Race, U.S. Military & Insurrection Act

Review by Bill Doughty

The history of the United States Insurrection Act is mirrored in black and white.

Congress created the Act to deal with threat of slave rebellions. Then, President Ulysses S. Grant used the act to quell the KKK and other attacks on freed blacks during Reconstruction. 

In 1856 President Franklin Pierce used the Insurrection Act to disperse lawbreakers in Kansas at the request of territorial governor Andrew Reeder. Violent agitators from Missouri crossed state lines to intimidate Kansas residents into voting for slavery to be authorized within the state, afraid they would lose their “property” to a neighbor free state.

LBJ called up the Act to defend black Americans during the civil rights movement against white supremacists and segregationists. A generation later, George H. W. Bush invoked the Act when some African Americans protested and rioted in the wake of the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles in 1992.

Yet, the Insurrection Act was not invoked against white anti-democratic rioters during an actual insurrection attempt at the very heart of government.

As lawyer and author Hawa Allan shows in “Insurrection: rebellion, civil rights, and the paradoxical state of Black citizenship” (W.W. Norton, 2022) President Trump chose to not call for invocation of the Act on January 6, 2021 when his supporters attacked the Capitol in an attempted coup.

Instead of naming J6 rioters “insurrectionists,” including those who violently attacked police and security officers, Trump pardoned, praised as patriots, and even paid some of them with taxpayer money. 

Allen writes, “after a mostly white mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and threatened to disrupt the Electoral College certification of the presidential election, beating a Capitol Police officer in its midst, some Republican spokesmen were loath to call its participants 'insurrectionists.' Donald Trump himself characterized the Capitol rioters as posing 'zero threat, right from the start,' and went on to state that 'some of them went in, and they are hugging and kissing the police and the guards,' and that they were waved in and out of the Capitol by said police.”

“So, what's in a name? An ‘insurrectionist,’ by definition, is someone who has engaged in an act or instance of revolting against a civil authority or an established government. However, many of those participating in the riots on that fateful January 6 considered themselves to be ‘patriots,’ by definition vigorously supporting their country and prepared to defend it against enemies and detractors. Among such rioters, as indicated by the subsequent indictments, were members of the Oath Keepers; some of them reportedly directed fellow Capitol infiltrators toward the Senate wing in order to stop the certification of the presidential election.”

Allen explains:

“It's true that the Insurrection Act does not need to be invoked by the president in order to authorize federal military intervention in the District of Columbia, which lacks statehood. However, as commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard, the president and his administration could have directed that this be done once riots were sparked at the Capitol. Although local commanders of the National Guard are invested with the limited authority to take immediate military action in certain emergency situations where there is not sufficient time to obtain the requisite approvals, in the case of the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally the Pentagon had restricted the authority of the D.C. National Guard commander before the riot, requiring higher-level sign-off in order to take such immediate action.”

Deviating Military Power

Race was again in the forefront when President Trump wanted to use the Insurrection Act during his first term, even asking then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley and Defense Secretary Esper to consider having the military fire upon protesters.

“Trump's threatened invocation of the Insurrection Act during the George Floyd protests incited an uproar among numerous commentators who decried the federal government's use of military power against its ‘own people.’ The use of federal troops as a civilian police force, according to many commentators at the time, is an unwarranted trespass on the rights and freedoms of American citizens and contravenes the values upon which the United States was founded.”

Trump continues to threaten to call up the Insurrection Act and activate the military against U.S. civilians who oppose him and protest against his policies. In 2025 he has deployed armed forces in American cities as he moves closer to what historians warn would authoritarian rule, away from states’ rights federalism and toward autocracy.

This week U.S. senators and representatives implored the military: “Don’t give up the ship” and to follow their oath to the Constitution in upholding the rule of law. They called for military service members to follow only legal orders, not illegal ones. In a social media post, Trump texted “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He also re-posted comments calling for the veterans to be punished with death, including hanging. Later he attempted to downplay his actions.

Senator Mark Kelly, Navy Captain (ret.)

