Washington Post: Donald Trump as the military’s ‘enemy from within’

| October 31, 2024 | 42 Comments

Washington Post’s max Boot penned an opinion piece arguing that for the military, Donald Trump might be the “enemy within”. Although Boot recognizes that the world has become a dangerous place, he dismisses the idea that the risk of World War III has increased. Acknowledging the risks of a great power conflict, Boot argues that we need a calm, steady, leader as a president. Boot also claims that things would actually get worse if Donald Trump wins next week.

From The Washington Post:

Trump is a chaos candidate, and we already have far too much chaos in the world. If Trump were to win next week, he is likely to do great damage to the U.S. military just when it is needed more than ever to protect the United States and its allies from looming threats abroad.

Trump keeps threatening military action against his political opponents — “the enemy from within,” he calls them. Trump’s former homeland security secretary and White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, told the New York Times this month that we need to take such warnings very seriously, because the former president fits the definition of a “fascist” and “prefers the dictator approach to government.” Trump, indeed, already tried to deploy the U.S. military against protesters in Washington in 2020; according to Trump defense secretary Mark T. Esper, the president demanded that troops “shoot them in the legs or something.” The opposition of Esper and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Gen. Mark A. Milley, averted potential bloodshed.

But it is unlikely that, in a second term, Trump would appoint anyone to a senior position who would constrain his authoritarian instincts. One of the names being mentioned as a potential defense secretary for Trump is Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who during the George Floyd demonstrations in 2020 wrote an infamous commentary for the New York Times headlined, “Tom Cotton: Send in the Troops,” about stopping looting and violence.

A reelected Trump would be likely to staff his Defense Department with appointees even more radical than Cotton. Candidates might include individuals such as Kash Patel, a MAGA fanatic who was made chief of staff to the defense secretary in the waning days of Trump’s first term, and Anthony J. Tata, who was made a senior adviser to the defense secretary notwithstanding his long history of bigoted and conspiratorial comments (which convinced even a Republican Senate to block his nomination as undersecretary of defense). Trump has even said he would bring back retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, his disgraced former national security adviser, who has become a spouter of QAnon conspiracy theories.

Additional Reading:

Boot, M. (2024, October 30). For the U.S. military, the ‘enemy from within’ might be Trump himself. The Washington Post. Link.

Category: 2024 Election, International Affairs, Media, Military issues

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

42 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
SFC D

They really don’t understand how the military works, do they…

Anonymous

Nope. Max Boot drunk the “woke” Kool Aid hoping to get ahead with progressives, too. They won’t accept him like he thinks.
comment image

Last edited 7 days ago by Anonymous
President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Forget about “face the wall”. Just shoot!

Green Thumb

Not really.

Boot is a clown. He should get the boot.

Anonymous

Are you now or have you ever been a Trump supporter or, at least, patriotic and didn’t sign-up for the DEI and Free Sh*t, comrade?
comment image

5JC

Democratic leadership got us the Ukraine invasion, the catastrophe in Afghanistan and the War in Israel. We need more Churchill and less Chamberlain/ Baldwin.

It was no accident that Russians began execution of their invasion plan the day after the Big Guy took office.

Not sure who will write the history book about the Democrats supporting both sides of the War in Israel but I hope history judges them accordingly. Blood is on their hands, deep red blood.

Last edited 7 days ago by 5JC
Odie

Had Russia just kicked in the required 10%, none of this would have happened 😏

rgr769

Yeah, Ukraine apparently kicked their share to the Big Guy.

Blaster

Nope, WE (the taxpayers) did!!!

Tallywhagger

The greatest threat to the US is a renegade congress and derelict senate, scoundrels worse than Islam.

Term limits, puke the heathen out at regular intervals and make it possible for Americans to run for office without having to be owned by political party systems.

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Max Boot needs to be given the max boot up his max booty.

Skivvy Stacker

I was going to try to respond to this, but realized I’d have to write a novel. So instead I’ll just say of Mr Boot; what a maroon.

President Elect Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH Neande

Trump is a chaos candidate, and we already have far too much chaos in the world.”
Well, ya got the first part right, but for the wrong reason.
He’s going to create chaos by upsetting your little power mad chaotic apple (shit) cart.

Wrench Turner

You might have to talk to an engineer or a physics professor to get the details right, but I vaguely remember a college class discussion about a damping function. Apply an out of phase force opposite to the disturbing force and bring the system back into equilibrium.

Democrats = Disturbing Chaos
Trump = Damping Chaos

y(t)=Ae^-lt cos(wt-p)
whatever that means

Prior Service (Ret)

Max “Tard” Boot: purveyor of stupidity since forever. Probably a “perveyor” (sic), too.

