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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18406 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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The Trump cabinet shakeup continues

After Pam Bondi’s ouster today, which followed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s firing last month, Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials were anxiously eyeing their phones, wondering whether they’d be next. One top official didn’t have to wait long: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth removed the chief of staff of the Army, General Randy George. Several people familiar with the White House’s plans told us there are active discussions about others leaving the administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters, said that the timing was uncertain and that President Trump had not yet made up his mind. But what was once an unofficial motto of the second Trump term—“no scalps”—no longer applies.

Trump had been reluctant to get rid of any of his top lieutenants, viewing firings as a concession to the Democrats and the media. Even in the past few months, there had been an edict that no Cabinet officials would be removed prior to the midterms, though a series of dismissals were planned for after Election Day. But the president’s declining support since he launched the Iran war has changed the political calculus. The odds of confirming replacements, advisers know, are only growing longer. One person close to the White House told us that Trump was buoyed by the reaction to his decision to oust Noem, and that made him more likely to move ahead with Bondi. (Still, an administration official cautioned that after pushing out Noem, optics were a concern; officials worried that getting rid of Bondi would be viewed as jettisoning only the most “attractive” women, while keeping the men).

Some Trump allies (and many of his critics) believe that he had asked Bondi for the nearly impossible—to win convictions for seemingly unwinnable cases. But other members of the Cabinet and administration have expressed frustration that Bondi’s apparent lack of involvement in the details of managing the Justice Department resulted in basic mistakes. “They are sending in idiots” to defend the Trump administration in court without sufficient experience, one official from another agency told us. The president’s demand for absolute loyalty among the department’s rank and file resulted in a profound loss of institutional expertise and a sharply reduced talent pool. Multiple prominent Republican attorneys told us that they considered joining the second Trump DOJ. But the requirement to take what they viewed as an oath of loyalty to the president—not the Constitution—was a step too far.

Officials in other departments said they regarded the Justice Department’s errors as harmful to the administration’s credibility with judges, blowing up what should have been easy wins for the president. “This has been festering across the administration for a while,” said a second person close to the administration. “It’s the Epstein stuff, partly. It’s also the critiques of the indictments, like Comey. It’s a general sense of WTF—she’s not logging a lot of wins, not clocking a lot of good media.”

In Trump I, many of the early firings were because of insufficient loyalty. Trump adapted and overcame by ensuring personal loyalty at the apparent cost of competence. A junior law student could have told you his vengeance lawsuits would be laughed out of court. And it seems like the Iran SMO will snatch a few more scalps that would have delayed until after the midterms - poor Kash, he just wanted to party with the hockey chads. It's already claimed the Army Chief of Staff's, although it's not clear what exactly was wrong with Randy George's performance (the Army isn't even particularly involved in this op), or that of the Transformation and Training Command leader and the head of the Chaplain Corps.

It's already claimed the Army Chief of Staff's, although it's not clear what exactly was wrong with Randy George's performance (the Army isn't even particularly involved in this op), or that of the Transformation and Training Command leader and the head of the Chaplain Corps.

Either US army has a Russian disease - a system in which every report moving upward was rose tinted into oblivion, and when they started planing properly for ground invasion - suddenly the real readiness was not what was expected. Or Trump was asking for something insane and they said no.

Anyway - I am worried about those shakeups - people rarely shake up military command when things are going well.

I suspect they weren't prepared for the most obvious of Iranian responses - blocking the Strait. If it were easy to rectify the block, the US would have just done it weeks ago. They don't have enough troops or hardware in the area; an aircraft carrier was put out of commission ((Russian intel-aided) missiles/drones) and had to leave the theater; the replacement aircraft carrier left Norfolk three days ago and will take another 10+ days to arrive near Iran. The US is lacking popular support at home for the deployments that would be big enough to break Iran militarily, Trump's only diplomatic gift is to offend allies, and at the same time they can't just leave either, because leaving right now is tantamount to surrendering the petrodollar without a real fight and losing hegemonic credibility.

an aircraft carrier was put out of commission ((Russian intel-aided) missiles/drones) and had to leave the theater

... you're saying a drone hit the laundry room? Or that it was a cover-up and the fire was from a drone hit elsewhere, and the US Navy suddenly has astounding Opsec and message discipline? Or is there another carrier that left for repairs recently?

I don't necessarily trust that story, no.

To calibrate, what would you require to believe that story?

I'm agnostic on what happened, but knowing the base rate of laundry fires taking out carriers in the US military would be useful information.

It's not specifically laundry, but Fire at Sea: A 70-year Review of Fire-Related Mass Casualty Events on U.S. Aircraft Carriers may be of interest in this regard!

Since World War II, no attack on a large U.S. Navy capital ship has occurred during combat operations

we reviewed mass casualty events from major fires aboard large U.S. Navy aircraft carriers[1] from 1950 through 2020

Of 246 fires identified, 27 met inclusion criteria resulting in 1,634 casualties with a combined crew mortality of 23% of those injured.

The majority of major fire mishaps involved aircraft carriers[1], and none were the result of an enemy attack

[1] the reason behind this potential contradiction is inconsistent usage/definition of large-hull amphibious assault ships as "aircraft carriers" or not in the abstract vs text.

That is extremely compelling, if not what I would call reassuring. Thanks.

If I recall correctly, carriers typically dock for maintenance every six months, this one's been adventuring for a year now.

That does shift my opinion toward the laundry explanation, thanks. That's a lot of lint.

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