It is said to be the first time, at least in modern times, that a president explicitly incited violence against members of Congress. In the days following Trump’s text, veterans such as Senator Mark Kelly announced they have received death threats from Trump supporters.

Trump’s words against the senators and representatives recalled explicit and implicit threats to deploy the military against the president’s opponents and U.S. citizens in general, including as conceived in the “Navy SEAL Team 6 assassination theory” presented in the Supreme Court ––as well as via the Insurrection Act.

“It is true that the military power set forth in the Insurrection Act is an extraordinary exception from the normal state of federal affairs,” Allen writes.

“The power, among other things, upends the conventions of federalism, in line with which domestic deployments of the ‘militia' — or the modern-day National Guard –– are authorized by the state governor. This power also represents a significant departure from the constitutional aversion to standing armies, which some framers feared would result in the arbitrary use of force against civilians and thereby re-create the same sort of authoritarian menace, in the form of the British Army, that American revolutionaries had just sought to free themselves from. The Insurrection Act, then, is both an exception and a rule—it represents a radical deviation from the principles of federalism and aversion to using military forces to police civilians, while authorizing a purportedly necessary use of federal military power to restore ‘law and order’ amid a domestic crisis.”

Words in a Mirror

Allen contends that the term “insurrection” is ill-defined, leaving the power of interpretation to the president, who may see protests and crises through a racial lens or “mirror.”

“An insurrection, under the Act, is a definitional vacuum waiting to be filled by the executive. The incidents taken to warrant domestic federal military intervention betray just as much, if not more, about the predilections of those wielding power as they do about the threatening nature of such events. From Nat Turner's rebellion to violent clashes over slavery in ‘Bleeding Kansas’ to white paramilitary resistance during Radical Reconstruction to the desegregation of public schools in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi to the Los Angeles ‘riots’ in 1992, the events across history that have been interpreted to warrant the domestic deployment of federal troops under the Insurrection Act reveal a pattern: the prevailing invocation of the Act, on the one hand, to suppress revolts against the slave system and so-called race riots, and, on the other, to enforce the civil rights of African Americans. So, although what constitutes an insurrection is technically undefined in the text of the Act itself, the term has been defined in practice through its historical application. What has been interpreted to constitute an insurrection is a mirror reflecting the ongoing and often bloody battle to fully incorporate black Americans into the citizenry of the United States —a struggle that, in this light, appears more like an open-ended civil war than a history of ‘progress.’”

Again, race plays a role in how and when the Act is invoked –– and by who is in office.

“An ‘insurrection,’ however, is also defined by omission. Where the Trump administration, for example, threatened to invoke the Act in response to nationwide demonstrations against police brutality, the same inclination was nonexistent in response to, say, deadly protests in Charlottesville, North Carolina, by white nationalists, or to the storming of the Michigan state capitol by armed mostly white men protesting ongoing COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Although the Insurrection Act does not need to be invoked for the president to deploy the D.C.

National Guard or federal troops within the District of Columbia, the absence of any military presence during the riots –– or, as commentators called it, the ‘insurrection’ —at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was certainly glaring. As commander in chief of the D.C. National Guard, it is clear that Trump and his administration could have authorized its deployment-that is, if they actually interpreted the riot to be a threat to law and order.”

R.E. Lee monument

Allen notes the “scant use of force” used by police in incidents brought on by armed and mostly white demonstrators not only on J6, but also in Lansing, MI and Charlottesville, VA, compared with excessive use of force against unarmed protesters who are not white.

“One obvious parallel involves the 2017 rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia, to oppose the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which drew counterprotesters who gathered to oppose the many white nationalists and neo-Nazis parading on that day. Refusing to denounce the white nationalist contingent at the rally, Trump remarked that there were "very fine people on both sides." Of course, it was at this rally that a white nationalist drove his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing a young activist named Heather Heyer. The violent nature of the rally attendees, however, was not limited to this deadly attack.”

