Milley, Wyoming endorsement are reminders Trump is clueless on personnel
New Aussie nuke subs useful mostly for annoying French and Kiwis
Some of us love Donald Trump for his willingness to take the fight to the Left. Trumpism was less of a set of policies or a new doctrine than it was a willingness to fight unapologetically, along with a refusal to allow the media to set the terms of debate. More than anyone since Ronald Reagan, Trump redefined the Right, making the Republican Party the political home of blue collar workers and the middle class.
But Trump had a near-fatal management flaw, which has followed him into retirement: he is atrociously bad at choosing personnel and political candidates to execute his vision. This deficiency undermined his administration and threatens to undermine his post-presidency. Recent news has been dominated by Mark Milley, the man Trump made chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and whom President Biden has said enjoys his complete confidence. Milley has indulged woke politics, politicized the military, and, most bizarrely, colluded with the Chinese against Trump. The former president also just came out and endorsed a duplicitous gadfly to take on one of his top foes for the future of the Republican Party, Liz Cheney.
Many of us who served in Trump’s administration were dismayed at his selection of appointees who disdained the policies and aggressive style he advocated. At the very top, there was the first White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who filled the White House with many of his establishment friends from the Republican National Committee. Many of them opposed Trump throughout the election and assumed Hillary Clinton would win, but were willing halfheartedly to fill big jobs to advance their careers.
Next as chief of staff after Priebus came John Kelly. Part of what is now properly seen as the failed national security bureaucracy, Kelly as a retired general “looked the part,” which was a crucial Trump criteria for many jobs. But notwithstanding that qualification, he slow-walked Trump priorities, let the deep state eat Trump loyalists, and later said he thought Trump was “the most flawed person he ever met.” He tacitly endorsed removing Trump from office.
Over at the Pentagon was another retired four-star politician, Jim Mattis. Known as “Mad Dog” in his Marine Corps days, some jokingly referred to Secretary Mattis as Moderate Dog. Trump wanted fewer U.S. troops in Europe, an end to playing Cowboys and Indians in Middle East backwaters without effect, and strong deterrence of China. Neither Mattis, nor his equally lackluster successor at the Defense Department, Mark Esper, advanced any of these priorities. Mattis later denounced Trump as a threat to the Constitution—a distinction more appropriate for the deep state Mattis represented than the man America made president.
Trump sent Jeff Sessions to run the Justice Department, where he promptly appointed an independent counsel to investigate non-existent Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump Campaign. Despite no evidence of criminality by any American, the investigation was a huge distraction for the White House and ruined plenty of careers.
However, as bad as his choices for administration jobs, have been Trump’s selections for endorsement in contests for elected office.
Trump endorsed Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in his 2018 Senate contest and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). Of McConnell, Trump wrote that he “…helped us Make America Great Again, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement.” Both men hate Trump’s guts, reciprocated no support after their successful elections, and are determined to erase Trump’s imprint on the Republican Party.
Trump endorsed Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia. Despite overwhelmingly Republican control of Georgia, Kemp was too weak to stop or expose dubious voting practices in the 2020 elections that helped Democrats.
Trump also endorsed the establishment opponents of Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado) and Madison Cawthorn (R-North Carolina), two of the most smartly aggressive new Republican members of Congress—essentially capturing the best of Trump. Both won despite not receiving his endorsement in their primaries, which indicates the limited value of that endorsement.
This poor judgment is again reflected by Trump’s endorsement of Harriet Hageman, one of several Republicans challenging incumbent Rep. Liz Cheney for Wyoming’s sole House seat. Hagerman won just 22 percent of the vote in losing the Republican contest to be Wyoming’s governor in 2018. Just four years before, she was part of Cheney’s leadership team in a failed attempt at a Senate seat. She conveniently missed a vote by the Wyoming GOP to censor Cheney earlier this year. Through Trump, Hageman has claimed the support of Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis, who has not actually given it. In fact, Lummis declined to endorse Hageman when asked by the Washington Examiner.
Rather than being a strong candidate, Hageman seems ideally suited to split the opposition to Cheney, who can win the Republican nomination again with merely a plurality. Generally, winning that GOP nomination is the only contest that matters in heavily Republican Wyoming. But look for a Republican possibly to run against Cheney as an independent in the general election if she wins the nomination with less than fifty percent of the vote.
Perhaps an outcome like that will help Trump understand that his many talents do not include selecting good candidates. His choices—often people “who look the part” and do a good if insincere job of kissing his butt—come up short.
Turbulence Ahead
As expected, South Korea became the first major economy to raise interest rates, placing its benchmark at 0.75%. While just a start, it demonstrates that not everyone buys the view that the real inflation we see around the world is benign or transitory. More importantly, when other central banks follow suit, the dollar will depreciate causing further inflation in the USA. The big kahuna aside from the Fed is the European Central Bank. Inflation in Germany hit a 13-year high in August, and while 4% inflation is not anywhere near Weimar Germany danger levels, it is high for them, and ought to be of concern back here in Weimar America. An amusing and wrong analysis from Fitch predicted Europe won’t raise rates until 2025. In reality, tightening will come much faster there as inflation persists.
