Since reclaiming power, President Donald Trump has relied on spectacle and showmanship to project his authoritarian posture. A recent display of this was on Tuesday in Quantico, Virginia, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of U.S. military generals and admirals to lecture them on the so-called “warrior ethos” that is absent within an institution he said, under previous leadership, had become the “woke department.”
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses,” the defense secretary said at the televised event. “No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions.”
Also speaking in Quantico, President Trump continued his threats to deploy troops to U.S. cities, calling them “training grounds” for the military to “quell civil disturbances” and handle “the enemy within.”
It should go without saying that this event and these statements were a complete joke, a hollow showcase of machismo from a draft dodger and a deeply unqualified excuse of a defense secretary.
This is not to minimize the dangers wrought by this administration. While Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in U.S. cities, for instance, is an unnecessary spectacle, the attempted normalization of armed troops patrolling our cities is deeply troubling.