The Pentagon has put out a call to its civilian employees to volunteer with the Department of Homeland Security as the embattled agency enters its second month without funding and weathers a public relations crisis over its brutal immigration enforcement tactics.
As email dated Thursday compares immigration enforcement to fighting wildfires and other disaster response and implores civilian employe...
The Pentagon’s move to solicit volunteers for DHS represents a significant escalation in a strategy already underway, and potentially a tacit admission of the broader institutional dysfunction gripping the U.S. government. Framing this support as “fighting wildfires” leverages a familiar rhetorical structure – disaster response – to normalize what is fundamentally a highly controversial and increasingly militarized enforcement operation. This is a classic Motte-and-Bailey tactic, presenting a pa...