President-elect Trump’s cabinet represents a growing plutocracy and kakistocracy in America.
Nominations including Hegseth for Secretary of Defense, Noem for Secretary of Homeland
Security, Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Kennedy for Secretary of Health and
Human Services, Musk and Ramaswamy for co-leads of the new Department of Government
Efficiency, as well as former Attorney General nominee Gaetz, are all hallmarks of this
pervasive reality.
Lacking someone to say “I am Spartacus,” the new administration, bolstered by an allied
Congress and Supreme Court, is not opposed to departing America’s most important military
alliance and imposing Zygmunt Bauman’s oppressive “gardening state.”
America abandoning NATO would be penny-wise but pound-foolish. With eight member
nations, out of the thirty-two, needing to increase their defense spending, it is absurd for the U.S.
to withdraw and self-sabotage our global security position. NATO is mutually beneficial for each
member nation involved, despite Trump’s economic complaints. Being the only country to
invoke Article 5, the U.S. is no different in reaping the rewards of this alliance’s collective
security umbrella.
Bauman’s “gardening state” concept is that countries are literal gardeners. As the gardener, the
nation protects good citizens, viewed as good plants, and outcasts others, designated as weeds.
By reinstating the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, Trump seeks the domestic deployment of military
forces, in a state of exception. This would effectively weed out immigrants vital to America.
If enacted, the president’s solution, to Congressional failures, would incorporate mass
immigrant roundups and the implementation of detention camps; becoming a textbook example
of Achille Mbembe’s necropolitics in modernity.
Connor Joyce is a Gettysburg College Student and an Executive Intern with the Potomac Institute for Public Policy’s International Center for Terrorism Studies. He is a former intern with The World Affairs Council of Harrisburg and PennLive.
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Publish date : 2024-12-12 00:23:00
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