The mirror of unequal treatment via the Insurrection Act shines a light on other signs of growing white supremacy in and out of the military: renaming bases after actual seditionists of the Confederacy, reinstalling monuments to Confederates, downplaying the history of slavery, and removing blacks and women from top leadership positions in the military. These are just some of the obvious examples.

Andrew Young ‘An Easy Burden’

Review by Bill Doughty

He was a lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In fact, he was by his side not only in life but also at King’s death at the hands of an assassin.

Andrew Young, now in his 90s, has had many titles in his lifetime: UN Ambassador, Mayor of Atlanta, Congressional Representative, Co-chair of Olympic Games, Executive Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. His other titles include: civil rights leader, peacemaker, family man, and author.

Young’s “An Easy Burden: The Civil Rights Movement and the Transformation of America” (HarperCollins, 1996) is as relevant today as it was when written nearly 30 years ago.

Need a jolt of hope? This is a good book filled with optimism in the face of pessimism, love in a time of hate, and unity despite efforts at creating division and inequality.

Andrew Young shows how the American civil rights movement arose largely as a result of World War II and the resultant Marshall Plan. The military provided proof and a blueprint for the success of diversity, inclusion, meritocracy, and equality.

Young’s perspective is rooted in a post-colonial world and his religious faith and commitment to nonviolence.

“There were many who made the American civil rights movement possible: men and women, preachers and laypeople, students and workers, young and old. But in the 1960s, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization I was involved with during the civil rights movement, was largely made up of thirtyish, Southern-born, Negro preachers. We were children of the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We spent our adolescence enjoying the rise of the United States as a defender of liberty and democracy in World War I. Our high school and university life was defined and colored by the social responsibility of the Marshall Plan, a sense of world community signaled by the founding of the United Nations and, yes, the successful liberation of India from British colonialism— without violence.”

Despite growing up in a segregated and racist South, Young and his compatriots committed themselves to finding the “better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln called for.

Young writes, “The former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass described the effort to end slavery as a struggle to save "black men's bodies and white men's souls." It was in this tradition that the preachers who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference decided its mission was "to redeem the soul of America."

“That soul we saw less in America's actions than in its ideals: freedom, equality, justice. While we endured segregation, we knew that America had shed the blood of hundreds of thousands of its sons and daughters in a war that ended slavery. We knew that America had risen up out of the depths of a Great Depression to defeat fascism. We had cheered the exploits of Dorie Miller and the Tuskegee Airmen and other colored soldiers who refused to let racial segregation prevent them from offering their lives for freedom and for America, and we were inspired by their example. Dorie Miller was told he could only be a cook's helper, but he dared to believe he could shoot down enemy aircraft [at Pearl Harbor]. The Tuskegee Airmen dared to believe black men could fly. 

We were thought to be naive, but in truth we were visionary. We dared to believe that America could be healed of the gangrene of racism. We saw America as we could become, not just as we were.

We believed that people could change, because we were constantly aware of how far we had come, personally. But most of all, we believed that a free society was constantly changing and that we could influence those changes to accommodate the needs and aspirations of all of our citizens, and that race, creed, gender, and national origin could be strengths rather than problems.

We began with the limited goal of ending racial segregation. But we came to understand segregation as just one aspect of the barrier confronting black Americans in American society.

The March on Washington became a march for jobs and freedom, because in a nation based on free enterprise, access to jobs and money are an essential component of freedom. We came to see the war in Vietnam as a symbol of the destructive role America was playing in suppressing the cause of freedom for people of color not just at home, but around the world.

As America made the world safe for democracy, we had to make America's democracy safe for the world.

Racism, war, and poverty were anchors dragging on our society, preventing us from reaching our full potential, as if anchors from a nineteenth-century sailing ship had been attached to the space shuttle. We accepted the challenges of detaching those anchors.

We knew it was a burden, but we believed it was an easy burden in a country as great as ours. We believed that God didn't give anyone more burden than he or she had the strength to bear. Our faith made our burdens light, because we never carried them alone. Our understanding and clarity of vision was a blessing, and I was taught that God requires us to use the gifts that we have been given. Racism, war, and poverty were heavy burdens, to challenge injustice was an easy burden.