HT3

Max Boot? I didn’t realize he rebranded himself…
Someone needs to remind this Democratic boot-licker all the wars Trump caused like…no, wait…what about…no that wasn’t it… hmm, none.
The worm is turning, and the new DJT Administration won’t make the mistakes on personnel like before. Absolutely NO Bush-era swamp rats. I’d second Tulsi as Sec. of Army maybe even SECDEF.

Max-Headroom
KoB

Do these brain dead idjits even read what they type before they post it? Have they not paid attention to what the despotic tyrants in office for the last 4 years have done…and are continuing to do. Ever.damn.thing. that they are proclaiming that Trump will do, they, themselves, have been doing.

Sorry, not sorry…I’ve already “voted” for The Bad Orange Man Felon. Will my “vote” count? It should, locally. Will it be enough to overcome the (s)election count in The ATL? Prolly not.

Not matter which way the (s)election goes, I do hope that everyone has done all that they can do to…Prepare

Green Thumb

Lloyd Austin forever!

Roh-Dog

If you can’t trust a former board member of Raytheon, who TF can you trust?

Certainly not Flynn, who {checks notes} was charged with being honest to honorable men.

5JC

Won’t happen this time if Trump gets through all the cheating to win. He isn’t taking the money from the fed for his transition team so that way he can simply proclaim whoever he wants after he is sworn in. It’s genius really because it will have the side effect of driving the left wing media insane.

Last edited 7 days ago by 5JC
Odie

Wasn’t money from the feds started during Obama administration, and only affected 2 presidents, Trump and biden? They try to make it sound like he is the first president to not follow this practice.

5JC

The Federal Presidential Transition Act became law in 1963.

Odie

Here is what I was referring to. Sorry for any confusion.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/10/25/top-democrat-on-house-
oversight-committee-jamie-raskin-is-furious-president-trump-will-not-repeat-2016-transition-mistakes-in-trusting-government/

Odie

Sundance explains it well, and you are correct. The left will go absolutely batshit crazy.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/10/28/trump-staffing-2025/#more-265375

ChipNASA

We need to enema the entire beltway and many other areas and I’m being kind.

pepe-election-map
Roh-Dog

Strip out those subsidized assholes in major cities and that map is all frog, from amber waves of grain to purple f’ing mountain majesties.

Hack Stone

Tom Cotton spouting the radical view of stopping the destruction of cities. You can’t get any more extreme than that. We need the calm cool hand of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, who knew how to handle the mostly peaceful riots, by letting the cities burn to ground and then post their bail.

5JC

Don’t forget to request billions in federal money to build back better, stuff like a brand new apartment building that hasn’t had time to be lived in.

SgtM

Who was the President that did not have anyone killed for 18 months? Who was the president that had 13 Americans and hundreds of Afgani citizens killed in one strike? I think I will take the guy who had the cease fire going on.

MarineDad61

Check out who Boot is married to.
Indicted and arrested July 2024.

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/4834409-sue-mi-terry-indictment-foreign-agents/

5JC

Sue me, I never would have figured.

Anonymous

Plus something like this, probably:
comment image

Sapper3307

Yup

464441851_122120605988505242_2747009585857195858_n
Anonymous

comment image

jeff LPH 3 63-66

Give boot the boot

AW1 Rod

Max Boot gargles with bourbon, apparently.

Fyrfighter

I don’t think that’s Bourbon…More like the same stuff Kamel-toe uses..

Forest Bondurant

Well, Max is a naturalized citizen from Russia and a UC Berkeley alum, so that explains why he’s an elitist moron.

rgr769

The military’s true enemy from within works in that five sided puzzle palace. I see it is now going after one of the few combat savvy generals who is worth a shit. General Kurilla. I watched a video of him as an LTC going after the bad guys in Iraq after several of his soldiers were seriously wounded in taking a house. Kurilla himself was wounded along with his CSM. Michael Yon shot the video.

5JC

Distractions. The jobs report for October was a complete disaster. Normally seasonal hires pick up in October but there were only 12k new jobs. That is like less than a day’s worth of border jumpers. It’s the worst since the world economy was shut down in 2020.

https://nypost.com/2024/11/01/us-news/2024-presidential-election-live-updates-11-1-2-24/

Last edited 6 days ago by 5JC
26Limabeans

I’m seeing almost as many “we’re hiring” signs along the roads
and intersection islands as political campaign signs lately.
Lots of recruiting for ARMY, DOT and USPS.

5JC

I bet they are hiring. But at what rate? Due to them trying to turn Fry Cook at McDonald’s into a career field that new guy make $16/ hr minimum. Which with current inflation makes that the new $8/hr. Unsurprisingly wages normally paid to high school students aren’t enough to pay a house note or even rent in a shitty apartment these days.