Trump's ‘Friday night massacre’ sent a stark message that 'could not be clearer': expert

The White House’s unprecedented decision to oust C.Q. Brown as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff along with other top military leaders triggered a Trump-era “Friday night massacre” that sent an ominous message to the rest of the U.S. Armed Forces.

That’s according to The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, who wrote in an opinion piece published hours after the Pentagon shake-up that the military was “the last piece” President Donald Trump needed “to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government” after installing MAGA loyalists inside the Justice Department, FBI, and intelligence services.

And that sobering connection left Nichols warning readers of the dangers the “remarkable move” presents to the country.

“President Trump tonight began a purge of the senior ranks of the United States armed forces in an apparent effort to intimidate the military and create an officer corps personally loyal to him,” the anti-Trump conservative wrote.

“None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or ‘lethality,’ or promoting ‘warfighters,’ or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple,” Nichols concluded.

ALSO READ: 'Gotta be kidding': Jim Jordan scrambles as he's confronted over Musk 'double standard'

The Atlantic commentator subjected Trump’s latest round of high-level firings to intense criticism, noting that under normal circumstances, the chairman serves a four-year term.

“The position, like that of FBI director, is meant to bridge across administrations rather than change with each incoming president—specifically so that the chairman (again, like the head of the FBI) does not become a partisan political appointment.”

The end result of Trump’s Pentagon purge is a stark message “to the rest of the military” that “could not be clearer," Nichols wrote Friday.

“Trump loathed Brown’s predecessor, General Mark Milley, and has floated the idea that Milley should be executed for actions he took as Chairman,” Nichols wrote, adding that the president “believes that every senior official in the United States should be a personal appointee of the president—so long as that president is him.”