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August 26, 2026 — The “Wannabes”

Check out this week’s blog post by IP attorney and author Timothy Trainer, host of the podcast and video show Tim’s Travails • Follow Tim on Substack

Images: armyhistory.org • propublica.org

The U.S. Government appears to be filled with “wannabe” somethings. The Oval Office occupier is a wannabe tough guy. He’s a spectator on the sidelines of a cage match on the White House lawn. He’s the tough talker who hid behind his daddy’s wealth and ability to have some doctor write excuses to evade service during the Vietnam War. He’s also a wannabe successful businessman, but has a history of stiffing blue-collar workers and bankrupting casinos . . . who bankrupts casinos? Donald Trump’s trail of unpaid bills. Isn’t bankrupting a casino the ultimate sign of business incompetence? There is a string of court rulings that inform us that the wannabe businessman is a fraudster.

It isn’t surprising that the wannabe in the White House would find other wannabes for the highest positions in the U.S. Government. There’s the wannabe ultimate war fighter who occupies the job of Secretary of Tattoos, sorry, Defense. His desire to project that tough warrior image is so strong that he moved to shut down the Pentagon’s program that would aim to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. Hegseth Cut Civilian Protections Over Objection of Top Commanders — ProPublica. Nothing says wannabe tough like ignoring the possibility of large numbers of civilian casualties as collateral damage. Engaging in warfare and looking the other way when women, children and elderly are included in the tally doesn’t project toughness as much as a willingness to commit war crimes. The irony of this is that the commanders who wear the uniform and order their troops to carry out the orders leading to injury and death disagreed with the wannabe warrior.

Maybe it’s worth recalling that decades ago Lt. William Calley, U.S. Army, and several soldiers under his command were court-martialed for committing murder against a village full of Vietnamese civilians: armyhistory.org.

When the U.S. is engaged in military hostilities, it does not give military members license to engage in murder. Hegseth’s (wannabe Secretary of Death?) statements, conduct, and desire to eliminate the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response(CHMR) office reflect his interpretation of “maximum lethality” as encompassing both military and non-military targets. Perhaps the uniformed officers who asked about the future of CHMR are more concerned about violating international law than the guy who should be concerned. At least we know who should be held to account.

In the aftermath of an unpopular war that included many low points for the U.S. military, the effort to rehabilitate the military’s image included years of reassessing the Army’s education of its troops. The Army “developed an ‘Army Ethic,’ which emphasized that soldiers must see themselves as ‘honorable servants of the Nation’ and that they must ‘reject and report illegal, unethical or immoral orders and actions.’ No doubt, with My Lai in mind, the Army Ethic stresses that ‘in war and peace,’ soldiers must recognize the ‘intrinsic dignity and worth of all people’ and treat ‘them with respect.’” https://armyhistory.org/my-lai/. Today’s wannabe tough guys with impressive job titles would undermine decades of work that have been invested in rebuilding the reputation of the U.S. military.

The wannabe leaders in Congress who are members of the majority party sit idly by and watch the demise of the country like spectators.

They exhibit a lot of fake outrage over Hegseth’s missteps that include the dismissal of numerous experienced general officers. They shrug or look the other way or ignore the misinformation from the wannabe health professional who has the title of Secretary of Health and Human Services as the U.S. experiences the largest measles outbreak in over 30 years. As measles outbreaks grow in the U.S., maps and charts show a record number of cases – CBS News.

From war to disease, the most visible aspirations of the GOP wannabes are that they want to enrich themselves and keep their vaunted jobs with great taxpayer-provided benefits. They want to hold on to positions of title but not exercise any power that would challenge the corruption of the man-child in the Oval Office. The army of GOP cronies demonstrates that staying in Trump’s good graces is more important than their duty to the country.

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About Timothy Trainer: Writing books is a passion for attorney Timothy Trainer, who for more than three decades focused on intellectual property issues in his day job. He has worked in government agencies and in the private sector, and his assignments have taken him to 60 countries around the world.

Tim found time to pen a few non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights;the 15th edition was published in 2022. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff. 

Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2019, Pendulum Over the Pacific, was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains.

In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection.

In 2025, he published the sequel, The China Factor, which ranked #63 on the Amazon Asian Literature list in May.

Click here to learn about all of Tim’s books.