We knew that Hegseth didn't understand (or didn't believe in) security. It's not surprising that Trump, who had highly classified documents laying around in Mar a Lago, doesn't either.
Years ago, I was in a classified meeting in a SCIF when someone's cell phone went off. The person was immediately escorted out of the room--probably their clearance was revoked, and they were told not to come back. Having a cell phone in a SCIF is bad enough, having it go off inside the SCIF is even worse--and answering it during a classified meeting (or just answering it inside a SCIF) is cause for trouble big.
(OP here) I kid you not, the person whose phone went off inside the SCIF was holding his phone next to a window, complaining about the poor signal. He was some kind of scientist or engineer who had been given a clearance as an "expert" adviser to listen to and grade presentations by people like me. I'm sure he didn't usually work in a SCIF--this might have been his first (and probably last) time inside one.
The laws and rules are now selectively enforced only against those that don't submit to the head of enforcement. The head of enforcement may ignore the laws however they wish...
They're conservatives. That's the core premise of the ideology. For each "thing", prevent any progress that helps anyone other than the conservatives. If previous progress has made things worse for conservatives, revert that progress.
No, that’s stupid. You’re replying to someone who would consider themselves fairly conservative. And in my mind conservatives follow and respect the rules and traditions. This is not following or respecting anything.
Though I will say, it’s been very clear to me since Trump ran in 2016 that he is not actually a “conservative” and that the GOP has been crumbling into degeneracy under him
The only novel element that Trump brought to the GOP was profiting from his office financially, through meme coins, extortion via threats of executive orders, gifts of $400 million aircraft, foreign emissaries booking stays in Trump-owned hotels, etc. But American conservatism has always been destructive at its core.
Who would you consider to be a standard-bearer of "conservatism" as you define it? Ronald Reagan? Barry Goldwater? Phyllis Schlafly? William F. Buckley Jr.? Rush Limbaugh? Newt Gingrich? Karl Rove? Tucker Carlson? Lee Atwater? John Ehrlichman?
Because those are the same people who paved the way for Trump et al.
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1. Ronald Reagan
- Legitimized the use of cultural wedge issues (e.g. "welfare queens," states' rights at the Neshoba County Fair) that racialized politics for electoral gain.
- His sunny rhetoric masked an increasing detachment from policy detail, paving the way for style-over-substance populism.
- His deregulation and anti-government messaging sowed distrust in institutions, which Trump exploited more fully.
2. Barry Goldwater
- His radical anti-government ideology and rejection of civil rights legislation marked the beginning of the GOP's shift toward Southern racial resentment and individualist extremism.
- His campaign normalized ideological purity tests and rejection of moderation in the Republican Party.
3. Phyllis Schlafly
- Promoted a cultural traditionalism rooted in opposition to feminism, secularism, and elites (core parts of Trumpist rhetoric).
- In her later years, she explicitly supported Trump and authored The Conservative Case for Trump.
4. William F. Buckley Jr.
- Helped unify disparate elements of the Right, including libertarians, traditionalists, and anti-communists. He also flirted with exclusionary ideas (e.g., defending segregationists early in his career).
- His gatekeeping role arguably failed to permanently expel conspiracists and racists from the movement, who re-emerged in Trumpism.
5. Rush Limbaugh
- Arguably did more than anyone to mainstream conservative media as a vehicle for outrage, identity politics, and misinformation.
- He regularly mocked facts, science, and expertise. He directly influenced the tone and method of Trump's political communication.
6. Newt Gingrich
- Gingrich normalized scorched-earth partisanship and delegitimized opponents as enemies, revolutionizing GOP politics in the process.
- His "Contract with America" and leadership style eroded congressional decorum and promoted grievance-based politics.
- He created the climate where performative politics and obstructionism became normal.
7. Karl Rove
- Pioneered data-driven wedge-issue campaigning and appealed to the Christian Right in ways that prioritized winning over policy consistency.
- Promoted executive power and political tribalism, both of which Trump exploited.
- His famous quote ("We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality...") precipitated the GOP's conversion to post-truth politics. [1]
8. Tucker Carlson
- Carlson became one of Trumpism's most effective propagandists, repackaging white nationalist themes in more polished rhetoric.
