What would 'his generals' do?
Troubling times in the world call for...anyone but Nazis...words from Gen. Kelly and "a tool of fascism."
When Donald Trump was first running for office back in 2015 and 2016, he crowed how “his generals” were so great. In September, 2016, the Trump campaign announced an open letter signed by 88 retired generals and admirals, endorsing him. Gen. Mike Flynn was a favorite of the campaign, and it looked like there’d be a warm relationship between Trump and the Pentagon.
By the end of 2018, Trump had soured on “his generals,” most of whom, he found out, attained such high rank through achievement, leadership, and respect. (Flynn is the outlier here; his peers and underlings, and his former boss, nearly universally hate him.)
This post is somewhat of a rant, and a rolling stream of thought about generals, dictators, and Trump. The election here is a race to the bottom, and as we always learn, in the race to the bottom, there is no bottom. But we’re trying, like Tolkien’s dwarves delving into the balrog’s mountain, to find it nonetheless.
The encore round of “Trump is the worst” is a regurgitation of something John Kelly had said before, a few years ago, after his stint serving as Trump’s right-hand man, first as Secretary of Homeland Security, then as Chief of Staff. Kelly minced no words, telling a New York Times reporter that Trump “falls into the general definition of ‘fascist’,” and “it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.”
Certain pundits have conveniently pointed out that practically every Republican on the ballot for president since President Harry Truman likened Gov. Thomas Dewey to Adolf Hitler, calling him a “front man” and a “fascist tool.” It’s nothing new for Democrats to trot out the Hitler references. I could spend many paragraphs citing them. But it’s quite a unique thing when a former close staffer of a former president who is now running once again for office claims not that their boss should be compared to Hitler, but actually spoke admiring words about Hitler.
Kelly said, in 2021, that Trump remarked during a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI, “Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.” That’s the kind of thing you’d expect to come from a basement troll on Reddit, or from a college freshman engaged in dorm room beer and pizza debates—or from a man who has no filter on his mouth, who happened to win the election for President of the United States. The question on whether Trump meant what he said is irrelevant. He should never have said it, period.
However, we do need to look at whether Trump meant it. His leadership style demands absolute loyalty to himself. His ambition and power lust demand that he finds people who will agree with him, regardless of how lizard-brained the plan. He recognizes no written rules or laws, and breaks them with complete ease. But that in itself doesn’t mean Trump was able to rule like a dictator. In his first term, he was unable to achieve that, partly because he was learning the actual ropes of what it means to be president, and partly because he listened to aides who wanted to help him learn the ropes.
The way Trump wanted—and wants—to govern is by working on “deals” himself, directly with other decision-makers. Anyone who tries to muddy those deals is simply in the way, or is ripe to get Trump’s bad side activated. So, recording phone calls, or preserving records, is inconvenient to the way Trump operates, which is generally in secret, deniable, personal conversations, and through fronts and cut-outs.
The strange thing about the world is Trump’s style of leadership tends to work in societies where power is concentrated. Trump negotiating with Xi Jinping about China relations, or Taiwan; Trump negotiating with Kim Jung-un; Trump negotiating with King Salman; Trump negotiating with Vladimir Putin; these relationships move the needle in some way. Of course, those actual strongmen achieved their positions through actual barbarism, actual loyalty enforced at gunpoint, and actual total power over their nations. They tend to view Trump as a mark, not a partner—or as Truman put it, a “tool of fascism.”
But there are also times when Trump’s style freezes things. Foreign dictators and rivals have to think twice when the man who commands the most powerful military and intelligence apparatus in the world, a man who has previously stated his willingness to consider nuclear war, decides they have crossed him. Perhaps this explains some of the reason that between 2017 and early 2021, there was little in the way of new wars in the world that could involve the United States, and how it all broke loose during President Joe Biden’s term.
