The Dems’ Secret Weapon: Growing Alarm Over the Military

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The main reason, possibly the only reason, Republicans won in 2024 and have managed to hang on is that they mastered the political art of conjuring Godzilla from the shadow of a gecko — convincing the country it was under attack, mostly from within. 

The party and its right-wing media machinery, working as one and often engaging in projection, turned statistically irrelevant or massively overblown “crises” into a “look how crazy things are” campaign. Voter fraud; immigration; trans people; “wokeness”: ginned up and repeated endlessly until they feel like reality. 

Flash forward to today. The tables have turned — and clearly this “look how crazy” lane is now the Democrats’ to own. However, this time, the crazy is real: exploding legislative profiteering, presidential corruption without precedent (or as Donald Trump has said, of his other accomplishments, “like no one’s ever seen before”); a rapidly burning planet; deliberately killing regulation of artificial intelligence and crypto; a costly and failed US-initiated war seemingly inspired by an allied foreign government.

The opportunities to get Americans to focus on all of this are legion. But there is almost no time left to turn these into a public conversation. 

Today, I’d like to talk about one of these: the Republican perennial of a strong defense, and Trump’s position that he and the party represented a promise of “no more wars.” 

Not only are there more wars, but the wars are clearly unnecessary, taxing this country in every possible way, and constantly exposing it to new dangers. If this continues, the US will not have sufficient nonnuclear weapons for adequate real defense. 

How’s that for crazy, especially with the nuclear button lurking within an increasingly unstable president’s easy reach?

Also, before we know it, the US may reinstate the draft. Trump has already set the stage. There’s a proposal to automatically register for the draft men between the ages of 18 and 25. Congress previously approved the change to automatic registration in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2026, which was signed into law by Trump in December. (For more detail, go here.)

And just now we’ve learned that the military’s top brass — including heads of the service branches and four-star commanders — internally warned in mid-August that continuing hostilities with Iran pose grave risks to US overall defenses and needs elsewhere. Though they agreed to follow their orders, they essentially protested against being told to keep tens of thousands of troops on point in the region — also some of them into 2027. In short, frustration and deep concern permeate the top ranks. 

The Contagion of Incompetence

This is all about Trump, his mental instability, the desperate needs of his monumental ego — and the kinds of people he has unleashed, and the general chaos he represents, as well as the passivity with which the GOP has accepted it all. 

But for the average person, something granular and more “tactile” may be easier to grasp, like the reign of Trump’s choice for the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth. 

While making war a certainty, Secretary of Defense (“War”!) Hegseth, like his boss Trump, has paradoxically and assiduously weakened the United States and bolstered the most insidious natural foes of world peace, like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. 

Hegseth has gotten rid of the most capable and honest military leaders. Many of those Hegseth has fired have rare expertise that is crucial for the protection of our soldiers and the nation itself.

Fired: People with special know-how for dealing with drones — increasingly the basis for modern warfare. 

Fired: People with deep understanding of foreign cultures and fluent in foreign languages — so essential to intelligence and all aspects of operating internationally. 

Fired: For being the wrong color, wrong gender, wrong political persuasion, or for following rules, insisting on standards, or otherwise having too many principles. Or all of them at once.

We now know why he fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George: George would not stop investigating why two $20-million-plus Apache attack helicopters, costing roughly $4,300 an hour to fly, buzzed No Kings protesters at dangerously low altitude to intimidate them, before showboating over Kid Rock’s mansion. 

The Army briefly suspended the pilots. Kid Rock said they’d be “alright” because “my buddy’s commander in chief.” Hegseth agreed: “No punishment. No investigation. Carry on, patriots.” 

Why does a washed-up ’90s white-power pop act who never served have a direct line to the fate of military pilots? If, outside of the GOP Looney Tunes universe, a soldier took a military tank away from its authorized mission, drove it through a crowd of MAGAs to intimidate them, then drove it to a celebrity’s mansion to show off, they’d go straight to Leavenworth. No question. 

George was reportedly advised to drop the investigation shortly before Hegseth fired him.

The Army’s No. 2 officer, now acting Chief of Staff Gen. Chris LaNeve, was more than willing to be Hegseth’s toady and drop the probe. 

***

Hegseth is not only arrogant, reckless, and totally without scruples; he is also dangerously incompetent. For example, he ignored explicit intelligence warnings and sent soldiers to an extremely vulnerable location in Kuwait, a place with only vertical concrete barriers, no overhead protection, and lacking aerial systems that intercept Iranian drones. 

