Comprehensive Impacts of Trump’s Second Year: Military/Defense/Police
This publication is meant to be a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the Trump administration. There are many things that happened during the campaign that are not included. For this series covering the second year, impacts from about January 20, 2018, to January 31, 2019, are included. An introduction to this year’s series is here.
You can read the complete series on the first year of the administration here.
There are sure to be things missing, but I have done my best to record these impacts. The impacts are compiled under 20 different categories, or articles:
1. Cabinet and Other Appointments;
3. Women & Families;
4. LBGT;
6. Ethics;
7. Targeting free press/free speech/Privacy;
8. Health & Safety;
10. Education;
11. Transportation/Infrastructure/Housing;
12. Immigration;
13. Social Contract;
14. Business/Economy;
15. Budget;
16. General Governance;
17. Character;
18. Military/Defense/Police;
19. World; and
20. Some good news. Because there is always some good news.
Since this series takes a long time to write, I will publish each section as I complete it. This article is on Trump’s character.
Although we have moved on from Trump’s dark ages with the 2020 election, I will attempt to complete this entire series because it’s so important that we never forget the damage done to millions of people, the fabric of the country, and basic democracy by the Trump administration.
Trump frequently blindsided the Defense Department with announcements of policy changes regarding the military and defense. Trump also took into his own hands foreign military actions that normally would go through the Pentagon, leaving those channels completely in the dark. The Pentagon was surprised to learn that there was going to be a “red line” with Syria, that the US was going to end joint military drills with South Korea, that it was going to create a “Space Force,” and that military troops would be sent to the Mexico border. He also tweeted his threat to stop payment to Central American countries and use the military to close the border, using repeated xenophobic, fear-mongering, false statements about immigrants being criminals.
Military & Defense
· Trump is doing everything in his power to privatize the Veterans Administration and veteran healthcare.
· Trump is also dismantling financial protections for military members and veterans by having the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) no longer supervise banks, credit card companies, and other lenders that work specifically with members of the military and their families to ensure they aren’t committed fraud or abuse.
· Also, veterans stopped receiving GI Bill benefits due to ignored, ongoing IT issues at the VA. The VA later said it would NOT reimburse veterans who were unpaid or underpaid their GI benefits.
· In addition, should Coast Guard members be killed in the line of duty during the shutdown, their families would not receive death benefits.
· In another attempt at weaponizing his xenophobia, Trump deployed the National Guard to militarize the Mexican border. Those deployed in this political ploy had little electricity, food reminiscent of remote combat areas, and no holiday leave to go home, all without combat pay. Trump’s chief of staff also signed a memo granting troops at the border the ability to have a law enforcement role, including using lethal force.
· Trump’s Department of Homeland Security also asked several federal agencies, such as the Departments of State, Justice, Energy, Transportation, Labor, and Interior, to send civilian law enforcement to the border.
· This caused a group of veterans to issue an open letter to active duty soldiers, letting them know that their “commander-in-chief is lying” to them: “By every moral or ethical standard it is your duty to refuse orders to ‘defend’ the U.S. from these migrants.” Other retired military members called Trump’s dangerous stunt a “profound betrayal of our military” and a “misuse of the military that should have led Mr. Mattis to consider resigning instead of acceding to this blatant politicization of America’s military.”
· Later, Trump admitted that the border deployment was a $200 million election stunt by removing the guards immediately after the election, before the caravan even arrived.
· In the meantime, immigrant US Army reservists and recruits who enlisted with a promised path to citizenship are being abruptly and quietly discharged.
· Trump also announced — without discussing it with the Pentagon — that transgender troops would be banned from the military.
· He also quietly started firing service members who were living with HIV just before the 2018 holidays.
· Adding to the xenophobic culture of Trump’s America, a republican representative suggested turning over any non-English speaking students to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
· When former CIA Director John Brennan criticized Trump, Trump revoked his security clearance. In response, 60 ex-CIA members condemned Trump’s action. Also in response, former Navy SEAL Admiral William McRaven criticized Trump and stepped down from his defense advisory role on the Defense Innovation Board. He noted how Trump’s comments “show a fundamental misunderstanding” of fundamental operations and the chain of command.”
· The Trump administration had many ties to the white nationalist movement. In one example, former Homeland Security Official Ian Smith had to step down after his ties became public.
· Trump nearly started another arms race when he threatened to build up the US’s nuclear arsenal, saying, “It’s a threat to whoever you want to include China and it includes Russia and it includes anybody else that wants to play that game.”