Some generals through history—American generals—would have agreed with Trump’s style. Gen. Tecumseh Sherman comes to mind, though Sherman hated war and simply wanted to end it efficiently. I’d say Gen. George S. Patton and Gen. Douglas MacArthur would have agreed with the Trump style of negotiation. But, as Gen. Kelly and Gen. Jim Mattis found out, style isn’t everything, if the person making the decisions isn’t willing to listen to people with actual facts, or places the facts told to him by foreign dictators above the facts told to him by his own government.
If they were alive today, I could have seen Patton and MacArthur deciding to serve in the Trump administration, then souring, just like their modern counterparts.
As for history, Trump isn’t a student. Kelly told The Atlantic that Trump thought “German generals,” meaning “Hitler’s generals,” is what he needed. Of course, many of Hitler’s generals were forced out, arrested, or shot if they failed to offer the dictator their full and complete allegiance. Perhaps that’s what Trump meant—the generals who were left at the end of the Third Reich, who were ordered to fight with phantom regiments, old men and children. Surely that’s not what he meant, because, well, the Nazis lost. They are suckers and losers because they lost.
Putin has not lost in Ukraine (yet), so he’s not a sucker or loser. Putin’s generals are unfailingly loyal to Putin, or they fall out of windows or die in airplane crashes or suffer poison and die. Xi’s generals are completely loyal to the CCP, or they find their families have disappeared. Kim’s generals are completely loyal to the dynasty, or they find themselves fed to dogs. Trump doesn’t care as much about the “wet work” of being a dictator; he’s a confidence man (who fashions himself as a ladies’ man), not a killer.
Trump wants generals who would do the “wet work” for him. He wants a fixer who will just “handle things” without involving (or indicting) him. That’s not what U.S. generals do. It’s not even what Hitler’s generals did—the Nazis had the S.A. and the S.S. to do that, not the Wehrmacht. The U.S. doesn’t have a paramilitary political equivalent to other countries that have dictators. There’s no “secret police” here, unless you consider the leviathan Department of Homeland Security to be in that role (it’s not).
However, anyone who is president quickly learns that the intelligence, and the ability of the federal government to go after specific enemies (not of the state, but personal), is pretty powerful. The IRS, the Justice Department, and the EPA have all been used by Democrats to punish enemies and reward friends. It takes a lot of discipline to walk away from that kind of power, and most presidents in the modern era have failed to abstain.
Trump would not abstain. He doesn’t have the stomach to be a true dictator in the mold of those he openly admires. But his generals—American generals—would never let it happen. The country will decide what style of leader we want. Some say the quiet part out loud. But—and I haven’t mentioned her this entire post—I believe Kamala Harris is not immune to the siren song of power and loyalty. She just is smart enough not to say the things Trump does, even if Trump doesn’t know what he’s saying. Might I add, that’s a very low bar.
This election is the lowest of low bars. I’d vote for John Kelly if he decided to run. I wish he would.
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"The IRS, the Justice Department, and the EPA have all been used by Democrats to punish enemies and reward friends."
And used by Republicans in similar ways:
James Comey: "The Justice Department conducted a criminal investigation into whether Mr. Comey had leaked classified information. Federal prosecutors and a special counsel appointed by Mr. Trump’s attorney general examined whether he had mishandled the Clinton and Russia investigations. The I.R.S. conducted a highly unusual and invasive audit into Mr. Comey’s finances."
Andrew G. McCabe: "The Justice Department conducted a criminal investigation into whether Mr. McCabe had lied to the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and Mr. McCabe was investigated over whether he had leaked material to journalists. Federal prosecutors and a special counsel appointed by Mr. Trump’s attorney general examined his handling of the Clinton and Russia investigations. The I.R.S. conducted the same highly unusual and invasive audit on him that it did on Mr. Comey."
NYTimes: https://archive.is/Up465 (I'm out of real gift links for the month.)
Interesting take, Steve. Indeed, it is much harder to “lead up” than to “lead down” the chain of command (aka prescribed authority). This was best seen in the Mattis/Trump relationship. A master class by Mattis, in my opinion, but one that sadly had its limits.
Regardless of who wins, let’s hope for more leaders like Mattis. Would a “critical mass” of that character and fortitude amongst high level subordinates create a positive tipping point? One can only hope.