Brace for the Storm
7 min read
I was and proudly remain what the Navy calls a plank owner—a member of the first crew of a new vessel—of the good ship National Security Never Trump. I see no reason to unsay anything I have said about Donald Trump’s character or the risks he poses to the United States, but I also do not see any reason to restate those claims. Either you already believe those things or you have, for whatever reason, chosen to ignore them.
The issue now is what to expect from a second Trump presidency, how to judge it, and what to do. Having studied a lot of military history and visited a few war zones, I learned long ago that hysteria is unhelpful; catastrophism gets in the way of diagnosis. In this case, it distracts from understanding how we got here, beginning with the ways in which elites disregarded the woes of those who found themselves whipsawed by inflation. And it risks obscuring the extent to which the culture wars of the past decade or so have bred a furious reaction against identity politics, thought policing, and the suppression of widely held beliefs
Going forward, we should judge the Trump administration by what it does, and by who fills its senior positions. There was a 48-hour window of mild optimism when Trump named Michael Waltz as his national security adviser, Marco Rubio as secretary of state, and Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador. All three are experienced politicians, all are sane, and—although reliably Trump-deferential and hence flexible of spine—all are internationalists.
And then came the triple whammy of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, and Matthew Gaetz as attorney general. Hegseth is an angry former major of the Army National Guard who has never run a substantial organization but has loud and extreme views, including on the need for the American military to shake loose the law of war and the importance of firing the cerebral and highly competent chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C. Q. Brown. Gabbard, who has proved sympathetic to Syria’s Assad family and to Vladimir Putin, is a failed Hawaii politician. Gaetz, a man recently under federal investigation for alleged sex crimes, would take over the department that was investigating him. (He denies the claims, and no charges were ever filed.) None is remotely qualified to hold the jobs for which they’ve been nominated, three of the most important national-security positions in the country. Indeed, in a normal administration, they would be considered national-security risks.
This augurs ill, and not only for the individuals and groups against which Trump has sworn vendettas. The nominations risk producing an incoherent and irresponsible foreign policy and, in the case of Hegseth, the politicization of the U.S. military through a series of purges conducted outside normal procedures. We may well see the demoralization and corruption of the officer corps, major compromises of intelligence sources and methods, and a hijacking of the Department of Justice to pursue domestic opponents while shielding foreign enemies.
Not all of this is certain. In most administrations, one or two nominations for senior positions crater—and that may happen here as news organizations and Democratic staffs dig up material on, for example, nominees’ serial adulteries, misuse of funds, or association with America’s enemies.
Some of the really bad appointments will, however, surely go through a Senate that seems to lack the fortitude to enforce its constitutional role. What then awaits is a series of crises. Even with the mass firing of civil servants implied by the proposed Schedule F, bureaucratic processes will slow things down—they always do. Plenty of federal judges appointed by Trump have shown themselves willing to oppose him. Plenty of bureaucrats, seemingly neutral or even pro-Trump, will practice the dark arts of the slow roll or vindictive obedience. The appearance of normality in the early staffing of an administration will give way to reports of infighting, backstabbing, and sabotage by key members of the court of a cruel, unstable, and aged king.
As in Trump’s first administration, some of the new choices look whimsical, based chiefly on looks and extravagant truckling on Fox News. Even those who are most insouciant about how fundamentally unprepared they are for high office will sooner or later face the weight of real responsibility. Meanwhile, some of the administration’s larger policies will cause their own chaos, creating second- and third-order effects that will consume these appointees.
Mass deportations, possibly with the assistance of the military? That will have an effect on businesses, particularly in construction and services, and yield lots of ugly scenes that many Americans will dislike. Firing tens of thousands of experienced bureaucrats? That will have an impact on all kinds of government functions that Americans have come to rely on. Purging the ranks of the general officer corps, beginning with the second-ever Black chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and kicking women out of combat roles? Even some Trump supporters will be appalled.
Before long as well, the poisonous politics of succession will set in. J. D. Vance may think of himself as Trump’s heir apparent. One guesses that Donald Trump Jr. has concluded that the presidency is the family business. Elon Musk may get ideas about changing the Constitution to let him run. The knives will come out and the rest of the government will feel the damage.
Four years is several eternities in politics but a relatively short period in an individual’s career. Sooner or later Trump’s subordinates—climbers, timid and agonized normies, and lickspittles as the case may be—will think about life after Trump. For some, an uneasy awareness of accountability will set in, and a sense of consequences to be feared in politics, courts, or careers. Some will be tempered; others will get wilder and crazier.
Given the evidence of Trump’s picks—unless they are knocked out by a Senate Republican Party that recovers its backbone—this second term will be off to an ugly start. Indeed, if the last year of the first Trump administration was its most dangerous, as Trump and his subordinates learned how the government operates, the first year of the second administration may be equally so as the initial exuberance and vindictiveness of the new administration begin to run into realities, not least of which will be major international crises.
That is the really big difference between now and 2016: Trump faces a much more dangerous global environment, facilitated by the Biden administration’s inconstancy and self-absorption. The gods of war are out and about in Ukraine and the Middle East, and they will be charmed by the chaos of MAGA and “America First.”
So what am I, a Never Trumper older if not necessarily wiser, reluctantly embarked on my second storm voyage to do? I plan to begin, in the name of honesty, by insisting on judging the administration action by action, appointment by appointment. And some of these may not be bad. If Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk can find a way to break through the Navy’s shipbuilding crisis, more power to them. If Elise Stefanik offers a full-throated defense of America in the UN and gives China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea tongue lashings, I will cheer. If universities have to rethink the way in which they have allowed an oppressive ideological monoculture to dominate their administrations, so much the better. If America confronts with action the reality that Iranian malevolence will soon lead to nuclear proliferation throughout the Middle East and beyond, I will be delighted.
Politicians of good sense have their work cut out for them to restore sane and decent government through victories at the ballot box after cleaning out their own houses. Officials and soldiers will have to confront the ethical dilemmas before them squarely, accepting dismissal rather than doing things that are illegal or so profoundly immoral that public service is impossible. Lawyers and judges will have to fight for the rule of law and to protect unjustly persecuted individuals. What is needed now is not a vague, self-indulgent, and pointless resistance but rather an array of far more focused and purposive actions.
All politics, and particularly Trumpian politics, involves large doses of fantasy. But as we all discover sooner or later, between our wishes, our hopes, and our fears on the one hand and reality on the other, reality always wins. The job of an intellectual thinking about policy remains as it has ever been: to describe reality, to analyze the consequences of actions, and to call attention to them. I cannot do more than that, but I intend not to do less.
