Competent Fascists Please The Military. Trump & Hegseth Pissed Them Off.

Surprisingly, generals don't like being lectured by a drunk Fox News host.

Throughout history and in modernity, fascist dictators have correctly recognized the need to court the military; more specifically, the need to ensure the high-ranking brass feels personal loyalty to them. Military control is crucial to their imperialist projects, which are often the foundation of fascism. But more importantly, dictators require a loyal military to exert domestic control and retain power. Without them, they’re easily removed, as was Former Brazilian President and current Brazilian inmate Jair Bolsonaro, whose 2022 coup attempt crumbled when army leadership refused to participate. The most notorious right-wing dictators in history — Hitler, Franco, Mussolini — are household names because they intertwined their generals’ prestige with the dictatorial project. After the Blackshirts marched on Rome and put Mussolini in power, he folded many of their units into the Italian Army to avoid threatening armed forces leadership. On the Iberian Peninsula, dictators Francisco Franco and António Salazar appointed top military commanders to government posts, fusing their interests with those of their armies. It’s a wine-and-dine strategy to make sure that when it’s time to rig an election or march the undesirables into the camps, generals will dutifully order the grunts to participate — law and humanity be damned.

I don’t say this often, but in this regard, the United States is lucky. If you’re going to be governed by a fascist, it’s better to be under one whose last functioning brain cells are straining to keep him awake at cabinet meetings rather than meticulously planning his coup years in advance. Though Trump has draped himself in the flag and jumped into a pool of militarism, that hasn’t translated into allegiance with the leaders he’d need to steal an election. If anything, he’s pissed them off.