"Just because Donald Trump barks out an executive decree does not mean it is the law of the land"

 

The legacy media don’t get it. Just because Donald Trump barks out an executive decree does not mean it is the law of the land. When he insisted that the Defense Department would be renamed the Department of War, far too many headlines suggested that it was a done deal. The irresponsible, frankly unserious, billionaire-owned media calls this “rebranding,” as if a Cabinet agency is a cereal box.

The Defense Department is not a “brand,” and treating it as such insults the men and women who serve. In the real world, Trump does not get to name and rename entities established by law. In this case, the Department of Defense was created by statute in 1947 along with the CIA and the National Security Council. 

“The War Department and Navy Department merged into a single Department of Defense under the Secretary of Defense, who also directed the newly created Department of the Air Force.”

No wonder military personnel are flummoxed. Politico reported, “Many expressed frustration, anger and downright confusion at the effort, which could cost billions of dollars for a cosmetic change that would do little to tackle the military’s most pressing challenges — such as countering a more aggressive alliance of authoritarian nations.”

Trump would have the taxpayers shoulder the cost of relabeling “more than 700,000 facilities in 40 countries and all 50 states. … [including] everything from letterhead for six military branches and dozens more agencies down to embossed napkins in chow halls, embroidered jackets for Senate-confirmed officials and the keychains and tchotchkes in the Pentagon store.”

Instead of this nonsense, just one billion dollars could be used as follows:

• Permanently house all homeless veterans through rapid rehousing and supportive housing. (The National Alliance to End Homelessness put the total figure for an estimated 36,000 veterans experiencing homelessness at $442 million.)
• Pay for childcare for the 840,000 military families with children for more than half a year. (The Department of Defense spends $1.79 billion annually on child care.)
• Feed the 1.4 million food insecure veterans for two months.
• Cover almost half of one Navy Flight III destroyer ship.
• Pay for 11 F-15EX Eagle II fighter jets at $90 million each.
• Pay for about six National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems.
• Pay for healthcare for almost 68,000 veterans for a year.
• Cover the purchase and operation of 5 new intercontinental ballistic missile interceptors.
• Restore the $1 billion Trump stripped from Army barracks maintenance and renovations to pay for a surge at the Southern border.

Trump’s resort to window dressing in lieu of responsible policy making is appalling. As evidenced by him stuffing the Oval Office with tacky gold knickknacks and choosing Cabinet officials based on their appearance on his television screen, Trump obsesses over the superficial (e.g., banishing overweight servicemen from his sight). Incapable of addressing substance, he resorts to inconsequential decoration and cringeworthy marketing.

Military honor, code of conduct, and duty (the actual qualities foundational to military service) are foreign to the president who ducked military service for spontaneous “bone spurs.” Since he cannot comprehend service, then men and women who have sacrificed their lives seem to him like “losers” and “suckers.” He cannot grasp that what matters is in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Constitution, not what is on the Pentagon letterhead.

Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth’s (oops—is he out of a job, if the department he was confirmed to lead no longer exists?) insecurity is palpable. Inadequacy masquerading as hyper-manly infect every utterance and gesture. What they think is “warrior” talk comes across as little boys play acting. (What’s next—a gaudy faux-military get-up complete with epaulets?) They yearn to project toughness, but their silly antics (in addition to firing high-ranking women, transgender troops, and military lawyers) convey just how fragile their egos are.

Even more dangerous, Trump seems to believe that military toughness equates to unlawful brutality. Any commander in chief who respects our military would not order our armed forces to engage in extrajudicial killings on the high seas, which experts across the board have denounced as blatantly illegal actions that could subject anyone in the chain of command to domestic and/or international prosecution.

In trying to play tough-guy, Trump simultaneously endangers and demeans our military, while trivializing their mission. He can never comprehend what makes the military the greatest in the world (e.g., valor, self-sacrifice, discipline, honor), as these qualities are beyond his narcissistic imagination. Whether sending the proficient National Guard to D.C. to pick up garbage, or to serve as threatening props in Los Angeles, or to switch signage, Trump wants toy soldiers to play-act; not a disciplined fighting force tasked with the noble, awesome responsibility to defend the Constitution.

In an amici brief in the California case brought to stop Trump’s violations of posse comitatus, a distinguished group of retired military brass explained the harm to our troops when they are misused:

First, deploying military personnel in the context of domestic law enforcement diverts them from their primary mission, which is national security and disaster response, at the expense of local, state, and national safety.

Second, National Guard personnel and active-duty Marines are not trained or qualified to conduct domestic law enforcement operations, which poses a danger to the safety of both the troops and the public. Third, the use of federal military personnel in the context of law enforcement operations should be a last resort to avoid the politicization of the military, which inevitably erodes public trust, impacts recruitment, and undermines troop morale.

Trump cannot grasp any of this, nor can he understand the obligations we have to our current and former military personnel. If he cared one wit about them, Trump would not have fired hundreds of thousands of government workers (who are disproportionately former military), nor would he have slashed funding for the Veterans Administration, drummed out of service trans service personnel serving honorably, or tried to erase some of the most storied chapters in military history.

So, let’s dispense with the “rebranding” gibberish and explain what Trump is up to: trying to turn our armed forces into his cartoon version of a military. The Defense Department does not change its name because of the ravings of an unstable, unfit president with a juvenile understanding of military honor—and we must stop treating his play-acting as an exercise of legitimate authority.

Jennifer Rubin with additional research contributed by Senior Editor Jamie Riley. The Contrarian is reader-supported. To assist our work in the court of law and court of public opinion, join our community of good troublemakers as a free or paid subscriber.