Purge? What Purge?

take a powder you drama-mamas

With people talking about who is getting canceled where and for what back in the news, it had me thinking of all the gnashing of teeth and rending of clothes we’ve read this year about President Trump’s team shaping the uniformed leadership, moving along a few senior uniformed personnel who had a track record, that, well, indicated they probably would not have the full trust and confidence of the CINC.

All Presidents do this in their own way, but from the sounds of things over the last six months, you’d think anyone who wasn’t a documented contributor to the Trump ‘16, ‘20, and ‘24 campaigns for President and could not dance to Y.M.C.A. was being fired, forced to retire, or being given orders to Diego Garcia.

The memo went out: “It’s a PURGE!”

From Vox:

…the circumstances and timing of the purge raise troubling questions about whether the White House is seeking a military that’s motivated not just by the nation’s security, but also by the administration’s political agenda.

Reuters:

The Trump administration has conducted a sweeping purge of U.S. military and intelligence officers and diplomats that it says is part of an effort to slash the size of the U.S. government, shrinking the federal budget and punishing what it describes as the “politicization or weaponization” of intelligence.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL):

Installing loyalists at the top of the military is the kind of thing autocrats do when they are trying to seize control of government. Trump is aiming to ingrain a culture of fear that makes it harder for our service members to speak truth to power and uphold their oath to support and defend the Constitution.

What we saw happen with the nomination of Caine is not an aberration. It is part of a deliberate purge of expertise from our military that is eroding the very institution the American people rely on to keep them safe. My Republican colleagues need to stop enabling Trump’s dictatorial tendencies and start doing more to protect the service members who’ve sacrificed so much for the rest of us.

It is all so silly.

Again, as CINC, the President must have uniformed leaders he has confidence in. As Papa Salamander and Millington told me many times, “No one owes you a job, Sal.”

History is full of real purges, and not all purges are that bad.

Let’s look at the definition a bit.

purge, verb, ˈpərj

purged; purging

• transitive verb

  • 1

    • a: to clear of guilt

    • b: to free from moral or ceremonial defilement

  • 2

    • a: to cause evacuation from

      • purge the bowels

    • b (1): to make free of something unwanted

      • purge a manhole of gas

      • purge yourself of fear

    • (2): to free (something, such as a boiler) of sediment or relieve (something, such as a steam pipe) of trapped air by bleeding

    • c (1): to rid (a nation, a political party, etc.) by a purge

    • (2): to get rid of

      • the leaders had been purged

• intransitive verb

  • 1: to become purged

  • 2: to have or produce frequent evacuations

  • 3: to cause purgation

• noun

  • 1: something that purges

    • especially : purgative

  • 2 a: an act or instance of purging

  • b: the removal of elements or members regarded as undesirable and especially as treacherous or disloyal

So, we are looking at the transitive verb 2.c and the noun 2.b, mostly the later.

Especially considering the experience of the Trump 45 Administration, is anyone really surprised about this? Would anyone else do anything different?

I don’t care too much for the phrase “purge”, because let’s be clear, if this is a purge, it is a historical insult to the word.

In most political purges, almost no openly hostile public actors survive the initial wave or two—especially highly influential ones. Almost none are allowed to depart with their dignity, property, or life intact.

Let me give you two, actually three examples that prove one of three things:

1. The purge is real, but only has so much bandwidth and you’ll simply have to wait.

2. The purge is kindler and gentler.

3. There is no purge, just proper aligning staff with the principal.

Could be some a combo of the three, or none. I reserve the right to be wrong, but I think my odds are better than even.

Here are your three examples to consider.

Rear Admiral Derek Trinque, USN

For those who were around during the high-water mark of the Red Guards of Miltwitter (which I roughly call 2018-2022), with all its canceling, accusations, denunciations, mob actions, virtue signaling, struggle sessions, the demanding cadre of adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy—Trinque was much in the mix, providing top-cover and leadership for more junior operators. From complaints about the naming of roads or other bothersome Southern traditions, to whatever The Current Thing™ was during the time, he was there. We had a few exchanges during the troubles, generally cordial.

As with many of the core cadre, when the tide shifted, he eventually deleted his X account and took his commentary to more secure locations, though some have archived part of the record.

If anyone would have been purged, I would have thought he would be on the short list. This article came out only two years ago.

Trinque — whose promotion was announced by the Defense Department in February — has routinely promoted radical, left-wing views and denigrated those who hold non-leftist opinions, particularly as it relates to Covid.

On Aug. 17, 2021, for example, Trinque “endorsed” an Aug. 2, 2021, New York Times article that encouraged insurance companies to “penaliz[e]” individuals who chose not to get the Covid shot. ... On numerous occasions, Trinque has displayed an obsession with tearing down Confederate monuments and installations named after Confederate figures. In a February 9, 2021, tweet, for instance, Trinque claimed “driving through the south can be depressing” due to the prevalence of “Confederate flags, Fort Lee, and JEB Stuart memorial highway.”

Regarding Marxist organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Trinque issued a tweet a few days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol suggesting there is a “difference” between the latter and BLM’s violent rioting in the summer of 2020. He also demanded, “Leaders: your people need to hear from you re: the attack on the Capitol.” …(he) promoted an April 2022 press release from the Brooklyn Public Library announcing the launch of “Books Unbanned,” an initiative designed to combat parental efforts to keep pornographic works out of libraries and further legacy media’s phony “book ban” narrative.

So, what has happened to Trinque in the Trump administration? Earlier this summer, he was given the plum orders to be Director, Surface Warfare (N96) at the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations.

Yeah. That should do for the uniformed side of the house. What about the civilian examples?

The Pronouners of Disipline

Well, we’ve written a lot about the goings-on at US Naval Academy and Naval War College (NWC). Especially at NWC, I could list a half-dozen fellow members of the Red Guards of Miltwitter at its peak—most of which have shifted their flag to BlueSky, but they are not generally well known.

However, if you are looking for an exceptionally bad example, it would be hard to pick worse examples than this from the Humanities Department at USNA (also known for quasi-Hatch Act violations and hiring historians mostly known for scholarship on history through a gendered lens),

And now it is coming to light that at least two civilian professors at the Naval Academy may be violating constitutional rights under the First and 14th amendments.

Two professors in the academy’s English Department have required students to state their “preferred pronouns” at the beginning of each class, according to students who complained to me. At first, students played along, but eventually they refused to engage in this disturbing behavior.

Instead of dropping the issue, the professors essentially taunt and harass the students to state their preferred personal pronouns instead of moving along and teaching the class.

As far as it is known, both of these professors are still teaching at Annapolis. Though not out in open source, their names are known.

Purge? Not really. Heck, the Superintendent of the Naval Academy during the height of wokeness, Vice Admiral Yvette M. Davids, USN, is now the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans, Strategy and Warfighting Development, (N3/N5/N7).

So, yeah…everyone take a powder. We’re almost at the end of FY25 and what we’ve seen so far has been little more than securing the perimeter.