Two months into Donald Trump’s second term, it’s clear that the Republican administration likes giving things new names. The president and his team, for example, launched an effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico — and punish news organizations that don’t play along. They also seemed to take great pride in renaming Fort Liberty in North Carolina and Fort Moore in Georgia.
There’s reason to wonder whether the White House might also try to rename the Department of Defense.
On Friday morning, there were multiple reports that Elon Musk was poised to receive a briefing on China at the Pentagon, despite his deep financial ties to the country. The president was apparently not pleased with the reporting, and he expressed his dissatisfaction in an 188-word online rant, much of which was forgettable.
The missive, however, culminated this way: “Elon is NOT BEING BRIEFED ON ANYTHING CHINA BY THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR!!!”
The underlying point was obvious, but the phrasing was curious: The United States had a Department of War, but it was renamed the Department of Defense in the years following World War II.
It was easy to assume that Trump was simply confused, and that the phrasing didn’t have any larger significance, until roughly 12 hours later when his Pentagon chief, former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, published an unscientific poll via social media. As Wonkette noted:
Running the Pentagon is seemingly a busy job, but somehow Hegseth also found the time to post a poll on if the Department of Defense should be changed to the Department of War.
Believe it or not, Hegseth asked whether the department he leads should get a “better name.” People were then invited to vote via social media on whether the department should keep its current name or go back to the Department of War. (As of this writing, the latter was ahead with 54% support.) None other than Musk weighed in on the question with a tweet of his own, arguing that it would be “more accurate” to call it the Department of War. That’s not altogether true — many of the military’s missions are unrelated to combat — but the engagement suggested that Team Trump is taking this rather seriously. The incumbent defense secretary added in his tweet that he had additional “thoughts,” which he’ll presumably share soon. If the White House begins pushing for a name change, it’ll be bizarre, but at least it won’t come as a surprise.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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