Trump's war on American war fighters is a clear threat to national security
Efforts to transform the military into a MAGA army aren't just bigoted and immoral — they are also an attack on the country's ability to defend itself
This piece was previously published at The Hot Screen.
Donald Trump’s commemoration of fallen American soldiers on Memorial Day, via a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, should not distract us from his singular disparagement of the U.S. military and those who have served in the nation’s defense. In fact, Donald Trump’s relationship to the U.S. armed forces has been a deeply self-serving and seemingly paradoxical one. On the one hand, he has superficially sought to portray himself as a proponent of the military’s “lethality” and defender of its interests, while attempting to cloak himself in the glory of military power (including the military parade in Washington, D.C. planned, not coincidentally, to take place on his upcoming birthday). On the other, he has consistently attacked the sacrifices of service members, calling them “suckers” and “losers,” while working in ways that demonstrably weaken the armed forces.
At her Lucid blog, historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat persuasively makes the case that Trump’s long history of insulting military service is intimately tied to his bleak, self-serving authoritarianism. Writing of his attacks on those who have given their lives to defend the country, she includes this key observation:
The personal predilections and attitudes of Trump mirror those of authoritarians more generally, who see people as assets to exploit and plunder for their grandiose goals. Autocrats defile and ruin all ideals and values that could pose a threat to their power — professionalism, honor, and patriotism stand out here — and they denigrate those who embody those values in their professional and personal lives.
From this perspective, the military at its best stands as a repudiation of Trump’s world view; no wonder he can’t help voicing his incomprehension and contempt for those who would risk their lives for a cause larger than themselves. But as his second term unfolds, we can see that Trump’s vision for the military is more twisted than ever —rather than simply insult the military while wrapping himself in its glory, Donald Trump seems set on transforming the armed forces into an institution that reflects his own sordid values. In the first place, it is to be loyal to his person, not to the presidency or to the republic. Beyond this, the armed forces are to embody the same white supremacist and misogynistic MAGA world view that animates Trump’s predatory march through life. As a crucial initial step to this transformation, he appointed as Secretary of Defense an incompetent, drunkard Fox News host who would never question even the most extreme orders from the commander-in-chief, and who shares his perverted value system. In turn, not only is Pete Hegseth helping Trump purge the military of the key values of professionalism and patriotism in favor of loyalty to Trump — he’s also working to infect it with white nationalism and misogyny, in order to transform the military from an American army into a MAGA army.
There are arguably few priorities greater for preserving American security than condemning and stopping such anti-democratic subversion.
Trump and MAGA’s all-purpose excuse has been a supposed war on DEI — diversity, inclusion, and equity — in the military, which has allegedly weakened the armed forces to the point of dissolution. But even a cursory look at this MAGA jihad against “wokeness” reveals its true nature and purpose: an effort to purge the military of non-white, female, and non-straight service members in order to maximize its loyalty to Trump and MAGA’s reactionary agenda. Trump and Hegseth have not even bothered to hide their true premise: that the presence of women, minorities, and LGBTQ people in the military is itself inherently illegitimate, and evidence that they have been given preference over more-qualified white men (because white men are always understood to be superior to anyone else). The malevolent intent is out in the open, displayed perhaps most ostentatiously in attempts to erase the history of non-white, non-male service members — for instance, through the purging of on-line military archives celebrating the accomplishments of American heroes. Not only is this intrinsically hateful, it’s intended to justify the ongoing effort to make the military into a preserve of straight, white, MAGA-sympathetic men: if you can convince people that women, gays, and minorities have never served heroically, it’s all that much easier to convince Americans that they don’t deserve a place in the military in the present.
Almost as important in terms of purging the armed forces, such moves send a clear signal to non-white, non-male, non-straight Americans — including those serving or contemplating service — that there is no place for them in the military (this has been a key message of Trump’s firing of high-ranking African-American and female generals and admirals). The irony is blatant: under cover of reversing what MAGA terms illegitimate social engineering within the military’s ranks (but which in reality has simply been moves to ensure that the U.S. military draws on the talents of all qualified Americans), Trump is actually the one who’s engaged in such social engineering, in favor of an apartheid-style military that’s loyal to Trump and MAGA, not to the Constitution or the American people.
MAGA’s war on the military is in many ways no different from MAGA’s war on American democracy or American society more generally: it’s an effort to put white male Christians back on top, even as America evolves organically into a wondrously diverse society, a true shining city on a hill of which we should all be proud. But it’s also distinct in that MAGA clearly sees control over the military as the ultimate way to lord it over American society — by force and intimidation.
(It’s worth nothing here that with his history of drinking on the job, abuse of women, sympathy for white Christian nationalism, and inability to keep secrets safe, Defense Secretary Hegseth shatters the myth of inherent white male superiority in one crapulent package — a telegenic loser elevated to a position of high responsibility on the basis of his immorality and subservience to the MAGA cause. It is almost as if Trump and MAGA are telling us that even the worst white man is better than all other options — a grotesque and over-confident assertion if there ever was one).
An honest assessment based on actual concern for national security shows that the war on DEI is in fact an effort that will weaken, not strengthen, the national defense. Alienating all but a subset of the population from military service denies the nation full access to its vast talent pool, while inevitably favoring the elevation of less qualified individuals based on their gender, sexual orientation, and skin color (see: Pete Hegseth). Witness the expulsion of trans service members — for the sake of bigotry, the nation has lost the service of qualified personnel dedicated to defending the nation. Of course, this all makes more sense when you consider that Trump and MAGA view the military less as an instrument of national defense, and more of a mechanism for potential domestic repression. We also cannot discount the bad example (from MAGA’s point of view) the military provides of how diversity and inclusiveness are a strength, not a weakness —Hegseth’s bigoted assertions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Trump’s attack on the military has been given cover by the same conflicts and uncertainties that have allowed him and MAGA to eke out political victories over the last decade: the anxiety experienced by many Americans over a racially diversifying America and the roiling of traditional gender roles, and related fears of reduced social status and economic prospects. Those who are moved by such concerns about American society would find them persuasive when directed at our military.
Yet Trump’s efforts to subordinate the U.S. military to the MAGA cause have also been given a boost by a bipartisan abuse of the armed forces that now stretches past two decades. If as dishonorable a man as Trump can dare to proclaim himself a protector of the American military, it’s because Democrats as well as Republicans have in reality insulted the military over the last 25 years. By fetishizing service members’ very real sacrifices in order to retroactively provide a patina of legitimacy to the insane decisions to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq, too many mainstream politicians have ensured that Trump’s lies about supporting the military more than other leaders have a ring of truth. So while it’s necessary to challenge Trump’s agenda of sabotaging and suborning the U.S. armed forces, both politicos and the public need to challenge their own wrong-headed choices that have allowed the president to plausibly present the military as a victim in need of his self-serving rescue.
But there’s a big difference between being honest about how we got here, on the one hand, and offering Trump any benefit of the doubt, on the other. Even as they engage in necessary introspection, Democrats and other opponents of Donald Trump must not concede an inch to the president’s intent to transform the American armed forces into a bastion of bigotry and second-rate talent. Only a diverse U.S. military that appeals to recruits from across the U.S. population can maximize its collective strength. The notion that anyone in the military who is not straight, white, and male be treated with suspicion and derision should itself be subjected to the open contempt it deserves.