Women who support and uphold the patriarchy are often the first to be let go.
This happens to be the sentiment circulating around former Attorney General Pam Bondi, following her removal as Attorney General of the Department of Justice on April 2, and Kristi Noem, after her firing as the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on March 5.
Trump publicized Bondi’s dismissal in a post on Truth Social, offering empty compliments for her 14 month tenure: “Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year…Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900.”
There may be some truth to the online criticism on Bondi and Noem’s “betrayal” of feminism as women in positions of power for a non-so-secretly sexist administration (which is currently tied to the Epstein Files and the trafficking of women), but they’re really a manifestation of “feminist rage” in effort to logicize their firings. The push of a “feminist view” that demeans compliance with the patriarchy — and enforcement — is more so a statement in an “I told you so” and “that’s what you get” way. However, Bondi and Noem’s dismissals aren’t so much a matter about gender, but of loyalty and ability to advance Trump’s agenda.
Loyalty is a preliminarily characteristic to rise to power within Trump’s administration, but, evidently, not enough to maintain power. They were dropped like a hat.
Simplifying the swift firings as a matter of gender misses the point; what the firings reveal is political turmoil and Trump’s scramble to reverse poor optics. Trump is losing control — both in the sphere of public opinion and politically. His agenda isn’t being pushed in the direction he wants it to. And, despite his desires and efforts to distract the public through international interventions with the war on Iran, the Epstein Files are still a point of contention.
Bondi’s loyalty is undoubtable. In her 14 months in office, she collapsed the independence of the DOJ from the White House: she launched investigations against Trump’s political opponents, purged lawyers responsible for cases relating to Trump, and installed loyalists in top prosecutorial positions. A series of missteps can be attributed to her undoing. With little evidence to indict Trump’s targets, like the former director of the F.B.I. James Comey, Senator Adam Schiff, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, Trump expressed his frustrations in a Truth Social post on Sept. 20, 2025: “Nothing is being done…We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
Judges and juries rejecting the department’s efforts in politically-motivated indictments have also contributed to her shortcomings. Her less than spectacular handling of the Epstein Files and performance in the House Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 11 didn’t help her position security, either. She may have been able to play with the Democrats in the four-hour hearing, but she created a political liability for Trump and subsequently alienated Republicans enough to get five Republicans on the House Oversight Committee to join Democrats in a vote to subpoena her to testify under oath about the Epstein Files.
Her “incompetency” doesn’t boil down to her being a woman, it’s related to her inability to fully skirt around the laws and systems that are in place to prevent a unitary executive from emerging in the way Trump wants.
The Trump administration is starting to collapse in on itself. Instability is on the rise with the heads of the DOJ and DHS being replaced with interims. Why can we surmise this observation? Isn’t it a little convenient that Bondi was fired 12 days before the Epstein deposition? Perhaps Trump is trying to prevent more revelations about his connection to the Epstein Files from emerging. Perhaps he was trying to find a loophole to get Bondi out of a testification under oath – lying under oath isn’t exactly ideal. Much less being caught doing so. So one might as well try to avoid being under oath in the first place. Skirting away from accountability isn’t exactly a new maneuver for Trump and his cabinet, but Rep. Garcia (D-CA) said in a statement that Bondi is still “legally obligated” to appear on April 14 for her deposition, and that “If they think we are moving on because they were fired, they are gravely mistaken.” There is no doubt, however, that Trump is trying to find a way to wiggle her out of testifying.
Some hope can be found in the notion of chaos reigning over the Trump administration as it scrambles to regain narrative control, manage bad publicity, and stability within its structure. But we cannot relish in having full hope. Bondi and Noem are being replaced with Todd Blanche, Deputy Attorney General (interim head), and Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), respectively. Their replacements, too, are loyal minions who will no doubt be figure heads and willing to do Trump’s bidding. But perhaps the online criticism is right — Bondi and Noem were replaced with white men, after all.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
