Hyena

To work for Donald Trump one has to assiduously attend to two competing primary guidelines. The first is to never outshine the boss on a public stage. Competence is far less important to the President than who is receiving credit for it. Anthony Fauci, for example, first brought to Coronavirus press conferences to address questions Trump and his other minions had no idea how to answer, quickly got on the President’s last nerve simply for his effortless display of expertise.

Due to the dearth of anything but inane and inappropriate Trump homage anywhere else on the Pence task force, Fauci’s authoritative cadence made him a star. Trump is too lazy to learn any minimum necessary for the relevance required to be more than an emcee of his public dog and pony shows, but that doesn’t stop him from rapidly resenting those relied on to carry his water when he senses them eclipsing his bloated shadow. Do your job, but not well enough in the public eye to escape the taint of your slobbering servitude to me! Rule number one.

The second rule of the Trumpist lackeyhood is one must be ready to fully abase themselves and destroy any or all of the credibility they have amassed in support of any senseless whim the boss may exhibit, or even be expected to unleash. Nicki Haley, perhaps the GOP’s brightest future star, learned this in a hurry as she rushed headlong into declaring sanctions against Russia that Putin put the kabosh on during a personal call that immediately had our asset-in-chief turning tail and pulling the rug out from under his U.N. Ambassador. Haley was forced to eat crow and talk gibberish through a humiliating weekend of Sunday news shows. Of course, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has perfected this shameless backtracking by simply starting fights with questioners, an approach Trump appreciates and rewards. Always be willing to look stupid and powerless when countermanded without notice. Better yet, learn to anticipate it! Rule number two.

In line with these ruinous metrics, Trump appeared to have a real keeper in acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly. Surely the President was initially delighted by every facet of Modly’s approach to blackballing Captain Brett Crozier for the actions he took after hundreds of his crew on the USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for Covid-19 following an R&R stop in Vietnam. The gratuitous venom Modly displayed in surplus for an officer, whose crew turned out en masse to shower with extended and riotous applause as he disembarked after his command was terminated by the SecNav, is just what Trump likes to see his eunuchs dole out to “rats” who risk public exposure of his realm’s incompetence. Modly seemed that rare MAGA breed with the instincts to “feel” just how ugly his master’s inclinations are, while at the same time jumping at the chance to disgrace himself carrying out such loathsome measures.

The story being pieced together tells of Covid-19 rampaging through the aircraft carrier’s tightly packed crew, its captain at odds with his superiors over how to proceed, and all the while top brass insisting everything was under control. Sound familiar? Crozier wanted the carrier taken off line to segment the crew and treat those with symptoms. Once the crew was quarantined and recovered, the mission could continue… sensible from any view. Rear Admiral Stuart Baker and US Pacific Fleet Commander John Aquilino thought the outbreak could be handled aboard the vessel while it continued its mission. Of course, Crozier was at the helm of the carrier and was seeing the exponential math multiplying by the hour. Without adequate testing or protocols to employ, he simply couldn’t see how that was possible.

To hear Modly sneer it, Crozier’s grievous sin was “going outside the chain of command” with a March 30 email sent to between 20-30 recipients, many on the captain’s own staff. The “blast-out email,” as Modly labeled it, recommended 90 percent of the crew be tested and quarantined and the ship be disinfected. After all, Crozier noted, the carrier was not engaged in hostilities, crew members “do not need to die.”

What’s now clear is the content of the communication wasn’t the issue; the fact it leaked the next day and was published by the San Francisco Chronicle was what got Modly thinking WWTD (What Would Trump Do). Even though top Pentagon brass were making clear they “didn’t want to shoot the messenger,” the SecNav figured he’d show the type of initiative that earns Trump twitter props, take the scapegoat by the gruff! Rather than respect the chain of command and even wait for Crozier’s immediate superiors to weigh in, Modly pulled the trigger. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff really had little choice but to get behind the move. Another good man, performing his job in good faith, tarnished by MAGA dreck.

Asked about the decision to relieve Crozier of command, Trump did what he always does, lie and abase. Even though the stop in Vietnam was a Pentagon priority to celebrate 25 years of good relations, Trump implied it was Crozier’s bad judgment to do so. Next, he characterized “a 5-page letter” that “was all over the place…. totally inappropriate.” Two days later, the President doubled down, amping up the insults and making clear he backed the decision.

Yet, incredibly, Modly felt the need to stomp on Crozier’s reputation some more Monday, when he addressed the stunned crew of the Roosevelt. Laced with profanity, his diatribe denounced Crozier’s email as “a betrayal” and indicative of one either “… too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this.” The speech didn’t stop with just libelous character assassination of a decorated officer, it also checked off other MAGA boxes. Modly worked up a lather railing against media “agendas,” and took a swipe at Joe Biden’s defense of Crozier, amplifying his attacks against the ship’s popular skipper (“what your captain did was very, very wrong.”) The tone and content of the whole thing made clear the speechless crew was not who Modly was actually speaking to…. that guy was on a couch in the East Wing sipping a Diet Coke and retweeting Candace Owen’s epiphany about running for office!

At press time a sliver of sunshine seems available as the blowback of Modly’s gratuitous outrages consumes him. More than a quarter million signatures support a petition condemning him and calling for Crozier’s reinstatement as captain of the Roosevelt. No doubt Modly was informed by top Navy brass that his idiocy destroyed the authority of his office and support for his position no longer existed. But what about support from the one whose sensibilities he was certain the whole enterprise reflected? Yea, sure thing.

His resignation submitted, the now ex acting Secretary of the Navy has learned another, perhaps even more fundamental, rule Scar imparts to the hyenas seeking benefit from his rabid whim. Everybody is expendable without second thought. His sights now focused squarely on siphoning enough Coronavirus stimulus cash to keep his businesses from going belly up and laying bare the myth of his vast wealth and business acumen, Trump no longer sees any upside to Modly’s initiative. In fact, the President now appears ready to offer Crozier mercy from on high, declaring his career should not suffer for “a bad day.” Here’s hoping Crozier tells the CINC he’d do not a thing different if given another opportunity. And Modly? He’s learned the hard way Trump never says thank you. He wishes you luck and forgets your name. Just another acting somebody gone from a valley of nobodies. Good Riddance! BC