By Rick Lindquist
President Donald J. Trump, true to his campaign promises, has moved to establish a regime in his second presidential term has purposefully aimed to pull back from how the US has been viewed globally since the post-World War II years. In a talk in Ellsworth on August 24, Johns Hopkins University adjunct professor Marvin Ott presented his vision of the Trump administration’s overall direction, citing several examples that he feels would work into such a plan. Ott’s presentation before an appreciative audience at the Moore Center was sponsored by the Hancock County Democratic Committee and The Ellsworth American. Essentially, he posited, would aim to turn the current view of the US on its head, bringing power back home and ruling by fiat, in part by unitarily imposing tariffs “like a flaming sword” on countries around the world, even targeting such close allies as Canada. He also has moved to tamp the flow of official information by such actions as shutting down the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other official media outlets.
The US Department of Defense has been the paragon of a professional military establishment, Ott said, citing it as one segment of the US governance that will have to change. “We’re now going to turn the American military into a political instrument of the White House and a personal instrument of the president,” Ott said. A president of such a mind would make changes starting at the top, including the elimination of two Joint Chiefs of Staff members, which in Trump’s case were the sole African American and chairman, and the only woman.
Ott characterized these removals as “a message to anybody else that I’m in charge, you serve at my pleasure, and your job is to make me happy.”
Trump wants to bring the Pentagon to heel and chooses Pete Hegseth, a Fox news commentator, whom Ott described as “a public drunk” and “demonstrably incompetent,” to head the Department of Defense. “The message that will go out to the military is one of contempt,” Ott asserted.
Ott said the focus of the US military will become inward, and we will start to use the military as a weapon in the hands of the president to use as he sees fit.
In the same vein, he said, the president would pick a former congressperson such as Tulsi Gabbard of Minnesota to serve as the Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard, he noted, has no management experience whatsoever. “Her main claim to fame,” he said, is that she was “a regular on Russian TV as a commentator,” echoing Russian talking points. Ott said she was so beloved as a Russian TV personality that she was referred to as “our Tulsi.” This appointment was once again “a message of contempt” and another indication that the US is pulling away from its largely positive icon in the world scene. “America is now grasping, selfish, demanding” with its focus is on the president as number one, Ott asserted.
Another initiative has been to break down the US reputation as a paragon of research knowledge. “Our new president doesn’t want any part of that, as that represents a threat,” Ott said. He noted that Trump has gone to battle with Harvard University and other major schools with threats of withdrawing US funds for research if they don’t come into line with his way of seeing things.
In addition to his position as a Johns Hopkins University adjunct professor, Ott is a former professor of National Security Policy in the National War College and Deputy Staff Director for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. With a summer residence in Blue Hill, he is a regular contributor to the opinion pages of The Ellsworth American.