I've written elsewhere today about how Trump is dishonoring the military. Thing is, per his Ft Bragg sideshow he's sorting out the personnel who will or already have pledged loyalty to him personally from alla the rest who still hew to the code of conduct. That means there will be some ready to rumble at the moment of his choosing. Will they cheerfully gun down unarmed folks in the streets? Maybe not in Little Rock, but Manhattan...? San Francisco? LA? Oh hell yes.
I don’t know he’s doing that strategically. What I got from the “Fort Bragg” story (I’ll never use that name without scare quotes) is that he’s spreading fear: “You’d better not look bored or you might miss a promotion.” What’s important to him is the same as with the fat soldiers: how his birthday show works on camera.
It strikes me as really odd how Miller’s campaign has unrolled and unraveled. He didn’t need to meet his arbitrary quota for propaganda purposes, it’s simply one more thing to lie about. Trump does want fighting in the streets to justify showing his “strength” a core value for him. Was this deliberate or just Miller needing his fantasies be justified with numbers? In either case it makes sense to expect this to keep ramping up. Makes me almost respect Russell Vought’s low-key demolition of the federal government for its craftsmanship. Other than the laid-off numbers, no one seems to know what’s going on over there.
Miller is under the gun to beat Biden's numbers, but he's also just the most racist asshole of a person in the admin. So he's alternately freaked by the failures to bump numbers (not to mention totally giving up on the whole "dangerous demon illegals" part of it), and also thrilled to see individuals and communities he's personally responsible for devastating.
Point the B:
The reason no one knows much of what's going on in the federal offices is because the department heads are essentially mute and unavailable. So no one still employed knows what they are supposed to be doing, what policies to pursue, who to call for advice or to fix a paycheck problem, who they can hire for routine jobs, how/where the money will come from...
I'd go farther on the first point: Trump is serious about the numbers and Miller is happy to put that in his pep talk, but what Miller's always truly wanted is to get rid of all restrictions on who can be deported, legal and normative. On the second, the department heads are incompetent--Hegseth, McMahon, Lutnick, Navarro, Bondi, Patel--or as secretive as Vought himself. We don't know who's actually running them.
Could be, tho on #2 it seems to [the people I talk to] that even when the remaining workers have a chain of command the higher ups are simply not available anywhere anytime. They will not interact on any level. So could be incompetence or could be deliberate mind games to send staff over the edge…
I struggle to stay out of the Kremlinology trap. Is Trump leaning on Miller over this? No one else has the ability put Stephen Miller under the gun in this administration. Plausible, but requires Trump to pay attention to numbers. Maybe this is where they decide to go all sciencey and care about accurate numbers. Still a stretch.
But the alternative is worse. Miller is a Believer, and needs to see that fucking Line Go Up, and he does care about accurate numbers. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers after all. So he's driving this Immigration bus, and Trump is just happy for a chance to show how "strong" he is. Everyone will be happy until the massacre.
Paralysis is almost as good as devastation. Musk's Teenage Mutant Ninja DOGE get all the attention, but I still wonder what else is going on while everyone obsesses over the "riots", the Big Beautiful Blowjobs for Billionaires, and the Trump/Musk spat. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Vought, and he's not gonna waste it.
I've written elsewhere today about how Trump is dishonoring the military. Thing is, per his Ft Bragg sideshow he's sorting out the personnel who will or already have pledged loyalty to him personally from alla the rest who still hew to the code of conduct. That means there will be some ready to rumble at the moment of his choosing. Will they cheerfully gun down unarmed folks in the streets? Maybe not in Little Rock, but Manhattan...? San Francisco? LA? Oh hell yes.
I don’t know he’s doing that strategically. What I got from the “Fort Bragg” story (I’ll never use that name without scare quotes) is that he’s spreading fear: “You’d better not look bored or you might miss a promotion.” What’s important to him is the same as with the fat soldiers: how his birthday show works on camera.
It strikes me as really odd how Miller’s campaign has unrolled and unraveled. He didn’t need to meet his arbitrary quota for propaganda purposes, it’s simply one more thing to lie about. Trump does want fighting in the streets to justify showing his “strength” a core value for him. Was this deliberate or just Miller needing his fantasies be justified with numbers? In either case it makes sense to expect this to keep ramping up. Makes me almost respect Russell Vought’s low-key demolition of the federal government for its craftsmanship. Other than the laid-off numbers, no one seems to know what’s going on over there.
To the first point:
Miller is under the gun to beat Biden's numbers, but he's also just the most racist asshole of a person in the admin. So he's alternately freaked by the failures to bump numbers (not to mention totally giving up on the whole "dangerous demon illegals" part of it), and also thrilled to see individuals and communities he's personally responsible for devastating.
Point the B:
The reason no one knows much of what's going on in the federal offices is because the department heads are essentially mute and unavailable. So no one still employed knows what they are supposed to be doing, what policies to pursue, who to call for advice or to fix a paycheck problem, who they can hire for routine jobs, how/where the money will come from...
I'd go farther on the first point: Trump is serious about the numbers and Miller is happy to put that in his pep talk, but what Miller's always truly wanted is to get rid of all restrictions on who can be deported, legal and normative. On the second, the department heads are incompetent--Hegseth, McMahon, Lutnick, Navarro, Bondi, Patel--or as secretive as Vought himself. We don't know who's actually running them.
Could be, tho on #2 it seems to [the people I talk to] that even when the remaining workers have a chain of command the higher ups are simply not available anywhere anytime. They will not interact on any level. So could be incompetence or could be deliberate mind games to send staff over the edge…
I struggle to stay out of the Kremlinology trap. Is Trump leaning on Miller over this? No one else has the ability put Stephen Miller under the gun in this administration. Plausible, but requires Trump to pay attention to numbers. Maybe this is where they decide to go all sciencey and care about accurate numbers. Still a stretch.
But the alternative is worse. Miller is a Believer, and needs to see that fucking Line Go Up, and he does care about accurate numbers. The Nazis were meticulous record keepers after all. So he's driving this Immigration bus, and Trump is just happy for a chance to show how "strong" he is. Everyone will be happy until the massacre.
Paralysis is almost as good as devastation. Musk's Teenage Mutant Ninja DOGE get all the attention, but I still wonder what else is going on while everyone obsesses over the "riots", the Big Beautiful Blowjobs for Billionaires, and the Trump/Musk spat. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for Vought, and he's not gonna waste it.