Among those being mentioned for Trump’s secretary of defense are Christopher Miller, who served temporarily during his administration, Michael Flynn and Mike Pompeo.
Donald Trump is sparking fears among those who understand the inner workings of the Pentagon that he would convert the nonpartisan U.S. military into the muscular arm of his political agenda as he makes comments about dictatorship and devalues the checks and balances that underpin the nation’s two-century-old democracy.
A circle of appointees independent of Trump’s political operation steered him away from ideas that would have pushed the limits of presidential power in his last term, according to books they’ve written and testimony given to Congress. Most were gone by the end. In a new term, many former officials worry that Trump would instead surround himself with loyalists unwilling to say no.
Trump has raised fresh questions about his intentions if he regains power by putting forward a legal theory that a president would be free to do nearly anything with impunity — including assassinate political rivals — so long as Congress can’t muster the votes to impeach him and throw him out of office.
In the end, we American Exceptionalism’d our way into collapse, disrepute, poverty, strife and very possibly the end of everything we thought made America Exceptional.
Fitting, ironic, horrifying.
The right is busy being very dumb, angry and violent.
The elder liberals are barely now realizing how badly they fucked up, but are unable to conceive of anything that could possibly effectively change this course, because of reasons that boil down to things that make them slightly uncomfortable or may mean they will have to live slightly less wealthy lives.
The younger liberals and leftists are so poor and broke so often that when they do have some money, they drown their depression and neuroses in escapist media and fandom contests, and when they get tired of that or cant afford it, they bicker amongst themselves in ways that are ultimately also barely ever productive at making things better.
Though some meaningful progress has occured on some fronts, it is nearly certainly nowhere near enough to dam the coming tidal wave of a massive economic downturn for the masses, driven by corporate greed, decaying infrastructure, and the inescapable ramifications of climate change.
The few corporate chosen ones will, like Patrick Bateman, become masters of rhetoric amd feigning genuine care while actively becoming wealthy off of making everyone else more poor, and due to their inherently hyper competitive lifestyles they will become better amd better at this as the weaker, less adept ones fall off.
Shits gonna get real wild when living conditions collapse even further and oppression kicks into a higher gear.