Maybe it was just the weather. Hang in there. If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here. Is there such a thing as DEI for white men? Why not ask Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. By , he was commander of U. He filmed a surprisingly emotional video that he shared with the airmen he commanded in the Pacific. On Friday, Trump fired Brown just two years into his term as Joint Chiefs chairman and replaced him with a less qualified white man, Gen.
Dan Caine. The resume of Caine , a retired three-star general in the Air Force, is far less impressive than that of Brown, except for the one-line entry that matters most to the monarchically-minded 47th president: extreme loyalty to Trump. The new, whiter Pentagon is implementing policies to match, from banning new transgender troops to abruptly cancelling efforts to recruit talented young African Americans.
But we should understand that the most important early moves from Trump 47 β especially this unprecedented coup at the Pentagon β often serve a dual purpose: offering the red meat of white male privilege to his MAGA base, but also consolidating his power as an authoritarian strongman.
These judge advocates general, or JAGs, play a critical role in deciding what constitutes a lawful use of the military under the Constitution. Perhaps, but the biggest legal issues facing the Pentagon under Trump will almost certainly involve the use, or misuse, of the military on U. During his first term, a resolute Pentagon brass led by then Joint Chiefs chair Gen. Today, Trump has already begun to involve the military in what he claims will eventually become the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants β in costly flights of shackled detainees to Guantanamo Bay or foreign airstrips β with talk of even greater involvement as the operation expands.
During the campaign, Trump and his MAGA allies also threatened to call out the military to put down domestic protests , the kind of abuse that Milley held at bay in The more aggressive that Trump and his seeming co-president the unelected billionaire Elon Musk become in shattering the guardrails of American democracy, the more likely that angry citizens will take to the streets. The Friday Night Massacre ensures that no one at the Pentagon will stop Trump from sending out tanks, the kind of response he long ago admired in Tiananmen Square.
