice pair of shoes that are made in Maine.  I got them on sale for a great price, but they retail for over $300.  If they were made in China, they’d probably retail for about $100.  How many members of the working classes are able to spend roughly triple the price for the privilege of wearing shoes and clothes “Made in the USA”?

Here’s one thing Trump could do: Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour so that Americans can afford the up-charge for domestic goods.  Any chance that Trump’s regime is going to do this?

It’s great to talk about bringing back American manufacturing jobs that pay well.  It’s possible to raise barriers to foreign trade to make American goods more competitive.  But who’s going to build the new factories?  And where are the skilled workers with the requisite knowledge base?  With the right advanced tools and technologies?

Speaking of technology, there’s an ever greater push in America to automate everything, even long-haul driving jobs, a job that provides a decent living for many Americans.  Is Trump going to reverse this push?  Is he going to preserve American blue-collar jobs against the pressure applied by multinational corporations to cut costs and maximize profits, workers be damned?  Given Trump’s own record of using cheaper foreign labor and goods, this doesn’t seem bloody likely.

Believe me, I hope I’m wrong, but the early signs are that America’s working classes, along with a lot of Trump enthusiasts, are already getting conned.