· Speaking of arms races, Trump began production of a new nuclear weapon.
· Trump also secretly shipped a half-ton of weapons-grade radioactive plutonium to Nevada, despite Nevada’s opposition since Trump had not considered any environmental impacts of shipping the plutonium. The Nevada governor noted, “The [Department of Energy] led the State of Nevada to believe that they were engaging in good-faith negotiations with us regarding a potential shipment of weapons-grade plutonium, only to reveal that those negotiations were a sham all along. They lied to the State of Nevada, misled a federal court, and jeopardized the safety of Nevada’s families and environment.”
· Trump had “never been interested in going” to any war zones because he was afraid of them.
· When he did finally go, Trump revealed the deployment of a Navy SEAL team to Iraq in a video, without shielding the faces of the special operation forces. Typically, these deployments are classified and is a violation of operational security.
· Meanwhile, less than an hour before Speaker Nancy Pelosi was scheduled to leave for Afghanistan, Trump announced to the public that he had instructed the Air Force to take away the military plane for the Speaker’s trip. This was a temper tantrum in retaliation for Pelosi suggesting that Trump delay the state of the union because of his government shutdown.
· Immediately after Trump denied a military plane for Pelosi’s scheduled trip to Afghanistan, Trump flew Melania to Florida of an Air Force jet.
· Trump declared that he has the power to bypass limits to a defense bill set by Congress. He decided that about 50 statutes in the defense bill intruded on his presidential powers (which we know he believes are infinite) and that he didn’t have to obey or enforce them. Included was a ban of spending military funds on “any activity that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea.”
· In fact, Trump eliminated the National Security Council’s position of cybersecurity coordinator, a position integral to developing policy to defend against increasingly sophisticated digital attacks and offensive cyber weapons.
· Because of this, intelligence reports indicated that Chinese and Russian spies are often listening in on his phone calls on his personal cell phone, which he refused to give up.
· Trump’s Department of Homeland Security also cut resources for fighting domestic terrorism.
· FBI agents, intelligence analysts, attorneys, and professional staff were all furloughed without pay during the shutdown, creating a threat to national security.
· A national security experts warned that Putin was “playing Trump like a fiddle” and that Trump is “either a witting or unwitting Russian asset.”
· Russia, an ally to Syria, dictated where the US was allowed to attack Syria with air strikes on Syria’s chemical weapons facilities.
· After air strikes in Syria, a group of volunteers has helped rescue more than 100,000 civilians. The group had historically been partially funded by the US. Trump pulled that funding with no warning.
· In another unprecedented move, Trump directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Justice, and the FBI to declassify specific pages of a highly sensitive document about the investigation into Trump’s involvement with Russia. Previously, the agencies decided the information was too sensitive to release when Republican Congress members requested it. Releasing the sensitive documents could compromise intelligence sources and methods.
Policing & Prisons
· In a nod to the human rights-abusing Philippines president Duterte, Trump suggested the US should execute drug dealers. Duterte’s similar policies led to thousands being murdered in extrajudicial killings.
· The Trump administration, through AG Jeff Sessions, retracted an Obama-era guidance to state courts meant to end debtors’ prison, which happens when people who are too poor to pay fines are sent to prison simply for not paying their fines and fees. These debtors’ prisons solely benefit the for-profit prison industrial complex.
· In fact, for-profit prisons have become the biggest lobby, spending more than $25 million to influence legislation and elections. These for-profit prisons house nearly half of the country’s immigrant detainees, and Marco Rubio is one of the lobby’s biggest beneficiaries.
· Trump’s Federal Communications Commission ended Obama-era rate caps for in-state phone calls from prison inmates. The for-profit prison industry had sued to keep the rates so exorbitantly high that one in three families go into debt just to maintain contact with incarcerated loved ones. Prior to the rate caps, inmates paid up to $14 per minute to call their loved ones.
· Trump’s Federal Bureau of Prisons also quietly rolled out new policies that would restrict books and communications to the country’s nearly 200,000 prisoners, requiring prisoners to request books only from a system in which they have to pay exorbitant prices with no options for used paperbacks, as well as 30 percent tax and shipping costs. A book that was previously purchased on Amazon for less than $12 will now cost a prisoner more than $26.
· Trump encouraged police officers to be rough on suspects. But when there are police shootings of black men, Trump calls them “local matters.”
· A predictable result of Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric and policies was a US citizen being secretly detained without charges for a year before releasing him.
The next article will will cover Trump’s impacts on the world during his second year in office.
