Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
In Tough Letter, Mattis Resigns as Secretary of Defense
Late Thursday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced that he will leave the Trump administration in February. In his resignation letter, Mattis told the President, “you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours on these and other subjects, I believe it is right for me to step down from my position.”
Trump offered kind words on Twitter for the retiring cabinet member. “General Jim Mattis will be retiring, with distinction, at the end of February, after having served my Administration as Secretary of Defense for the past two years,” Trump tweeted. “During Jim’s tenure, tremendous progress has been made, especially with respect to the purchase of new fighting equipment. General Mattis was a great help to me in getting allies and other countries to pay their share of military obligations. A new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly. I greatly thank Jim for his service!”
The text of the resignation letter is included below:
Hearing this news was like a punch to my gut. I didn’t vote for Trump and I was genuinely nervous about whether he would have the maturity to keep us out of unnecessary conflicts. The day he announced Mattis as his nominee for Secretary of Defense was the first day I realized a Trump presidency would likely be fine.
So of course Mattis’ resignation brings back some of that original feeling of insecurity about Trump’s worst instincts going unchecked. But here’s the sliver of hope I see: Trump nominated Mattis in the first place. And he did so at a point in his presidency when he was arguably much more chaotic than he is now.
And even as a general Trump detractor, I’ll give the man full credit for this: he has been very open to appointing people who aren’t a natural fit to his personality to high positions, and then actually giving them enough time in office to prove themselves. Neither Priebus, nor Kelly, nor Tillerson, nor even Mattis himself were obvious “Trump guys”, but they all got a fair shake and most of them lasted a healthy amount of time.
Despite the teeth gnashing (at times by myself included) that Trump would only surround himself with yes men, he didn’t – and many of those yes-men exited stage right even sooner than Mattis, Tillerson, or John Kelly.
When were we ever good at empire? Why are libertarians critical of this stuff? Bueller?
We should just help Iran build a six lane interstate all the way to southern Lebanon and get it over with.
I would also add that having a Secretary of Defense stick around forever is also not necessarily the best outcome.
Despite also being highly qualified for the job, Rumsfeld was one of the worst Secretaries of Defense in modern times – and he stuck around for 6 years!
Well, apparently neither did Trump and Mattis, but Trump kept him in for nearly 2 years. While Graham and Trump differ on policy, Graham has been much more kind toward Trump as a person and a president over the last few years, and Trump seems to be very willing to hire people who disagree with him on policy but express loyalty (which is not the same as fealty or worship) on a more personal level.
No kidding. Another Ruling Class Wrecker.
People act like all of this big government and empire is manageable. It patently isn’t.
The stock market is worried about what the Fed is doing.
I have a question for you. What if Powell is trying to do now what Yellen should’ve done five years ago? Supposedly, the Obama administration intimidated the crap out of her, plus she has a bias towards easy money (Trump was stupid to get rid of her, both politically and from his own personal disposition. He loves easy money even more than she does).
Central bank discretion interferes with “democracy”, but everyone acts like it doesn’t. Conservatism and libertarianism can’t work or sell in this regime.
Someone mentioned talk about dumping Pence from the ticket in 2020.
That was a one day story that came out when Trump was casting about for a new COS. To me, that looked like Kelly or someone close to him leaked that as retaliation because Pence’s COS was being talked about as a Kelly replacement.
I don’t think there’s anything to it.
The big government + empire, run by experts Republicans are really relishing in all of this.
Plus they’re saying that Ann Coulter controls Trump because of how he’s handling the shutdown and the wall.
Just reporting.
This trope is confusing. Because Trump ran on not engaging in pointless wars, and it seems to be his instinct, and mattis resigned over trump moving to end pointless adventures that no longer served american interests, we have to worry that trump will do the exact opposite, because the person who wanted to engage in more pointless war resigned.
We also have the entire neocon community in a full multiyear “alex jones on meth” like meltdown because of his objection to Iraq.
Unlikely. News yesterday was that Trump unfollowed Coulter on Twitter after she said mean things about him.
I’m not sure that proves anything. Matt Lewis just rode a column about it. She obviously has a lot of political power.
This is the way Empire works: the pro-empire, pro-big government, run by experts RINOs and the Democrats will go on and on about this, so they take away Trump’s power and the Pro-Trump camps power…
… which makes the march towards socialism more and more ineluctable.
It has little to do with which policies Trump or his SecDef espouse and everything to do with the maturity with which they carry out their actions.
I tend against intervention and I said above that Rumsfeld is one of the worst Secretaries of Defense of our generation. But I still don’t want us to rapidly pull out our troops in a manner that would provide a perfect opportunity for either a regional strongman to rapidly increase his power while massacring his opponents.
The important criteria are having the composure to avoid rash or stupid decisions and the courage to stand up to the leader of the free world and tell him not that he’s wrong, but that there’s a better way for him to accomplish his goals. Actual ideology is secondary.
Matt Lewis
See? The non-“entertainment wing of the GOP”. What percent of those guys just like big government and Empire run by “experts”?
Why would that be bad for the united states? It doesn’t matter one way or another.
It would probably be better for us if they did if it created a mostly durable stability.
You seem to be concerned that I may unwisely remove a fork from an electrical socket.
Uncertainty about what? How many bureaucrats aren’t going to receive a check for doing little to nothing of value, paid for by confiscated wealth? The reason the market is going down is because it’s been way too high for way too long and when sentiment finally changes people start trying to get ahead of it.
Gee, why would that be?
#EndTheFed
The more I think about this, the more alarmed I become, and I am not a person who gets alarmed about the president. There have, in fact, been more presidents than secretaries of defense. Both come. Both go. Both make an impact whilst on the job, and that impact either matters, or it doesn’t.
Regardless, I don’t see the advantage Donald Trump wants here, and the pitfalls seem absolutely, gobsmackingly obvious.
In truth, I don’t understand what he’s doing at all.
The mantra of we shouldn’t be in Syria because we’re not the world’s policeman, and the mission is accomplished, or others should fight the mission are just platitudes on any front, so I don’t understand people who seem to be channeling their inner Pat Buchanans by spouting them.
I don’t see anyone who holds Trump’s view on Syria anyway apart from Rand Paul or Tulsi Gabbard, and how many people do they represent?
I don’t think this is good politics even.
You had a small strike force providing air cover for American allies who were doing the hardest fighting while hitting our own enemies and decreasing Russian/Turkish influence.
That’s… good.
Now those allies will be destroyed, and our enemies will grow again. It feels like a crazy rerun.
I just don’t get it. Like. Seriously. I do not understand.
Hate to break it to Chuckles, but we don’t need them. There is no chaos. Are the lights on? Can you drive to the mall to go shopping? Are your family and friends still, inexplicably, still alive, despite the chaos that’s erupting across Hagel’s desk, er, country?
Yes. We’re paying these idiots to sell us something we don’t need, which is them. And many go along for the ride, because they dislike Trump.
If those who are echoing these thoughts, that a government shutdown and a drop in the stock market are negative harbingers of Trump, then they are fully bought into the government owning a quarter of the economy, increasing control over their lives, and an undying interest in whatever those dolts are saying at any given moment in time.
None of that sounds like conservatism. It sounds like statism.