trump's politicizing of the U.S. military is accelerating
Posted by Sia on November 3, 2025, 9:13 am ADMIN
Trump’s politicizing of the U.S. military is accelerating
Why are so many generals getting fired? Congress should summon them to find out.
By Max Boot, WaPo - November 3, 2025 at 7:00 a
There are too many scandals to count in the Trump administration, but one of the most significant isn’t getting the attention it deserves. I refer to efforts by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to politicize the armed forces and to turn them into instruments of their MAGA agenda.
Hegseth and Trump keep giving blatantly political speeches in front of military audiences, even though military regulations (upheld by the Supreme Court) forbid uniformed personnel from taking part in partisan activities. Just last week, speaking aboard the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in Japan, Trump repeatedly attacked his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. (Trump falsely said that Biden had claimed to be a pilot and added, “He wasn’t a pilot. Wasn’t much of a president either.”)
A month earlier, speaking at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, Trump told the nation’s most senior generals (who sat stony-faced) that he intends to mobilize the military against “the enemy from within” and to use U.S. cities “as training grounds for our military.” In Japan last week, he threatened to “send more than the National Guard” to U.S. cities. Trump boasted: “I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, I can send anybody I wanted.”
Trump has already deployed Marines as well as the National Guard to Los Angeles, while ordering the National Guard to Washington, Chicago, Portland and Memphis. In several of these cases, he is federalizing the National Guard over the opposition of the state’s governor, the first time this has happened since 1965.
Federal judges keep ruling that Trump has exceeded his authority and provided false justifications for his deployments. For example, a Trump-appointed judge in Oregon held that the president’s claim that Portland was “war ravaged” was “simply untethered from the facts.” Yet Trump gives no indication of backing down: The Pentagon has now ordered the National Guard in every state to form “quick reaction forces” for “quelling civil disturbances.”
Meanwhile, U.S. armed forces have been carrying out a series of strikes (14 at last count) on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 61 people, and now the administration is considering striking land targets in Venezuela too. In essence, the president is executing suspected drug smugglers without benefit of trial. Asked if he would seek congressional authorization for his actions, Trump said probably not: “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”
The administration’s actions are “very likely illegal,” in the words of conservative legal scholar Ed Whelan. Human Rights Watch has labeled the boat strikes “extrajudicial killings.” That the administration has no firm legal basis for its actions became evident when two men survived one of the attacks. Rather than put these alleged “narco-terrorists” on trial, the administration released them to their home countries; one of them was immediately freed by Ecuador. So the administration has enough evidence to kill people but not enough to put them in prison?
While using force in disproportionate and alarming ways, the administration has been purging general officers who might stand in their way. Trump and Hegseth have fired more than a dozen senior officers without explanation, many of them women or minorities, beginning with the second Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. C.Q. Brown. Among those cashiered early on were the judge advocates general of the Army, Air Force and Navy, i.e., the officers whose job it is to ensure that the military complies with the law.
Two of the most troubling departures are the most recent: In mid-October, the Pentagon announced the sudden retirement of Adm. Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command. The Atlantic reported that Holsey had “raised concerns” about the boat strikes, leading to a “tense meeting” with Hegseth. Also last month, CNN reported that Lt. Gen. Joe McGee, the director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Joint Staff, had left after pushing back “on issues ranging from Russia and Ukraine to military operations in the Caribbean.”
The rate of strikes has roughly doubled since Holsey’s departure was announced. Evidently Hegseth has found more-compliant officers who will do Trump’s bidding even if, in the process, they risk a future court-martial.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a former army officer who is now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, raised the alarm last week about the administration’s actions. Trump, he said in a floor speech, “is attempting to politicize an institution that has remained steadfastly apolitical for nearly 250 years. He is disrespecting the professionalism and sacrifice of our servicemembers. And if we in Congress do not reject his actions — and soon — the damage could take generations to repair.”
Reed suggested a variety of steps Congress could take, including codifying “prohibitions on political activities at military installations,” passing legislation to “require explanations and notifications for senior general and flag officer dismissals” and “requiring congressional approval for domestic military deployments except in genuine emergencies.”
Those are all good ideas, but the most immediate and important thing Congress can do is simply to call Holsey, McGee and other cashiered officers to testify under oath about their experience in the military since Trump took office. The American people deserve to hear about any concerns they might have. Unless, that is, the Republican majority on Capitol Hill can’t handle the truth about what the Trump administration is doing to the armed forces.
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Sia:This is beyond dangerous. It is also a planned operation to turn the military into being aligned with HIM instead of their duty to the constitution and the American people.
It MUST be stopped!
Felon is trying to get ahead of release of the Epstein Files
He knows what's in them, and what's coming. He hope his base is stupid and loyal enough to believe him when he says the photos are fake. You can look away from a painting, but you can't listen away from a symphony
At the rate these criminals are going, without any significant resistance, I don’t know that we can make it to a year from now to vote these traitors and crooks out before they corrupt and rig the voting system, too.
The high ranking (as well as other) members of the military MUST speak up, even at risk of losing their pensions or jobs. They can be reinstated later. Of course it puts many of them in a bad spot, especially since they are NOT supposed to be political… but these are not normal times. They HAVE to speak out what they are seeing and experiencing if we are going to have a country left for them to even defend. The news stations have to do the same. Otherwise we can kiss our sweet liberty, justice system and country good-bye. And, indeed, the entire world will be at risk with these criminals…drunk with power and no guardrails… at the helm of such military and weapon capabilities.
You were in the military, how do you think the rank and file see this behavior by trump trying
When I was in, I never saw the politicization that we see today. People didn’t have phones, computers or even watch TV that much. They just went about their business. Never did you see a president like this one, either, who constantly stoked the flames of division with the public and now within the rank and file of the military. It truly is like a cancer. And now with the threat of destroying people’s lives and livelihood if they do not capitulate, it’s hard to say what will happen. All too often, money seems to rule the day. Also, as a rule, military people are trained to follow orders without question. But we have never seen what we are seeing now, with all the firings without cause or justification, and the blatant military threats and now extrajudicial killings. So many “unprecedented” events, I’m afraid people are being conditioned to accept much of it as a new normal, simply because it’s impossible to keep up with, prioritize or even process all the lies and wrongs and dangers to our government, Constitution and way of life going forward.
Too many people seem to think “this too shall pass” and don’t even want to talk about what is going on. I’m afraid that it will be too late before people wake up, much like it was for the German people.
Exactly right!
Posted by greenman on November 4, 2025, 4:29 pm, in reply to "Also…." Valued Poster
Many don't want to talk about Trump, don't want to HEAR about Trump, or think that there's no difference between Dems and Trump.
This is foolishly wrong and DANGEROUS! RESIST!
I hope you are wrong, but I fear that you are not.
Posted by Sia on November 4, 2025, 11:38 am, in reply to "Also…." ADMIN
authority will surely affect many up and coming officers, which will make it that much easier to turn the military into his private force. Every dictator throughout history has used that playbook.
on November 3, 2025, 9:13 am