We possessed a fundamental faith in democracy and free enterprise. We learned to address the nation through a free press; we made our claims on the economy by word and deed. We believed in our American heritage-a great people in a great nation that was ready to lead humankind in a new way of thinking and working. We believed in a future that we would help to create from our faith in spite of very real fears. Martin expressed it for all of us when he constantly reminded us that ‘the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’"

In protests and marches for freedom, against poverty, and “against fear,” Young lived and preached a code of nonviolence as learned from MLK who learned it from Ghandi.

Young’s view is one with a wide-aperture –– focused on the whole world and also into the future. And his love for America as well as his hope and optimism are at the center.

“America is so important to the world at this moment in history as we seek a new vision for our world. As I travel around the globe, I am reminded that the heads of state and people of nearly every country look to America for leadership. Yet, the poverty in our midst undermines our will and ability to respond to the call to global leadership and to meet the challenge of global poverty and environmental degradation—a far greater threat to future generations than even the Cold War. When I served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations, I became aware of the intense appreciation that the Japanese delegation had for the U.S. role in rebuilding Japan after World War II. That experience led many Japanese businessmen to advocate a global fund for strategic infrastructure projects that would improve the environment, facilitate sustainable development, and generate jobs. They identified fifty such strategic projects, including the English Channel Tunnel (which the British built themselves), a natural gas pipeline across Africa from the Nigerian oil fields to the Mediterranean, and a sea level canal through Nicaragua. Without enthusiastic backing from the United States, a new global infrastructure fund could not move past the visioning stage, yet no nation would benefit more from such projects than the United States. For example, the practical benefits of a canal across Nicaragua to accommodate modern supertankers are at least twofold: given the cost and dangers associated with the long voyage around South America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the canal would pay for itself in short order. Moreover, a canal under international governance would provide the basis for long-term economic growth and resulting political stability for U.S. neighbors and trading partners in Central America.

Investing in development in Central America would produce far better results in reversing the immigration flow than the punitive measures presently finding political favor.

This is the kind of forward thinking that is required from American leadership today: investing in the future to solve problems and prevent problems. How much better to build a canal than to build a wall. How much more effective to support the creation of jobs in their own regions for workers who presently risk life and limb in pursuit of a better life in the United States, rather than to put forward yet another plan for making illegal immigrants' lives only more miserable once they're here. Our nation's prosperity rests on the vision of leaders who invested in and built bridges, roads, canals, communication networks, and national parks. These are the things that make for peace.

In an expanding economy people are too busy making money and accumulating material goods to fight over ancient prejudices.

Had there been growth rather than recession in Europe when Bosnia and Serbia became independent of the former Yugoslavia, I doubt we would have seen the kind of bitter carnage that we have witnessed in that region of the world. The frustration that erupted in riots in South Central Los Angeles were rooted as much in the steady withdrawal of jobs and resources from that community as in the tragic beating of Rodney King.

Our own budget deficit has become the new excuse for ignoring growing problems in our midst and shirking our global responsibilities. But America does not have the luxury of attempting to shrink its way out of deficits; we only enlarge our problems when we withdraw resources from cities, schools, rural communities, infrastructure, parks, health care, and environmental protection. We undermine the integrity and vitality of our communities and we trigger dangerous recessions that breed conflict and violence. Surely responsible and dedicated Americans of all races can, based on the dictates of our minds as well as our hearts, pull together to meet the present challenge of poverty in all its complex manifestations both at home and

I am considerably older than I was in 1961, and I hope I'm wiser and certainly much more experienced after having moved through the Congress, the United Nations, the city of Atlanta, and the private sector. I have yet to find a reason to question or doubt the faith that we had in America then. Everything I know now convinces me that the struggle to eliminate racism, war, and poverty is a burden, but in America, with all the freedom and opportunity afforded us under our Constitution, in the most productive society in human history, it is an easy burden if we undertake it together.”