On March 1, just before an attack, an incoming missile alarm went off, and soldiers took shelter. But, inexplicably, “leadership” urged for an “all-clear” signal, bringing troops back out into exposed areas — where they were hit by a drone. Six men were killed and over 20 were wounded. A preventable tragedy.

In a widely publicized incident, surely noted by America’s adversaries, Hegseth used an insecure civilian social media application, Signal, to communicate top secret detailed war plans — including dangerously sensitive information on exact times, places, and weapons. Among the people on that phone call was his wife, former Fox News producer Jennifer Rauchet Hegseth.

Pete brings Jennifer — a person with no security clearance — to meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive issues are discussed. According to The New York Times, she is his “most influential adviser and his de facto producer at the Pentagon. She has prepped him for appearances, sat in on his meetings with journalists, interviewed potential members of his staff, and brainstormed ideas for the Defense Department videos he — and sometimes she — appears in.” 

A Pentagon spokesperson said the Defense Department “not only welcomes her current leadership but actively plans to involve her even more deeply in the future.” Good to know.

Hegseth dropped the Army’s flu vaccine mandate, leading to a major outbreak. Nearly 300 (figures vary) soldiers became ill, some gravely so, requiring hospitalization. Later, when it finally dawned on Hegseth that maybe flu vaccines were a good thing, he restored the mandate. A preventable fiasco.

(Another decision of his on the readiness of soldiers was comically absurd, as we showed recently in this story.)

There’s no end to his cartoon imbecilities. He deflects questions, gives foggy answers, and frequently lies outright. He banned the press from the Pentagon, harassed Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) for speaking the truth about soldiers’ responsibility not to follow illegal orders, holds monthly worship services during business hours at the Pentagon… 

And now he reportedly is planning to re-summon the generals and admirals to Quantico for a reprise of last year’s dressing down while they all sat stone-faced in respectful disbelief. On and on it goes.

Related: Open Letter to the Generals and Admirals Assembled at Quantico

Getting Involved in Partisan Politics

The last one to flit across my radar just as I was thinking about this was Hegseth’s decision to throw himself into partisan politics. 

In May, he promoted a GOP congressional challenger in Kentucky — helping to defeat the Epstein-probing Rep. Thomas Massie (R), who frequently clashed with Trump, and who truly represents the “no wars” wing of the GOP.  

In August, he stumped for Trump loyalist Rep. Zach Nunn in Iowa. After telling the crowd, “We’re restoring the warrior ethos inside our department because that matters. … We need guys like this man right here having our back in Congress.” He then added, snarkily,  “According to the lawyers, I’m only here in a personal capacity today, as a veteran and a patriotic American.”

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYzfEPbg4TA

This is not some small matter, and deserves much more attention.  

That was always verboten for defense secretaries. Nobody did it. And with good reason. 

Because once the military enters politics, it loses any legitimacy. Worse, it signals that the military can be drawn even deeper into politics — a precursor to Third World–style instability. That is a road no democracy should travel. 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower clearly understood this. And even Gen. George S. Patton — famously headstrong, belligerent, and prone to insubordination — comprehended the axiom: The military has no business meddling in politics.

Some would say an issue like this is too “esoteric” for the average voter worried about gas prices. Perhaps. But imagine an ad showing soldiers involved in elections abroad, violently enforcing the will of a governing clique (such as what happened in El Salvador), followed by retired American military leaders, including former secretaries of defense, explaining to the camera why staying out of politics was never optional for the military. 

In the present climate, it might be tough to get platforms to run such ads. People are already being put on terror-watch lists simply for critical posts on social media. So anyone making these ads could reasonably wonder whether they would be detained. But assuming some platforms would accept them, further ads could drive home just how dangerous Hegseth is. 

And there’s more. According to “officials familiar with Hegseth’s thinking,” Hegseth is actually pondering running for president himself. 

To be sure, some Americans will vote for an unhinged candidate in service of a cocktail of fear, resentment, and misunderstanding of basics. This we know from recent experience. 

But most Americans don’t approve of individual crazy acts and trends that feel alarming. Putting the military into politics in any way, shape, or form, whether it’s endorsing candidates or intimidating voters at the polls — that’s fortunately still a nonstarter for most folks. 

But do they know that’s what’s already happening? 

Dems and the media need to hammer home what this administration is costing us: Another endless war — and the ability to fight it:

Loss of critical expertise.

Loss of billions of dollars worth of equipment.

Loss of our most important allies.

Loss of credibility — a resource that, once squandered, is hard to replenish. 

Loss of lives.

These are not abstract costs. They weaken America’s ability to defend itself, lead its allies, deter its adversaries, and function as a nation.