Trump's Arlington Debacle Shows Us How He Will Govern

Five lessons about how a hyper-politicized Trump administration would abuse power

Former President Trump and his entourage went to Arlington National Cemetery. The purpose of the visit was to score political points, portraying the Biden administration as a weak steward of the military. The actual result was somewhat different; a multi-day media embarrassment amidst reports that Trump’s team ignored clear rules about using Arlington for campaign purposes, and shoved aside an official who tried to enforce those rules.

At one level, Arlington is just one more stumble in a campaign that seems to have lost its way. But its more important than that. I see the incident through the lens of governance. From that perspective, Arlington is a small moment that offers a big insight into what a second Trump administration might look like. And its worth paying attention to it precisely because I don’t think we really has a full sense of how a hyper-politicized administration would operate. Frankly, I study this stuff and even I can’t predict all of the ways that a partisan model of presidential administration would seep into every crevice of government. But specific examples like this one force us to imagine what another, more debased, version of American government would look like.

The incident offers five takeaways.

1. Public Service as a Joke; Public Servants as Props

Trump has a long record of demeaning public servants. Some of his most dismissive criticism is reserved for those who served in the military. His visit to Arlington came after he suggested that government medals awarded to military officials who were injured or killed in the line of duty had less value than civilian awards. Trump has also called fallen American soldiers “suckers” saying “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” Trump told his Chief of Staff, John Kelly, a veteran who lost a son in Afghanistan: “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade….It doesn’t look good for me.” When Trump and Kelly visited his son’s gravesite, Trump said: "I don't get it. What was in it for them?"

Trump sees the political value of military uniforms, without being able to conceive of the underlying public values they represent. The idea of a calling to public service is foreign to him, something he cannot fathom. A military parade is a great way to make his administration looks tough, unless there are veterans with unsightly injuries. Trump wants to be surrounded with military generals like Kelly and James Mattis, but as soon as they question his wisdom they are disparaged as disloyal and incompetent.

For Trump, the military are useful only as props. Their underlying values are for “suckers.”

The purpose of Trump’s visit was to use military deaths to embarrass the Biden-Harris administration. He chose the anniversary of the Kabul bomb attack to visit the graves of service members who died amidst the withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden. This is part of an ongoing political strategy. For example, the families of some of those lost at Kabul were brought onstage at the Republican National Convention. Trump quickly used footage his media team collected at Arlington in a campaign video that centered on the bombing. At a campaign rally after his Arlington visit, Trump told his audience that “Joe Biden killed their children by incompetence - should have never happened. Kamala killed their children. Just as though they had a gun in their hand.”

And what about the soldiers who died under Trump’s administration? Since they failed to serve his campaign needs, they did not merit a stop on his visit.

2. Responsiveness to the President = Lawbreaking

Imagine if your family’s gravestone was being used as a prop in a political campaign you oppose. Seems inappropriate, right? Federal rules seek to prevent this from happening. An Army statement said that Trump’s retinue “were made aware of federal laws, Army regulations and DoD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities on cemetery grounds.” And the rules are pretty clear. Other media followed a clear directive they could not visit the Section 60 area where recent casualties are buried. However, the employee who reminded the Trump campaign team was “abruptly pushed aside” and told that those rules did not apply to them according to the Army statement.

I spend most of my career focusing on administrative burdens created by unnecessary rules. But the old adage of Herbert Kaufman — “one man’s red tape is another’s treasured procedural safeguard” — holds here. The rules are there for a reason. Another Gold Star family were upset that the headstone of their loved one was used by Trump, saying in a statement: “We hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and that they are honored and respected accordingly.”

Trump’s spokespersons defended his actions by noting the some families welcomed the former President taking graveside pictures with them. But individual families do not set the rules for Arlington. Presumably the families that Trump accompanied with would not have been pleased if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris had turned up, giving a broad thumbs-up and smile over their relative’s gravesite, and then using those images to raise money or score political points.

Trump could simply have visited the graves in a personal capacity, with the family, to honor their losses. He had already gotten plenty of images of him laying a wreath at Arlington earlier in the visit. But the point of the visit was to create political imagery for a campaign by using the gravesites of particular soldiers in a way that was clearly forbidden.

