'Too much': Conservative veteran warns GOP's 'absolute support' for Trump will backfire
Conservative commentator, veteran and former National Review Institute fellow David French recently told CNN anchor Dana Bash that the Trump administration is replacing meritocracy with blind loyalty and the incompetence that inevitably comes with it.
French referenced Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent dressing down of top U.S. military brass at Quantico, when Hegseth told commanders: “We all serve at the pleasure of the president, every single day.”
“While I was watching [Hegseth] posturing very aggressively like he was the warrior’s warrior, this is a man who not just a few months ago put war plans on a civilian messaging app that included, as part of the group, the editor in chief of the Atlantic,” said French. “It's one of the biggest security blunders I've ever seen. It's the kind of thing that when I was in the military, people would be prosecuted for. I've seen careers ruined for far less than that. And the image of this man lecturing people — who had far more experience than him — about standards and toughness, when he’s already failed dramatically on just maintaining basic standards, was almost too much to take.”
French said Hegseth’s stumbling audacity set the tone for the rest of the administration of President Donald Trump, as well as the GOP. And he added that the “fundamental unifying theme of the GOP,” in addition to “absolute support for Donald Trump” is now an “anti-left” agenda, above all else.
“They're going to look at it as a win if they defeat a leftist policy, if they defeat a leftist candidate. But that's not governing. That's just rank opposition,” said French, who served in several military campaigns in Iraq. “If you're going to actually run and govern the most powerful nation in the world, just being an opponent on one side isn't sufficient. You can't replace something with nothing.”
French added that what’s filling the hole right now is nothing to be proud of.
“A lot of times what they're replacing it with is something that really goes back into American history — and it’s not our greatest moments: Rank nepotism, politicization of the civil service or the military,” said French. “All of these are things we initiated legal reforms to remove ourselves from. But it's all coming back where it's not a meritocracy. When the number one qualification for a job is loyalty to Donald Trump, that's not what a meritocracy looks like.”
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