Why are political appointees moving to military bases? (BLUF: they are scared.)

There is an increasing number of POTUS Cabinet members moving into military housing on military bases. According to The Atlantic magazine Noem, the Millers, Rubio and others now reside on military bases.

joined a growing list of senior Trump-administration political appointees—at least six by our count—living in Washington-area military housing, where they are shielded not just from potential violence but also from protest.

Since we are a representative government, it is sad when political appointees want to shield themselves from people. The murder of Charlie Kirk and other recent political violence must weigh heavily on folks whose rhetoric is often intended to magnify political divides, increase and exploit us versus them-ism, and generates POTUS approval. It likely weighs heavily on all politicians, many of whom cannot afford the security that the billionaire cabinet maintains.

Maybe they are just trying to save a couple of bucks? Doubt it is really about money. The timing suggests the Charlie Kirk murder scared the cabinet and they will take comfort being separated from the great unwashed masses because of safety concerns. And protests are so inconvenient.

It's a shame that we agree political violence is increasing.

In September, the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, published an article that concludes that political violence remains relatively rare. Using their own methodology they counted up politically motivated terrorism in various ways. This particular table excludes 9/11. The share of deaths doesn't really matter to me but we do hear a blame game from the left and right. Any non-zero number is bad, not good.

The chance of being a victim of murder or political violence is very small, which is the point of the CATO Institute article. On average, your chance of being murdered in the US, in any given year, for any reason is about 1 in 14,962 and your chance of being murdered by terrorism (politically motivated murder) is much less at about 1 in 2,3212474.

To put this information into perspective Forbes advisor says:

While fatal car accidents occur every day, the odds of becoming involved in one are low. In fact, the odds of dying in a crash are just one in 93. By comparison, the odds of dying of heart disease are one in six and the odds of dying of cancer are one in eight.

Immediately after Charlie Kirk's murder, POTUS issued NSPM-7 and the cabinet increased their migration to military bases. Unfortunately, those who most fear political violence, politicians, may get bamboozled into funding unfettered surveillance, politically inspired investigations, and excessive tax expenditure to tilt at windmills. Please take a deep breath. Do clear eyed risk assessment. And remember your oath to the Constitution.

Hopefully clear heads in Congress will prevail, though perhaps emotions related to political violence will create a blind spot. Let's hope not. Hopefully the cabinet thinks a bit more before going for the Cruella De Vil posturing. Let's hope so.