Stop the Smear

Young blood is here.

President-elect Donald Trump has gone full throttle for a new generation of leaders.

Consider these Trump nominees for Cabinet posts:

• Lee Zeldin, 44, for EPA administrator.
• Pete Hegseth, 44, for secretary of defense.
• Kash Patel, 44, for FBI director.
• Tulsi Gabbard, 43, for director of national intelligence.

Though Matt Gaetz, 42, withdrew his bid to lead the Justice Department, he fit the profile as well—young, outspoken, willing to cut against the grain.

Not everyone welcomes the generational change. When smears and media leaks about nominees’ backgrounds appear, be sure something is happening in the political establishment of Washington.

Sen. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, was labeled “weird” during the campaign. Gabbard isn’t “equipped” to be DNI. Patel hasn’t “built up the muscles” to lead the FBI. Hegseth is a “performative person,” just a “personality,” somebody without the management know-how to lead the Pentagon.

As allegations against Hegseth mounted last week, the names of two prominent Republican Gen X’ers—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa—mysteriously appeared in the news stream as alternatives if “Hegseth drops out.”

Chatter about DeSantis and Ernst evaporated after Hegseth vigorously defended himself on Capitol Hill, and Trump reaffirmed his support.

To be sure, this is a nontraditional group of nominees. One was a Democrat. A few have criticized Trump. Each person has said or done something unexpected, even controversial.

As a group, their pedigree and credentials won’t impress the Obama highbrows or the jilted Bush-type conservatives whose podcasts dot the new media landscape. But these men and this woman share a qualification that uniquely qualifies them for their roles: They served their country in the Global War on Terror.

Hegseth, Zeldin, Gabbard, and Vance volunteered to wear the uniform, and they deployed to combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Patel, a lawyer, prosecuted criminals affiliated with al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations.

Each experienced the consequences of bad military policy, not as fans or spectators from their comfortable offices in Washington, but on the field, as participants in the campaign.

Because war is when the mask comes off, exposing the true patriots and the phonies, separating those who viscerally understand war from those whose knowledge is a sterile mental exercise.

After 9/11, they left their homes, jobs, and families. They placed themselves in harm’s way, bearing witness to the chaos of war and the aftermath of war as it disrupts marriage, friendships, and mental health. They mourned the cruelties inflicted on families for a mission unfulfilled.

They became skeptical of the government’s ability to solve complex problems, and contemptuously viewed the sycophantic officers whose vanity was served by never-ending war.

Most of all, they realized their orders came not from the American people but from their government—a government determined to perpetuate the war, not win it.

Now poised to take what they’ve learned and reform government, the establishment sets out to destroy them.

But it won’t work.

Time is on their side.

And a new era of history has begun.

Originally published by RealClearDefense and made available by RealClearWire

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