He fired qualified military leaders and hired lesser men who are loyal to him. If you’re wondering where all of this is going: Prepare for autocracy.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Brown Jr. listens to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth answer reporters’ questions on February 5, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia.(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
In his last term, Donald Trump elevated a military leader with a macho, borderline-sadistic nickname: He made four-star Marine Gen. Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis his defense secretary. But Mattis, who was supremely qualified for the job, hated the nickname, and ultimately hated working with the lawbreaking Trump, and resigned.
Now Trump has chosen retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin’” Caine to head the joint chiefs of staff. “Razin’” Caine’s only qualification is that he is white. Also, he has embraced his nickname.
According to the Associated Press, he was “most recently the associate director for military affairs at the CIA.” Though since then he’s worked for crypto-affiliated hedge funds, which Trump adores. The AP continues: “[Caine] has not had key assignments identified in law as prerequisites for the job, including serving as either the vice chairman, a combatant commander or a service chief.” Put another way, Caine is way underqualified.
Perfect!
The Friday night massacre of top military leaders, including the second Black man (after Colin Powell) to run the Joint Chiefs, four-star Air Force fighter pilot Gen. Charles Q. Brown, and the first female Navy Secretary, Lisa Franchetti, after already firing Coast Guard Chief Linda Fagan, is said to be wrenching out “DEI.” In reality, it is wrenching out hard-won competence.
The sex-abusing drunkard who took over defense had written and spoken about his disdain for Brown earlier: “First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” he said in a podcast last year. In one of his books, he asked whether Brown got the job because he was Black.
“Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt—which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” Hegseth wrote.
Joint Chief chairs normally remain in place as administrations change. Not this administration.
I’m not a fangirl of the military. I don’t look to them as our guarantor of freedom. I am a left-wing journalist, after all. But let’s accept: These are some of the best. And Trump will replace them with some of the worst. Just like he chose Hegseth.
Hegseth also fired the chief judges (JAGs) adjudicating misconduct in the Navy, Army, and Air Force. That’s never been done before, either. Lest that seem like a minor bureaucratic move, they’re the ones who weigh in when military officers or personnel break US laws or rules of engagement. As Senator Jack Reed said, “firing the military’s most senior legal advisers is an unprecedented and explicit move to install officers who will yield to the president’s interpretation of the law, with the expectation they will be little more than yes men on the most consequential questions of military law.”
But Hegseth answered, “Ultimately, we want lawyers who give sound constitutional advice and don’t exist to attempt to be roadblocks to anything that happens.”
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Of course, Hegseth isn’t noting (nor is Trump) that Trump nominated Brown to be the Air Force’s chief of staff. He hailed his own decision to appoint the “first-ever African American military service chief,” and called the general “a Patriot and Great Leader.”
That was then.
If you’re wondering where we’re going, obviously all the layoffs in all the agencies are bad. And all the pushback is wonderful.
But these firings are the actual worst. If you had doubts that the Trump team is preparing for autocracy, please don’t anymore. Please prepare accordingly. This is very scary.
Joan WalshTwitterJoan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her most recent book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.