For much more about Andrew Young, readers may want to watch Rachel Maddow’s new film: “Dirty Work.” From the MSNBC website: “This gripping documentary reveals the untold story of Andrew Young — a behind-the-scenes force of the Civil Rights Movement and a quiet giant of international diplomacy. A master negotiator, strategist, and bridge-builder, Young was the man who did the essential, often thankless ‘dirty work’ that changed history, operating in the shadows while others stood in the spotlight.” Young considers the “dirty work” he did as “an easy burden.

Andrew Young celebrates black history with First Army, Fort Gillem, Georgia, in 2009 (Gayle Johnson, First Army Public Affairs Office)

SECWAR Hegseth’s Beliefs

Review by Bill Doughty

In his powerful and influential book “The War on Warriors” (Fox News Books, 2024), former Army National Guard major Pete Hegseth devotes a full chapter claiming he was persecuted for his tattoos while in the Guard, turned down from participating in President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2020. He believes he was singled out as an “extremist” particularly because of his chest tattoo of the Jerusalem Cross (an image that of the Crusades in the 11th and 12th centuries).

Hegseth is proud of his symbolic Christian and nationalist tattoos.

His tattoos include a sword and the words “Deus Vult” (“God wills it” –– believed to be a Crusader battle cry), “Chi-Rho” (Greek letters indicating Jesus), the word “Yeshua” (Hebrew for Jesus), and an AR-15 military assault rifle below a stylized American flag. Another is of a cross with a sword (referencing Gospel of Matthew verse of Jesus: “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”)

Experts see his tattoos and other messaging as a call for a return to pre-Enlightenment Christianity based on militancy and religious violence –– a call for “revival,” revolution and retribution. A call for theocracy.

Throughout “War on Warriors” Hegseth proclaims his devotion to Jesus Christ and belief in a Christian God –– not the peace-loving, kind, tolerant, and compassionate version, but rather the vengeful, violent, and patriarchal image reflected in the Old Testament and in some stories in the New Testament.

Gideon leads an attack on nonbelievers.

Hegseth recounts the story of farmer-turned-reluctant-warrior Gideon in the book of Judges (Chapters 6-8), who believed God wanted him to attack the non-believing Midianites –– the enemy from within.

“The story of Gideon reminds us that we are not only fighting a battle against foreign enemies. Sometimes the fight must begin with a struggle against domestic enemies. Those who would violate the Covenant that binds us as a community of faith and that grants us blessing,” Hegseth proclaims, “But the story of Gideon is a good reminder that readiness means nothing without God.”

Hegseth’s pastor is Doug Wilson, founder of Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches and the Calvinist leader of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho and now in Washington D.C. Hegseth has communicated Wilson’s motto and call for theocracy in some of his social media communication: “All of Christ for All of Life” –– including in government.

Wilson calls for making gay marriage illegal, banning abortion, and practicing a male-dominated form of Christianity. Among his followers are many who advocate for repeal of the 19th Amendment (ensuring women's right to vote) and against women serving in traditionally male roles.

In “War on Warriors,” subtitled “Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free,” Hegseth writes about one woman soldier he admires –– SSG Leigh Ann Hester, “the first female in the military since World War II to be awarded the Silver Star.” But then he writes at length about two other American women service members: Lynndie England, who tortured Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad, and Jessica Lynch, who was captured and had to be rescued. Anecdotes become generalizations.

Hegseth argues extensively throughout the book that “men are stronger than women.”

He often communicates with cynicism, condescension, and ridicule: “Maybe the power of positive thinking will increase women’s muscle mass.” “We are led by small generals and feeble officers without the courage…” “Not only is Milley an idiot, he is an arrogant ass.” “If only Eisenhower had an out-of-shape transgender officer,” he says sarcastically, “we would have ended World War II before 1944.”

Regarding military women who receive medically indicated abortions, Hegseth believes, “Our DOD and VA help them be baby life takers.” “Thank you for serving your country –– now we will help you kill your unborn child.”

He proclaims, ironically, “Morally bankrupt minds are just doing what they always do: Preaching, reality be damned.” And, "The Left's audacity and hubris allow them to ignore the laws they don't like and then prosecute the people they don't like."

