In a sad symptom of our political climate, more and more senior Trump officials are being forced by the threat of violence to abandon housing in Washington and its suburbs and seek quarters on military installations.
While Pete Hegseth took over abandoned quarters at Fort Leslie J. McNair and endured lies told about the rehab expense, he has been joined by several colleagues. Kristi Noem has moved into an admiral's quarters on a Coast Guard base after being stalked and hounded by the media. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan have moved into unspecified military housing. Marco Rubio also took over general officer quarters on Fort McNair. Several other non-cabinet-level appointees have also elected to reside on military installations rather than deal with the hostile environment in D.C. and environs.
BACKGROUND:
The Violent Left Is No Longer on the 'Fringe' – RedState
This is not a casual or vain decision. The campaign to intimidate Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller was organized by his neighbors.
The former White House adviser Katie Miller—mother of three young children, and wife of the presidential right-hand man Stephen—walked out of her front door one Thursday morning last month and was confronted by a woman she did not know. When she told this story on Fox News, she described the encounter as a protest that crossed a line. The stranger had told Miller: “I’m watching you,” she said. This was the day after Charlie Kirk’s assassination. It also wasn’t anything new.
For weeks before Kirk’s death, activists had been protesting the Millers’ presence in north Arlington, Virginia. Someone had put up wanted posters in their neighborhood with their home address, denouncing Stephen as a Nazi who had committed “crimes against humanity.” A group called Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity warned in an Instagram post: “Your efforts to dismantle our democracy and destroy our social safety net will not be tolerated here.” The local protest became a backdrop to the Trump administration’s response to Kirk’s killing. When Miller, the architect of that response who is known for his inflammatory political rhetoric, announced a legal crackdown on liberal groups, he singled out the tactics that had victimized his family—what he called “organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting peoples’ addresses.”
The Millers have since put their house on the market and moved into quarters on a military base.
This isn't free lodging by any stretch of the imagination. The rent paid by those officials in military quarters is equal to the housing allowance of the rank the quarters were designed for, plus five percent. Pete Hegseth lives in quarters reserved for a four-star general. His rent is $4,655.70 per month.
Living in military quarters is not unprecedented. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Robert M. Gates also lived on Fort McNair.
No one, it seems, has any idea why Trump officials are moving onto secure installations instead of living in civilian neighborhoods.
It is unclear why so many Trump administration officials have sought to live on military bases, but Mr. Panetta and his successor, Chuck Hagel, said that they faced the same kinds of security threats that any defense secretary routinely receives, and felt secure in their homes with Defense Department bodyguards posted outside.
Nah, not really. The threats faced by Trump officials include rent-a-mobs as well as unhinged killers like the one who murdered Charlie Kirk. They aren't going to be deterred by a few Secret Service guys positioned around the house; see Democrats Are Telling You Violence Against You Is on the Table, and You Should Believe Them – RedState.
There are some complaints over Trump officials displacing senior military officers from quarters near the Pentagon. The bottom line is that if our national defense hinges on the abstract notion that a single general should be closer to the Pentagon, then we are pretty well screwed. When you balance that against the very real likelihood of death or injury from an attack on a senior administration official, then the solution is obvious and the administration has acted appropriately. The solution is not as an apparently demented University of Chicago political science professor said to The Atlantic: “The correct balance would be: Trump should stop canceling the security detail of former Biden officials.” The two subjects are not only not in balance with each other, they don't even exist in the same universe.
As the American left (I mean that in the context of geography, not of culture, affinity, or loyalty) increasingly regards violence as a viable option when they lose at the ballot box — so much for their mewling about "democracy" and "kings" — that forces government officials and even private citizens to take death threats very seriously. The alternative to a police cordon around your house, facing down deranged protesters 24/7, and creating a general uproar with the neighbors may make living on military bases the new normal for many in government.
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