Meanwhile, Biden’s inflation is already harming workers demonstrably. Real wages, which grew throughout the Trump boom, fell 0.5% in the twelve months that ended in August. Think about that: Democrats have engineered an economy that despite strong growth has left workers worse off. Unfortunately this is just the beginning of the Democrats war on workers. The tax hikes that are coming as part of the Democrats’ 2022 budget, which will pass on a party-line vote, will lead to a significant contraction in the supply side of the economy. Too many dollars chasing fewer goods and services means more inflation. Biden and the ruling class weren’t kidding when they promised to undo everything Trump accomplished.
Feckless Military-Industrial Complex Goes Down Under
The unwanted attention that has befallen General Milley has unearthed a clip of the general from 2015 in which he claimed that China is not an enemy of the United States and that Russia was the greatest threat we face. This assessment is, of course, exactly wrong: China is by far and away the greatest threat to the Free World. Russia has a military budget only slightly larger than that of Britain or Saudi Arabia, but is led by a man who plays a bad had extremely well against the West’s foolish leaders.
Milley’s assessment still has some support among the national security set, especially among those Atlanticists close to Old Europe who would prefer that Americans continue to pay for European security while they screw us on trade. Milley himself still has support, and not just from White House spokesman Jen Psaki, who sounds more every day like Baghdad Bob (although Bob was more relatable). Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), who plans to run for president, defended Milley on TV.
Cotton is a depressing reminder that many Republicans think a strong defense is synonymous with advocating ever-greater defense budgets. Congress currently spends about $715 billion on the military and some Republicans have complained that figure will not increase. But seemingly no spending level is sufficient to get the military to put more ships and aircraft into the Pacific, where they are needed. Furthermore, Republicans need to realize the defense-industrial complex is not their friend. The Pentagon should face cuts, along with a requirement to shift resources dramatically to the Pacific.
Don’t be fooled by Biden’s announcement this week of a new security deal with Australia, Britain and the USA over nuclear subs. This announcement is primarily designed to distract from Afghanistan and other Biden-induced fiascos. On its face, the agreement may sound like a step in the right direction in offsetting Chinese power. Australia agreed to ditch its deal with France to build twelve new diesel-electric submarines to replace its six current subs. The French are so furious at getting dumped that they cancelled a party in Washington. Sacre bleu! Neighboring anti-nuclear New Zealand, the most pointless member of the Anglosphere, has already said the future Australian subs cannot enter its waters. So far, so good.
Unfortunately, the subs will do more harm than good. Australia has no nuclear power plants and only one research reactor. (Britain shot twelve nuclear tests in Oz in the 1950s, imparting fission products but not know-how.) Regardless of how much technology the USA and Britain share, Australia will have to devote massive resources for the industrial apparatus and skilled workforce needed to support even one nuclear submarine. This is true even if the nuclear fuel or the entire reactor assembly come from America. Instead of twelve new boats, it’s a safe bet the Aussies end up with 2-3 tops after inevitable cost overruns and future Labor governments. Australia would be better off with the electric boats, or better yet, a hybrid of sea power that puts more emphasis on underwater and airborne drones.
There’s another problem. While Australia has fought alongside America in every war since World War II, its impact is necessarily limited by its remoteness, small population, and modest economy. Diggers punch above their weight, especially in infantry combat, but the relevance of Australia’s navy or air force to a conflict with China is limited. This deal has the markings of the Obama-era decision to intermittently deploy 1,000 U.S. Marines to Darwin, Australia. You’d need to add two zeros to that number to get China’s attention and three to four zeros to make them relevant to a ground war in China that hopefully never comes. The deployment was about appearing to react to China without actually reacting—a masterstroke of smallball. So too is this announcement. Diggers could contribute more to security in the Pacific by stationing modest-sized units in places like Taiwan or the Philippines to augment jungle-warfare capabilities, but even broaching that topic is still beyond the realm of possibility in most capitals.
Mediocrity of the Week
Can one make fun of Marc Benioff, head of Salesforce, with its market cap of $250 billion and his personal estimated net worth of $10 billion? Of course. After all, Salesforce is just a database hooked up to the cloud, and Benioff is a cheeseball who calls his employees his “ohana”—a clear case of honky expropriation of Hawaiian culture. After Texas recently restricted abortion, Benioff wrote: “Ohana if you want to move we’ll help you exit TX. Your choice.” Salesforce also sent its ohana a note saying: “We recognize and respect that we all have deeply held and different perspectives. As a company, we stand with all of our women at Salesforce and everywhere.” That is of course unless they oppose abortion or think that politics are best left out of the workplace.
It’s too much to hope that Silicon Valley types will ever be as embarrassed of their bigoted monoculture as they should be. It’s also too much to hope for Salesforce’s board to suggest that weighing in on a hot-button cultural-political issue irrelevant to selling software-as-a-service is not in the company’s interest. But maybe they will feel a tiny bit of embarrassment when few to none of their employees choose to leave Texas.
Have a great weekend.