In short, Trump wanted to break the law. He was told no. The person who reminded his team of the law was shoved aside, and the law ignored.

Political scientists often talk about “responsiveness” as a legitimate demand for Presidents to make upon the career civil service. And it is. But this assumes that we are talking about responsiveness to legal and ethical directives. What Trump has shown, again and again, is his deep belief that the law or its consequences do not apply to him.

3. The Purpose of Schedule F is to Enable Impunity

Trump’s lesson from his time in office is that he did not have enough appointees or career civil servants who enabled his desire to ignore the law. His time out of office, including efforts like Project 2025, are centered on ensuring this does not happen again. He will recruit only hardcore Trumpists as appointees. It is hard to imagine that Trump’s retinue would have blithely ignored military rules and shoved aside an Arlington employee if, say, John Kelly, was with them. But as Kelly has noted: “The lesson the former president learned from his first term is don’t put guys like me…in those jobs. The lesson he learned was to find sycophants.” These sycophants extend to the lawyers who would invent legal rationales that the laws do not apply to Trump, a tendency that will be encouraged by a Supreme Court that has offered Trump presumptive immunity for his misbehaviors.

This still leaves the pesky civil servants. Here, Schedule F solves the problem. The executive order would allow Trump to fire public officials he dislikes. We don’t know much about the official who challenged Trump’s retinue, except that she showed a good deal of courage. Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, labeled her as “despicable” saying she “does not deserve to represent the hollowed [sic] grounds of Arlington National Cemetery.” What will happen to her if Trump returns to office?

Many fewer federal employees will stand up for public values in the knowledge that Trump’s team could easily threaten them or their supervisor for having the temerity to insist that laws apply to everyone. The Army issued a statement supporting their employee, saying that she “acted with professionalism” and was being “unfairly attacked.” This institutional pushback against Trump’s actions will also be much less likely under Schedule F, when Trump could simply fire officials who questioned his behavior.

4. Media Can Get Past Both Sides Coverage

The incident also gives us a hint at what media coverage of such events might look like in the future. NPR broke that the Arlington official had reported the incident. Much of the later reporting presented it as a confrontation between two parties. Many reports included a claim by a Trump spokesperson, Steven Cheung, that the Arlington official was “clearly suffering from a mental health episode.”

Imagine seeing yourself presented as crazy in the New York Times, the Washington Post and much of the national media. Cheung, like his boss, routinely lies and there was no reason to platform his evidence-free attack to a national audience.

If Trump returns to office and has a chance to purge the bureaucracy, we should expect such purges to be accompanied with baseless smears. This would have two effects. First, it makes the incident into a matter of controversy, where the media may faithfully reports both sides. Second, for public officials who don’t want to be labeled as crazy, or traitors, or members of the deep state, they will be less likely to contest their dismissals, and in the process, will not reveal wrongdoing.

On a more positive note, almost all we know about this case occurred because the media told us about it. And the second and third day of the story was more substantive because more facts were available, and more veterans weighed in on Trump’s disrespect for Arlington. If Trump wins, this sort of substantive and persistent investigation of abuses of power will be more and more important.

5. The Future is Terror

The Arlington employee who was manhandled by Trump campaign team chose not to press charges. Military officials said she was afraid of retribution from Trump supporters. This reflects one element of modern politics and governance that I don’t think the public or even reporters or researchers like myself have fully grasped: individual public officials are now making decisions under conditions of terror.

While we debate the role of formal powers like Schedule F, such powers will be complemented by informal powers of terror. Public servants will be afraid to do their jobs, not just because they don’t want to lose those jobs, but because they worry that their lives will be destroyed by fear and intimidation. At a Michigan rally, Trump dismissed the accusations that he behaved inappropriately, saying: “This all comes out of Washington, just like all of these prosecutors come out of Washington…These are bad people we're dealing with.”

Who could blame the Arlington employee who did not want to become the target of right-wing media, and Trump’s supporters? But what happens when people like her are no longer willing to enforce the law?