Trump's Cabinet retreats behind military gates

[marmar]

Trump’s Cabinet retreats behind military gates
Housing officials on military bases has little precedent in U.S. history. It has plenty in authoritarian regimes

By Chauncey DeVega
Senior Writer
Published March 24, 2026 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Cabinet members have traditionally lived in the wealthy enclaves of Washington, D.C., or Northern Virginia. But instead of choosing homes in Georgetown, Kalorama, McLean or Great Falls, some officials in Donald Trump‘s Cabinet and among his White House staff — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem — are living in secure military housing, citing safety concerns. In doing so, they are embracing the literal architecture of authoritarianism.

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By placing some of his senior officials and staffers in luxury housing on military bases, Trump is rewarding them — but more importantly, he is exerting control by reminding them that all things flow from him.

“It is something you never see in a democracy,” Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard University and co-author of “How Democracies Die,” told the New York Times. “Government officials live on military bases or other sorts of fortified zones in authoritarian regimes.”

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In exchange for their loyalty, authoritarian leaders give the apparatchiks money, access, influence, power and other special privileges. Special housing, whether on a military base, in a palace or sequestered in a guarded compound, is one such reward and inducement.

In any authoritarian regime, there are likely to be some high-ranking members who serve because they sincerely believe they can be a moderating influence. These are the much-discussed “adults in the room” who populated Trump’s first term in office and, in some cases, prevented him from following his worst impulses. Those voices have been purged or otherwise silenced in Trump’s second administration — or corrupted by their leader. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/24/trumps-cabinet-retreats-behind-military-gates/

[bdamomma]

1. add that

little Nazi Stephen Miller.