From WNYC Studios, I'm Brian Lerer.

This is my daily politics podcast.

It's Monday, February 24th.

The remaking of the United States government may be of the United States and some of the rest of the world, in the image of

Donald Trump and Elon Musk, continues. But so does the push back to it. Some here, maybe some in

the German elections. Existential questions, however, remain at the forefront. Is this what

democracy looks like? Is creeping authoritarianism taking hold day by day?

On the remaking side, if you haven't paid attention to all the things, and it's so hard to pay

attention to all the things coming down the news pike, one of the major developments of the last few

days is Trump removing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q. Brown,

whose five-year term is not supposed to be determined by presidential whim.

Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Haxeth also removed the chief naval officer, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, who the New York Times notes spent roughly half of her 40-year career at sea, commanding a destroyer, two carrier strike groups, and the U.S. 6th fleet.

With the replacements that Trump and HECS. have in mind, removing Franchetti, who's a woman,

and Brown, who's black, leaves all top military posts in the hands of white men.

Trump also removed all the so-called Jags,

judge-advocate generals, lawyers whose job is to advise the actual generals what is legal and

constitutional for them to do. Very alarming to many if Trump is just casting aside that specific

set of guard rails and the people who guard them. Remember that

Trump in his first term was famously quoted in reporting by two sources as saying, I need the

kind of generals that Hitler had, meaning loyal to him, scary if we're transitioning to a military

that's loyal to the person above the Constitution.

On the pushback side, the range of responses and strategies in recent days is striking.

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