UPDATED 8:37 pm Pacific. No matter how the Administration tries to spin this Truth Social post, it is not funny. And based on Trump’s public statements this week, it’s damn serious.
Trump’s rhetoric of the Hollywoodification of war, ‘Chipocalypse Now’, reflects the Oscar winning movie about Vietnam, Apocalypse Now.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker wrote on Twitter (X):
The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city.
This is not a joke. This is not normal.
Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.
The inflammatory rhetoric reflects Trump’s unauthorized attempt to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. On Friday, the URL defense.gov redirected to war.gov.
Only Congress can change the name of an executive agency; the GOP rushed to introduce legislation supporting Trump’s re-branding.
The post-WWII era ushered in the Department of Defense, an overarching agency that encompasses the various branches of the military. It did not exist during WWII. Moreover, the name reflected the global effort to avoid war:
“Military tasks are directed not toward war—not toward conquest—but toward peace,” President Harry Truman insisted in 1947, when Congress first jettisoned the “War Department” label.
Governing via one’s own social media network seems to me to be a form of emoluments clause violations, not to mention a public records act headache.
Addendum
Coincidentally, the line in Apocalypse Now, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” was spoken by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall), about the absurdity of war and the profound psychological damage it inflicts on everyone involved. It followed a napalm attack on a civilian population, which is a war crime under international law. Perhaps, as is so often the case, Trump seized on the line without understanding its meaning. Perhaps he just doesn’t care now that he has his “Department of Warfare.” But it is not a president’s job to go to war against the American people. Apocalypse Now is about a man driven insane by war, a movie about how hollow war can make people. Donald Trump, unintentionally, has invoked just the right image for what is to come.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com