Background Briefing: January 26, 2025

In Their Jihad Against DEI, Trump and Hegseth Are Creating Affirmative Action for White Losers, Drunks and Incompetents 

We begin with the narrowest 50 to 51 vote in the Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense requiring VP Vance to cast a tie breaker and assess the disaster ahead. We will discuss how an incompetent ideologue and “Christian” crusader, who sees Americans who voted for Democrats as the enemy, not Russia, will purge the DOD of minorities, women and gays, resulting in the current recruitment shortfall turning into a crisis as our $trillion military runs out of soldiers, sailors and airmen and women. Joining us is Michael Weinstein, the founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and a leader of the movement to restore the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state in the United States military. He is an attorney who served on active duty in the U.S. Air Force as a judge advocate (JAG) for ten years and also worked for more than three years as legal counsel in the Reagan White House. The author of With God on Our Side: One Man’s War against the Evangelical Coup in America’s Military, the latest book by his wife Bonnie is When Christians Break Bad: Letters from the Insane, Inane, and Profane and we discuss the latest article at mrff.org, “Pete Hegseth, the new Secretary of Defense is a Christian Dominionist.”

 

Trump’s Wrecking Crew and the Politics of Destruction

Then we examine the politics of destruction as the Trump wrecking crew led by OMB Director and Project 2025 head Russell Vought, begin their deliberate effort to dismantle the American government and speak with Russell Muirhead, the Robert Clements Professor of Democracy and Politics at Dartmouth College. He is the co-author with Nancy Rosenblum of A Lot of People Are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy and we discuss their their reent book Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and the Politics of Chaos.

Trump Eyes Panama, Greenland and Canada For a Land Grab

Then finally with Trump calling for a land grab that may involve military force to retake the Panama Canal, wrest Greenland from NATO ally Denmark, and make Canada our 51st state, we speak with Michael Albertus, a professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research examines democracy and dictatorship, inequality and redistribution, property rights, and civil conflict. His books include Property Without Rights: Origins and Consequences of the Property Rights Gap and Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn’t, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies.