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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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The DOGE combined with the pending executive order to review military officials for "requisite leadership qualities" make me think he might actually make good on the Project 2025 promise to do some housecleaning in the bureaucracy. I'm not holding my breath, but, we'll see.

The speed at which the transition team is moving gives at least the superficial appearance that they learned something from Trump's first term. They know how they were stymied the first time, and they're making efforts to prevent that from happening again.

review military officials for "requisite leadership qualities"

Man, this article is the perfect example of how dishonest the media have become. Sure, they can fabulate that he wants to purge the brass to have loyalists for a coup, but the brass fucking lied, kept crucial information from him and undermined him the first time around. He would be stupid NOT to purge them. Biden should have purged them after he got hit by the trap they left for Trump with the Afghanistan widthdrawal.

How were they stymied last time and what are they doing now to prevent that?

I dunno, it just seemed like the right thing to say.

EDIT: Permanent unelected bureaucrats were instrumental in blocking the implementation of certain Trump policies during his first term. The fact that the transition team has already floated multiple proposals for trimming the bureaucracy seems to show that they’re aware of this fact and have a strategy for dealing with it.

My impression is that GOPe political appointees were responsible for more obstruction and sabotage than the Deep State.