Let’s Make the Military Into a Trump Reelection Machine!

U.S. Navy/ZUMA

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Over at the Washington Post, Hugh Hewitt gives Donald Trump some advice about how to win reelection: tell the Navy to build more stuff in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I’m not joking or exaggerating. Hewitt is very explicit about the whole thing:

A focus on Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin need not be limited to the Defense Department. Recently, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) pushed successfully for the planned relocation of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management to Grand Junction, Colo., in a brilliant move to bring bureaucrats closer to the citizens they regulate and whom they are supposed to serve. Sending large parts of the Environmental Protection Agency to Flint, Mich., or nearby locations would drive home the same message.

Trump has the chance to drain the swamp while making government agencies much more attuned to the people in flyover country. But he must act soon.

Behold modern conservatism: the way to drain the swamp is to order the military to spend more money in swing states, with the express purpose of helping a Republican win the election. And don’t even bother trying to hide what you’re doing. Go ahead and write about it openly in one of the most influential newspapers in America. That’s making America great again, my friends.

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OUR DEADLINE MATH PROBLEM

It’s risky, but also unavoidable: A full one-third of the dollars that we need to pay for the journalism you rely on has to get raised in December. A good December means our newsroom is fully staffed, well-resourced, and on the beat. A bad one portends budget trouble and hard choices.

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We simply can’t afford to come up short. There is no cushion in our razor-thin budget—no backup, no alternative sources of revenue to balance our books. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the fierce journalism we do. That’s why we need you to show up for us right now.

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