First they came for Milley…

History tells us where this could end

The blizzard of executive orders and extraordinary actions from the new Trump administration are overwhelming, and in part that’s the point – political shock and awe.

Like many of you I’m sure, I’m absorbing what they are and what they mean, and as soon as I start reacting to one, another one arrives. So I thought I would hit the pause button and highlight just one action – that being taken against the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley.

It is very far from the biggest or most significant action being taken by Trump and his enablers, but it is emblematic of the bigger picture and sometimes focussing on one tree can help identify the wider nature of the wood it’s a part of. It’s also a sign of how what’s happening can and will reach down to the individual – it’s personal.

The US Department of Defence (DoD) has revoked his security clearance, stripped him of the security details that guards retired Chairmen, and launched an investigation of his conduct in office that could/will lead to demotion from his retirement rank of 4* general.

Milley was Chairman, America’s senior officer, for parts of both Biden and Trump’s administration. He was Trump’s pick for Chairman, who said of him in 2019, “Mark is living proof that the American warfighter is the toughest, smartest and bravest, best and brightest by far anywhere in the world.”

As is so often the case with Trump and the people he appoints, the extravagant praise turned to outlandish criticism and vicious insults, calling him ‘a fucking idiot’ and ‘grossly incompetent’. On Milley’s retirement from the military Trump said in a 2023 that some of his actions had been ‘treasonous’ and “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Milley, as is also so often the case with many who worked closely with Trump, was pretty underwhelmed by the experience, saying in his 2023 retirement speech – without naming Trump, “We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, to a tyrant or dictator or wannabe dictator.” However, quoted in Bob Woodwards 2024 book he said Trump is “fascist to the core.” If the latter sounds excessive, what’s happening now gives pause for thought.

So, why do Milley’s problems have wider resonance for me? Because they are driven by common motives with so much else that’s going on.

Firstly, it’s vindictive and illustrates his desire to seek retribution against opponents or perceived enemies. Riling up his base, he said in the campaign, ‘I am your retribution.’ He told one interviewer, “Well, revenge does take time. I will say that, and sometimes revenge can be justified, I have to be honest. You know, sometimes it can.”

Secondly it explicitly indicates that Trump and his cohort will use the power of the state, its laws, rules and regulations to go after his enemies. There is an oft-used quote from the 20th century Peruvian authoritarian president Óscar Benavides, "For my friends everything, for my enemies the law".

Here it’s worth noting that, literally 20 minutes before he left office, ex-president Biden pre-emptively pardoned Milley and others from any future legal prosecution, saying these were ‘exceptional circumstances’ and he needed to protect them from, in his words, ‘Baseless and politically motivated investigations (that) wreak havoc on the lives, safety and financial security of targeted individuals and their families.’

At the time there were a lot of raised eyebrows at the action as a questionable use of the presidential power of pardon. Now it looks prescient.

The fact is that Trump, both as politician and businessman, has routinely threatened critics or perceived opponents with legal action, and in the US legal system even winning can be, quite literally, ruinously expensive, as Milley himself noted on getting the pardon, “I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights.”

So having been denied that route, the retribution team have done what they can with what they have. The revocation of Milley’s security clearance could be more significant than it appears to some. Simply put; to work in almost any part of the defence industrial area, you must have security clearance. For vast numbers of former military personnel their second career depends on that clearance – without it you are unemployable.

Getting a clearance is meant to be a technical issue – judging whether you will sell, spread or be careless with classified information. Unless you sympathise with terrorist groups or enemy states, your politics don’t come into it – or shouldn’t.

The revocation of Milley’s clearance (and others) raises, to say the least, the issue as to whether someone’s clearance – and so their job – will be linked to their politics. If you are a little guy wanting a job or contract, but knowing there will be background checks, how freely are you going to post on social media now or express what are actually reasonable views, but ones the current regime is so openly demonising?

The new Defence Secretary, Peter Hegseth, is spending most of his time rooting out the so-called woke virus that’s supposedly infected the DoD, and a Jan 27 White House Executive Order on supposedly ‘Prioritizing military excellence’ states ‘…the pursuit of military excellence cannot be diluted to accommodate political agendas or other ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.’

Those agendas and ideologies cover a variety of diversity, equity and inclusion views and policies that until Jan 20 were pretty mainstream, even if contested. Hegseth has already demanded absolute compliance with the new draconian policy, saying, “Those who do not comply will no longer work here,” Can you trust Hegseth’s Pentagon not to politicise security clearances when you see what’s happened to Milley? Why take the chance? Keep your head down.

Then there’s withdrawing Milley’s security detail. Retribution again – it’s only Trump’s supposed enemies who are losing them. And also, a threat – consciously putting them in potential danger.

How much danger is hard to know, but remember that in 2023 Trump accused him of treason “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” This is the same man who has just given a pardon to the January 6 rioters who violently attacked congress and includes heavily armed extremist paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. The signal here is not just retribution but viciousness – cross me, and we don’t care if someone tries to kill you.

