JANUARY 17, 2025 – This morning I broke with routine, laying aside my History of the World Map by Map (See 1/10/25 post). For alternative entertainment, I flipped on the TV to Morning Joe to catch the latest cable opinions targeting an audience that already subscribes to those opinions. Instead of Joe Scarborough’s usual rants, Mika Brzezinski’s contrasting calm, and Jonathon Lemire’s deadpan schtick, I “got” the introductions and opening statement of Kristi Noem’s confirmation hearing. As you know, Noem is Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. I managed to exercise proper discretion and hit the “off” button before I’d wasted too much more precious time.
Admittedly, the term “wasted” reflects a cynical bias. I could just as easily have characterized the experience as “instructive,” rendering me “better informed” as a conscientious citizen, ever optimistic about the prospects of our country, thanks to the fresh start by an old hand (the double entendre fully intended). But all joking aside, my brief exposure to the hearing stirred some unhappy thoughts about the term, “homeland security.”
All of us who are older than say, 35, know the origins of the Department of Homeland Security, which was created in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. When “United We Stand” first appeared, both as a slogan and as a fleeting (as it turned out) concept, we were certainly united in shock. Crashing airliners into skyscrapers and the Pentagon?! Who but the most deranged and murderous minds would conceive of such a thing, let alone carry it out? The horror unleashed fear and anger of a sort unparalleled in our history—and one could argue, in our fiction, excluding science fiction depicting aliens wreaking havoc upon our planet.
In response, we demanded, and our elected officials vowed, that “something” needed to be done. Under that ambiguous rationale, creation of a whole new cabinet level agency seemed to be a no-brainer. Now, nearly a quarter century later, that sprawling department has morphed into the ultimate “Deep State”—the amorphous bogeyman of rightwing politicians, politician wanna-bes, revenue-seeking commentators (and their platforms), Kook-Aid swallowers, and the like. The annual budget of DHS, which incorporates 16 sub-agencies, has an annual budget of something over $100 billion[1] and over 260,000 personnel. (It will be fascinating to see what DOGE does with DHS and how Noem will react when Elon and Vitek show up at her office with their machetes.)
Don’t worry. Though I’m skirting the swamp of bureaucracy, as it’s characterized by MAGA, I’m not about to wade in. Nor am I prepared to join the unruly MAGA band wagon willy nilly and post a billboard my property—one similar to the one I saw in rural northern Wisconsin—a region full of real swamps but 1,200 miles away from Washington, D.C.—that shouted in hand-painted lettering, “DRAIN THE SWAMP!” and could be seen a mile down the road.
The troubling question I took away from the 10 minutes I observed of Kristi Noem’s confirmation hearing this morning was much broader than the simplistic MAGA conceptions of the “Deep State” and Washington “swamp.” I questioned the whole notion of “homeland security.” What does it mean, exactly, at the outset of 2025? As so much else in the affairs of humankind, “homeland security” is contextual.
Back in October 1962, if you’d asked most grown-up Americans about the biggest issue confronting American “homeland security,” they would’ve said the Soviet missiles in Cuba (deemed operational by December of that year), with more on the way. Immediately following the 9-11 attacks, the overwhelming perceived threat to homeland security was terrorism perpetrated by Islamic extremists. After the most recent school shooting, parents of school age students could fairly say the biggest threat to homeland security (for crying out loud) is our out-of-control gun culture. At the height of the Covid-19 epidemic before the rollout of the life-saving vaccine, many citizens would have cited that contagion as the most serious peril facing the world.
I’ll bet dollars to donuts, however, that given the power of herd mentality, if you asked any Republican today what they thought the top threat to “homeland security” is, a vast majority would parrot the leader of their cult: “illegal immigration.” That prevailing Republican view was certainly underscored in Kristi Noem’s confirmation hearing today.
Yet, the “Deep State” agency that she will lead was launched in response to the 9-11 attacks and consequent fear of Islamic extremists/terrorists. How ironic that the recent attack by an ISIS sympathizer (read: “Islamic Extremist”) in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve was not only an American citizen who was born and reared here. He was a veteran of the United States Army, a government institution that the anti-gov’mnt Republicans can’t cherish enough!
Granted, with a little help from the Senators’ via their softball questions, Ms. Noem gave lip service, at least, to cyber threats, etc. She said nothing of greater substance, however, than what a (Republican) coach could script for her. As she annunciated clearly and confidently bland generalities, I thought about the biggest risks to our “homeland security.”
If cyber, military and terrorist threats from abroad are the worry, we have a ginormous military-intelligence complex outside of DHS. This complex comprises 17 other agencies—two independent agencies (CIA and OCNI); nine within the Department of Defense; and six (besides DHS) that are part of other departments and agencies, including—the FBI under the DOJ and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research inside the State Department. This web of organizations might not be able to stop all the bad guys at the borders or outside our data and computer networks, but that such a system exists gives me license to worry about a lot of other stuff ahead of Russia or China launching a first strike nuclear attack against us . . . or Islamic extremists bringing us down in one fell swoops or even a whole bunch of lesser swoops.
What worries me far more than these external threats[2] is the most serious one that circles the globe; the one that doesn’t observe national boundaries or international law: anthropogenic climate change. Much has been researched, written, read and said about this, yet denial and deferral are closing rapidly the window on remedial action. Where is “homeland security” when we need it most?
Another threat I fear is the next virulent pathogen for which we are ill-prepared to combat. Perhaps, however, in light of our shocking contempt for scientific and medical expertise in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic, I should be more concerned about people—and the politicians they elect and the non-experts that the politicians appoint—who don’t believe in masking or vaccinations.
Or even more precisely, maybe in the case of both climate change and public health, what threatens “homeland security” most are the many people in this country who simply don’t believe in science.
Actually, what’s even more threatening than non-belief in science are vast numbers of voters who can’t distinguish fact from falsehood, even when the difference is revealed irrefutably. The worst manifestation of this threat culminated with the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. On that day a crowd of misguided, self-styled über-patriots nearly capsized our democracy—all on the false claim of a “stolen election.” Where was “homeland security” on that day? And where has it resided among Republicans since?
In the broadest sense, when all is taken into account, the biggest threat to “homeland security” is a purely domestic one: an ill-informed electorate, susceptible to disinformation and unfounded conspiracy theories. Yet based on my review of the whole of today’s Kristi Noem confirmation hearing, none of the senators, Democrat or Republican, asked the nominee how she will address such a foundational matter of national security as ignorance and the lack of analytical thinking among our own people.
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2025 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Without taking a deep dive into the numbers, I found that simplicity and precision are nearly impossible. I’m sure this is true of other federal agencies. For starters, a distinction exists between “discretionary” and “non-discretionary” spending. Plus, one must distinguish among the roles of the 16 sub-agencies to grasp a contextual understanding of many sub-categories of the DHS annual budget. Finally, in evaluating the DHS budget, one must have an adequate handle on other government spending and the intricacies of appropriations and budgeting and the timing of expenditures. For our purposes here, though, the bottom line is this: DHS is a major agency that spends major bucks.
[2] Please, I beg of you: don’t fall into the popularly abused use of the word “existential.” Reserve that for discussing the writing of Albert Camus.