Chapter 5 of this book is titled “The (Deadly) Obsession with Women Warriors.” Written a year before President Trump named him as Secretary of Defense, Hegseth expresses his belief about a woman’s “place” in the military –– in “support roles”:

“Intelligence gathering, chow lines, equipment maintenance, fuel, and medical support are all an essential part of the war effort. They are the difference between bitter defeat and victory. Women have nobly assisted the war effort in dangerous support roles for generations. We know they can do this, but the issue surrounding women in the infantry –– women in combat on purpose –– is another story.

The gender integration of these traditionally male spheres, coupled with our loss of a Christian ethos for God’s creation, means we’ve started to think of men and women as essentially the same animal with different levels of body strength. That’s particularly dangerous when it comes to combat because the differences aren’t just physical.”

Hegseth stereotypes: “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.” (Emphasis his.) 

There is no mention of the principle reason women in uniform were granted greater equality: to level the playing field in promotion opportunities for the most capable leaders.

The book’s epilogue is Hegseth’s “letter to my sons” (without including his two daughters). 

He writes to his sons, “I hope you joint he ranks of American fighting men … a “brotherhood.”

"You are all individuals,” he writes. “Each a child of God –– and soon, I pray, men of God. You grew up in a covenant Christian home, which Is the most important part of who you –– and we –– are. Our eternal home is in Christ’s Kingdom, and we strive to love Him with all our heart, and soul, and mind. While we have breath, we are also charged with advancing His Kingdom here on earth.”

Throughout “War on Warriors,” Hegseth calls for more “manly men” from “farms” and “small towns” to join the military while he rails against those who champion diversity, equity, and inclusion, efforts to ensure the military reflects America’s demographics.

Since becoming Trump's leader of the military, Hegseth has systematically removed senior military and DOD civilian leaders who he sees as "diversity hires" or who oppose his purge of women and minorities.

Senior leaders removed from service by Secretary of Defense Hegseth.

Hegseth blames previous civilian and military leaders of the military (especially former CJCS Milley and former SECNAV Mabus) as well as current flag officers, calling them “cowardly generals caving to beta-male politicians.” He calls it an “unholy alliance between political ideologies and Pentagon pussies,” who he calls “whores to wokesters.” (His emphasis.)

“For the past three years, the Pentagon –– across all branches –– has embraced the social justice messages of gender equity, racial diversity, climate stupidity, vaccine worship, and the LGBTQA+ alphabet soup in their recruiting pushes. Only one problem: there aren’t enough trannies from Brooklyn or lesbians from San Francisco who want to join the 82nd Airborne. Not only do the trannies and lesbians not join, but those very same ads turn off the young patriotic Christian men who have traditionally filled our ranks.”

Some experts see Hegseth’s attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion –– especially his removal of leaders such as CNO Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, CJCS Gen. C.Q. Brown, NATO representative Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, and others –– as signs of patriarchy and white Christian supremacy. 

The same can be said for his honoring of the Confederacy –– reinstating names at military installations and resurrecting monuments of Robert E. Lee and other traitors. Hegseth plays up what he sees as a threat from groups like Antifa, “the Left,” and Black Lives Matter while downplaying the attempted insurrection and violent riot at the Capitol of January 6, 2001.

He says only "a few active-duty service members at the Capitol" participated in what was an attempted coup. He writes, "Turns out the military is less racist and less extreme than the U.S. population." For now.

His recently announced restriction on beards can be seen as a way to keep black men out of the military due to a painful skin condition many black men suffer called pseudofolliculitis barbae (PFB), which requires a medical exemption that Hegseth wants to discontinue. He says the military is no place for “beardos.”

Hegseth recounts some of his time as an the Army National Guard officer, serving on multiple deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. His writing is raw, emotive, and paints a realistic and believable portrayal of life in a combat zone. He describes the sights, sounds, and smells as well as the emotions in the field.

“I was walking on air. Exhilaration that we would be doing something meaningful and kinetic,” he writes.

Cast of  Friends.