Finally, there’s the launching of an investigation into his past conduct, that could lead to a demotion, and therefore a reduction in his pension. Officially it’s about, “…the facts and circumstances surrounding Gen. Milley’s conduct so that the Secretary may determine whether it is appropriate to reopen his military grade review determination.”

But there’s barely any attempt to hide that the investigation is intended to punish him, to in the gleeful words of one official “take a star” from him, so as to reduce his pension, and so that “The ghost of General Milley shouldn’t haunt the Pentagon anymore.”

Exorcising this ghost includes taking down his official portrait, the kind of petty nastiness that demeans the new administration and is also redolent of more authoritarian regimes in expunging all traces of opponents.

The investigation itself is likely to be a show trial. Those who launched it have made no secret of their intent, and they’re now fixing the judge. Such investigations are conducted by the independent Inspector General – but wait. Trump has just (illegally) sacked almost all of the IGs, including the DoD’s. So, hardly promising for a fair investigation.

It all adds up to this - an example is going to be made.

To achieve what? To quell dissent, to warn others of the consequences of not toeing the line with the new regime.

For Milley personally most of the consequences (aside from someone trying to kill him) will be bearable, but that’s secondary to the intent of the signal it sends. For everyone else the lesson is clear, allied to what they are already seeing through statements like that of Hegseth saying ‘comply’ or else. And if you are an ambitious officer – and most are – what is the cue you will take? Be careful on speaking too freely and show fealty to the new game in town.

In that sense, the very overtness of what’s happening – what some call the ‘routine cruelty’ – is part of the point. There is already a chilling effect seeping into the US system, and not just DoD.

Across in the Justice Department any career lawyers involved in Trump-related investigations have been sacked, and every day news comes of more senior career civil servants being fired or forced out.

The same is being talked about of a purge of career FBI agents, and now a survey was sent to potentially thousands of FBI agents and employees at the weekend of giving them until 3 p.m. Monday to give their job titles and say whether they were involved in the surveillance, arrest or trial of a Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot suspect. Having pardoned all those rioters, painted them as heroes for Trump, who could not fear what this means for the FBI?

Most notably, federal workers received an extraordinary email ordering them to report to a special email account any supposed attempts to disguise DEI programmes. “There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information. However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.”

In other words, rat on your colleagues, or else.

That so much of this revolves around the campaign against DEI is the subject for another substack, but it seems to be some kind of litmus for fealty to the new order. DEI is now the universal scapegoat for everything, including plane crashes it seems. And behind the initials there are people, so they are being made the scapegoats.

The over-reach of some DEI efforts over the last decade is now being used as an excuse and open door for a roll back of long-standing equality legislation going back over half a century. This includes repealing the landmark 1965 Executive Order prohibiting employment discrimination based on race, colour, religion, and national origin by organizations receiving federal contracts.

Indeed, among the charges laid at Milley’s door is also his strong support for diversity, which, unlike Hegseth, he thought would strengthen not weaken America’s military.

So, the action against Milley exemplifies so much about the nature of Trump’s administration. Vindictiveness, openness in the desire for revenge, ruthlessness, use and abuse of the law and rules and all combining to chill dissent and send a message – comply or face the consequences.

The incoming Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, is clear about his viciousness. A leading figure in Project 2025, whose agenda is driving much of Trump’s action, he told supporters in 2023, ‘“We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains…. “We want to put them in trauma.”

It's being put into effect, with an email to all federal employees offering them eight month’s pay if they resign now, but also saying if they stay, "At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency..." All this with a very short deadline – it doesn’t take a genius to see how Trump is trying to scare anyone other than MAGA-loving workers into getting the hell out of Dodge.

So, it all fits with making a public example of Milley, a retired head of the military – how much more vulnerable are other more lowly people on a government wage?

All this puts enormous pressure on us as individuals. We all want to get on, especially within institutions, and there is the default to keep your head down, play the game. This is made even more so when you don’t know if colleagues can be trusted not to inform on you for supposedly transgressing the new political correctness, for fear of facing ‘adverse consequences.’

So, looking behind the Milley tree, as with others, what’s the larger wood we see coming into view? It looks like a form of state capture.

It’s no coincidence Trump & Co admire Hungary’s Viktor Orban so much, seeing his model as something to emulate. What Orban has achieved to maintain power is to politicise the key institutions of state, especially justice and law enforcement, control the media and create a sense of helplessness and compliance among those who depend on the state. Such a strategy may shelter under the umbrella of populist democracy, but it’s actually also part of the authoritarian playbook.

Could it work in the US? The separation of powers that safeguards US democracy is looking rickety. A despicably compliant Republican Party controlling congress, and a politicised right wing Supreme Court don’t bode well. As Milley’s case shows, behind a vindictive Trump there is a ruthless but very focussed group of enablers that has a very clear plan.

Does all this look a bit overwrought? I certainly hope it is.