Two cardinal rules of politics are don’t go against your boss, and don’t make him look bad. As outgoing secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem found out when Donald Trump demanded her resignation last week, in the anything-goes second Trump administration, they might be the only rules.

Noem, who was previously the governor of South Dakota and has no law enforcement or “security” experience, was widely hated within the department. However, it is doubtful that her departure and replacement by nominee Markwayne Mullin augurs any serious change in the department’s widespread violation of civil and human rights or its repeated, deliberate flouting of the law and dozens of court orders.

If you believe the New York Post, Trump demanded Noem’s resignation after she was unable to convincingly deny to Congress that she was having an affair with Corey Lewandowski, her de facto chief of staff and an on-again-off-again Trump adviser. Trump was also reportedly outraged at Noem’s testimony that he approved a $220 million advertising campaign, largely starring Noem herself. Trump later said he did not know about the expensive PR blitz.

It is worth dwelling for a moment on a partial list of widely reported events Noem presided over at Homeland Security that did not induce Trump to demand her resignation.

Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have shot and killed numerous US citizens and residents in the streets, with the evidence typically whisked away before anyone can investigate the officers involved. These same agencies have engaged in what amounts to military occupations of Chicago and Minneapolis, and tried, with less success, to do the same in Portland, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. They have targeted activists exercising their First Amendment rights, not only brutalizing them in the streets but showing up at their homes and addressing them by name, apparently using mass surveillance tools that are still poorly understood by the general public to do so.

Under Noem’s tenure, these agencies have detained an unknown number of US citizens, legal immigrants, tourists, and residents who are in the process of normalizing their immigration status, to say nothing of undocumented residents who have built otherwise stable, productive lives. They have subjected thousands of these detainees to Kafkaesque demands to prove they should not be detained, often continuing to detain them even when they are able to do so.

They have detained many of these people in conditions that can only be described as torture: windowless rooms with no furniture and a single toilet for dozens of detainees, with uncertain access, at best, to legal counsel or medical care. Many ICE agents mock or punish detainees who beg for access to medications, and some agents took bets on which detainees would be next to commit suicide. When they do release those they have wrongfully detained, they often dump them thousands of miles from home with no money or means of contacting family or lawyers, and sometimes without their belongings or documents that proved their status all along.

Orienting toward the future, ICE has spent more than $800 million on warehouses never intended for human residents in which it wants to place deportees and whoever else gets caught up in its web, and it shows no signs that its real estate spending spree is near an end. While ICE is publicly denying it, there is also credible concern that their agents will be present at polling sites in the fall, intimidating largely Democratic voters in swing states.

Donald Trump, of course, had no problem with Kristi Noem overseeing any of this. Nor was he moved to fire her last fall when she spent nearly $200 million on two luxury private jets, which appeared to be largely for her and Lewandowski’s personal use. With Trump, deliberate cruelty and human rights violations aren’t disqualifying — they’re expected. The same can be said for using official positions for personal gain and stretching the perks of office well past the breaking point. Noem’s only true transgression appears to be that she made the man in the Oval Office look bad on television.

Enter Markwayne Mullin, the Republican senator from Oklahoma whom Trump nominated to replace Noem. Like Noem, he has no law enforcement or “security” experience to speak of; he doesn’t even serve on the relevant Senate committees. But the Associated Press calls him one of Trump’s “closest allies” in the Senate, especially on immigration issues. That makes any policy change at the Department of Homeland Security unlikely. The media attention might wane for a while, but the substance of the policy will probably grind on — a pattern that has come to characterize Trump’s presidency, especially his second term.

Across issues, Trump likes to make a big splash to charge up his base. Under pressure, he will often pull back on the most bombastic rhetoric. While this tends to have the desired effect of removing the issue from the headlines, substantial change rarely follows. Typically, the administration continues to push the same agenda just outside the spotlight. This has held true, to different extents, for issues ranging from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) fiasco, cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and social spending, attempts to impound congressionally appropriated money to Democratic-led states, tariffs, threats against traditional allies like Canada and Denmark, the panic over transgender issues, inflated charges of antisemitism at universities, firing federal employees who previously investigated Trump, the redaction and suppression of the Epstein files, and even the ICE-CBP raids themselves.

Despite his unquestioning MAGA views, Mullin is apparently well-liked by both parties in Congress. He even managed to win over Teamsters leader Sean O’Brien, whom he once challenged to a fistfight. So far, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has encouraged Democrats to withhold support for Mullin’s nomination, citing widespread abuses at the department. However, given the wide latitude presidents generally enjoy in nominating department heads and the extremely questionable quality of other secretaries the Senate has confirmed, it is doubtful Mullin’s nomination will be rejected.

In temperament, Mullin seems to fit the Trump pattern of dimming the flash while preserving the substance. What’s in store, then, is a situation arguably more dangerous than an extension of the status quo: it’s a world where ICE and CBP’s abuses seem normal.