What Trump is really trying to do

And what we must do

Friends,

What is occurring now in the United States has very little to do with making the government more “efficient,” or rooting out “incompetence," or “depoliticizing” parts of government that should be nonpartisan.

Nor is it motivated chiefly by Trump’s desire get rid of “D.E.I.” and “woke,” or “weaponize” law enforcement, or establish white Christian nationalism, or wreak vengeance on his enemies.

The real story is this.

In every part of the government that involves the use of force — the military, the investigation and prosecution of crimes, the authority to arrest, the capacity to hold individuals in jail — Trump is putting into power people who are more loyal to him than they are to the United States.

He has purged (or is in the process of purging) at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, the Inspectors General, and the FBI, anyone who is not personally loyal to him.

Trump is rapidly gaining a personal monopoly on the use of force. This is his most fundamental goal. This is the essence of tyranny.

On Friday, he fired Air Force General CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, as well as the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense, and National Security Council.

This was followed by the firings of Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.

Trump has also removed the military’s top judge advocates general. These are the senior military professionals whose job it is to interpret and enforce the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the rules that guide troops in the field. They have the independent legal authority to tell any military commander or political appointee that an order from the president or the secretary of defense is unlawful, cannot be given, and should not be obeyed. They, too, are now gone.

The media sees the firings as “part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.” This may be part of Trump’s motivation, but it is not the major driver. The firings are part of a campaign to purge the Defense Department of leaders who are not totally loyal to Trump.

For Brown’s replacement, Trump has nominated retired Air Force Lt. General John Dan “Razin” Caine — a career fighter jet pilot.

Caine has not served in any of the positions — Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command — that nominees are legally required to have held in order to be nominated. By law, a president may waive those requirements if he “determines such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Trump isn’t putting Caine in this pivotal position because of the national interest. He’s putting Caine there because of Caine’s unequivocal personal loyalty to Trump. Trump boasted to an audience at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference that Caine had told him, “I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.”

The same is occurring at the Justice Department, where Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal lawyer who’s now the chief enforcer there, is imposing a Trump loyalty test on prosecutors — demanding they comply with Trump’s demands, however unacceptable and incompatible with norms, or leave.

It’s no accident that Bove has targeted the Justice Department’s most powerful officials and divisions — shaking up the national security division, insisting that the FBI’s acting leadership turn over a list of agents who worked on the Capitol riot investigations, and targeting the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (the most prestigious U.S. attorney’s office in the country, known for guarding its independence).

Trump says he’s “depoliticizing” law enforcement in response to Biden’s supposed bow to partisan politics. But Biden’s actions had nothing to do with partisan politics. And, ironically, neither are Trump’s: His are about personal loyalty.

On Sunday night, Trump announced that MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino will be deputy director of the FBI, alongside newly installed chief Kash Patel. Bongino is a former cop, Secret Service agent, conspiracy theorist, and Fox News commentator who joined Trump’s MAGA world in the 2010s and now hosts a popular podcast.

The media sees this as another example of Trump embracing Fox News (Bongino is the 20th ex-Fox News host, journalist, or commentator to bag a senior job in the new Trump administration).

But that’s not it. Bongino’s most important attribute is the same as Patel’s — unswerving personal loyalty to Trump. As elsewhere, Trump is turning the FBI into an extension of his personal will.

Every tyrant throughout history has gained a personal monopoly on the use of force so he can impose his will on anyone, for any purpose. Tyrants achieve this by delegating power only to people personally loyal to them.

Trump is even testing the personal loyalty of federal judges.

“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” Trump recently posted on social media (a direct nod to Napoleon and other dictators), attached to a headline that his administration refuses to obey a district court order unfreezing billions of dollars in federal grants.

All this is happening just as Trump is effectively handing over large swaths of the world to Putin and Xi — the only world leaders he respects and understands, because they, too, are tyrants.

Yesterday, on the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and 14 other authoritarian Moscow-friendly countries against a U.N. resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for the return of Ukrainian territory. The resolution passed overwhelmingly nonetheless.

Why am I telling you this when you’re probably already feeling rage and despair over what’s happening? Because seeing the whole for what it truly is — rather than being upset by this or that part of it — is essential for fighting back.

We — the vast majority of people in the United States — do not want to live in a dictatorship. Yet we now have a president and a regime bent on an authoritarian takeover of America and on joining the other major authoritarians of the world.

As he tries to consolidate power, we must protect the institutions in our society still able to oppose Trump’s tyranny — independent centers of power that can stop or at least slow him. Not this Congress, tragically, but federal courts and judges. Many of our state governors and attorneys general, state legislatures, and state courts. Perhaps even our state and local police. Hopefully, our communities.

Ultimately this will come down to our own courage and resolve: To engage in peaceful civil disobedience. To organize and mobilize others. To fight against hate and bigotry. To fight for justice and democracy.

Remember this: Tyranny cannot prevail over people who refuse to succumb to it.