- Embraced anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-elite populism, and authoritarian sympathies—all central to Trump's base.
- Helped shift the conservative movement fully into post-truth, post-policy identity politics.
9. Lee Atwater
- Helped refine the Southern Strategy (using racial resentment in coded language) to mobilize white voters.
- The Willie Horton ad (1988). Exploited white fears of Black criminality, linking Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis to a Black man who committed violent crimes while on furlough.
- Trump’s political brand is built on humiliation, name-calling (“Crooked Hillary,” “Sleepy Joe”), and no-limits partisanship. This directly echoes Atwater’s ethic (Atwater said he'd make Willie Horton into Dukakis' running mate, and expressed willingness to go as negative as needed to destroy opponents).
10. John Ehrlichman
"The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
John Ehrlichman, as quoted by journalist Dan Baum in Harper’s, April 2016.
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I posit that any philosophical / political difference between most conservative figureheads that you might name, and Trump himself, is more a difference in degree than a difference in kind:
Dog-whistle racism => overt bigotry
Narrative spin => post-truth politics
Ruthless attacks => personality-driven dominance
Cultural wedge issues => culture war extremism
A political philosophy that is so fundamentally rooted in asking “What about me?” instead of “What about them?” was always going to end this way.
Please explain the ways the military leaders fucked up the wars. I'm only 40 so I may not have lived through as many wars as you but the actual 'war' parts of the wars that have involved the US seem to have gone off without a hitch. It was winning the peace that proved difficult and that is a responsibility that falls on the politicians.
Well to start off the cold war timeline. The Greek civil war was an American victory, then China fell to the Communists and we spent decades arguing who lost China. Then the Soviets let off Joe 1 and it turns out the Manhattan project was heavily infiltrated by Soviet Spies which made the American nuclear monopoly a short foot note. The combination of those 2 factors resulted in the Korean War. Which was looking like all of Korea would be lost, then all of Korea could be gained until China entered, resulting in a tie. The lessons learned from Korea made the next war in the region the Vietnam War politically constrained, which succeeded in preventing China from entering the war directly like they did in Korea, but resulted in the entire country of Vietnam being lost to the Communists which was a worse outcome than the tie that was Korea.
The Gulf Wars learned the lessons of Vietnam, and the constrained vision of keeping Saddam out of Kuwait meant there was no quagmire. Kosovo was also a success, as there was regime change for the better in the former Yugoslavia.
The 2000s after 9/11 were some "fucked up wars", the US military seemed to have learned the lessons from the 90s that they should have gone farther with regime change, and forgot the lessons of the Vietnam War. Taking down Saddam didn't result in a more stable Iraq, Iraq didn't turn into a flourishing democracy. After the US withdrew from the country under Obama you have the emergence of ISIS. Obama also helped decapitate Gaddafi's regime, which made Libya less stable. The actual war parts may be successful but if they're not achieving political or strategic goals those wins do not matter.
There's an apocryphal tale of an American and a North Vietnamese general after the war:
This description of the oval office as some super-secret meeting space seems like a gross mischaracterization in an attempt to fabricate a controversy or gain clicks.
I mean, it has windows.
If this was true, the situation room wouldn't exist.
The oval office seems more like a busy CEO's office with an open door policy. Bill Maher confirmed on his podcast the current administration turned the annex (where blowjobs were dispensed during the Clinton years) into the merch room where they store the red hats.
Random individuals without clearance and sometimes with ties to Russia (talking about DOGE here) have access to all government IT systems, including databases of the military personnel, and the military leaders are now aghast at Zuck? I don't know how people can take "clearance" or "classified" seriously anymore.
It's incredible, because the entire basis laid out by the media and Republicans to reject Clinton in 2016 was that she would not respect security protocols. 10 years later and all the people who said she can't be POTUS because she would give secrets away to Russia are now doing the same as her and worse.
It's just down to a handful of people able to get the Tyrant King to sign off on anything they put in front of him
The scariest perspective is this is only 150 days in.
So imagine what happens 150 weeks later when all bets are off and "sure why not who would stop us" kicks in.
I am truly morbidly curious what happens to a country when 15+ million people disappear in just four years though.
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