But that feeling was followed quickly with deep disappointment when his unit was assigned to guard duty “in ramshackle guard towers, wasting away in the heat and dust. Aimlessly spitting tobacco juice and sunflower seeds in Halliburton Tesco barriers on the front gate playing ‘fuck, marry, kill’ with the cast of Friends.”

His view of the future of humanity seems hopeless and nihilistic. No chance for a peaceful world. “We are flawed. We are sinful. Men will always fight other men.” Therefore, he concludes, we are justified to fight without consideration of rules of engagement, norms, or other constraints, including international laws and even the U.S. Constitution.

“Aren’t we just better off winning our wars according to our own rules?”

“Should we follow the Geneva Conventions? What if we treated the enemy the way they treated us? Would that not be an incentive for the other side to reconsider their barbarism? Hey, Al Qaeda: If you surrender, we might spare your life. If you do not, we will rip your arms off and feed them to hogs.”

It’s notable that in less than a year Hegseth has fired numerous JAG officers, IGs (Inspectors General), and advisors who don’t have his beliefs or who don’t give him the advice he wants. Ultimately, without controls on the executive branch by the legislature, the nation relies on the judiciary to enforce treaties and laws, such as the Posse Comitatus Act prohibiting the use of federal military forces for domestic law enforcement.

Hegseth says of progressives, “We are awake to their woke; and our battle begins anew, here at home.”

Smaller than his Crusades-related tattoos are Hegseth’s inks of nationalist symbols and words include the U.S. Constitution’s famous opening phrase “We the People,” “1775” in Roman numerals (for the American War of Independence), and a “Join, or Die” snake from the American Revolution. He also displays tattoos of a pair of crossed muskets, a circle of stars and a patch of his regiment, the 187th Infantry.

The cover of his book features an image of an upside down American flag patch.

Hegseth expresses his feelings of persecution and grievance after concluding his Christian cross tattoos kept him from being selected for inauguration duty: “Maybe it was too many crosses? Would just one cross be okay? Or does the Army think that all white Christians are white nationalists? Is it all Christians? All whites? All Trump supporters?”

Just as not all republicans are white nationalists or MAGA followers, not all Christians or other god-fearing Americans are in favor of a theocratic government.

In his landmark book “The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy,” Ernst Cassirer observed this about mainstream believers of the New Testament: “True Christianity does not require that the opponents of the faith be destroyed but that they be convinced through reason, converted through instruction, or be peacefully tolerated.”

Writing about his Jerusalem Cross tattoo, Hegseth asks, “But was this really about a cross? Was this really about one Christian man?”

He concludes with a veiled threat, “What can one Christian man do to dismantle their agenda? Maybe a lot... I guess we'll find out after this book.”

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The Trump administration, with help from Hegseth, is:

• purging ethical leaders and advisors; 
• embracing the Confederacy; 
• deploying troops to U.S. cities;
• rejecting women in uniform;
• promoting anti-vaccination conspiracies;
• failing to protect the environment;
• accelerating corruption and grift at home and overseas;
• restricting the media;
• banning books and censoring museums and schools;
• attacking the First, Fourth and Tenth Amendments;
• declaring nonexistent emergencies and insurgencies;
• fomenting division, disparity and inequality;
• politicizing the military;
• threatening to exert plenary (unrestricted) powers; and
• renaming DOD to Department of War.

All of these tectonic changes seem especially poignant as the Navy, Marine Corps, and Army commemorate 250 year anniversaries in 2025. 

Are Trump and Hegseth preparing to combine military branches as other autocrats do?

Will they continue to promote anti-democracy movements in Europe while half-heartedly supporting Ukraine and kowtowing to Putin?

Will they order the military to invade Greenland and/or Canada, as Trump has threatened?

Will they start a war in Central America or the Caribbean and continue blowing up speed boats from Venezuela and Colombia?

Will they shut down freedom of the press, public education, and voting rights?

[And by the way, will they ever release the Epstein files and hold Ghislaine Maxwell accountable?]

Bottom line: Will they continue to try to lead the United States toward an authoritarian theocracy?