Trump to America: the U.S. Army is now MAGA's army
The democratic opposition has not yet grappled with the full extent of Trump's willingness to use the armed forces as a political — and actual — weapon of domestic politics
This piece was previously published at The Hot Screen.
As he deploys thousands of federalized National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to the streets of Los Angeles in an apparent effort to incite deadly conflict with overwhelmingly peaceful protestors and conjure up existential threats to U.S. national security, a still larger story looms: President Trump’s open embrace of martial pageantry and threatened force as a means of exerting domestic political power. In just the last few days, a series of events related to his abuse of the American military have formed a malignant whole that neither the average American nor the Democratic opposition have adequately begun to grapple with.
Most prominent is the deployment of troops to the streets of Los Angeles noted above. Make no mistake — the background events preceding this action were already outrageous and an affront to the nation. ICE agents have been hunting undocumented immigrants as if they were high-value terrorist targets, creating a predictable backlash of protest from the L.A. communities so traumatically targeted. These actions are part of a larger vision long-advertised by Trump and his advisors: a vision of purging the United States of as many non-white immigrants as possible, part and parcel of MAGA’s dream of re-establishing the U.S. as a nation unquestionably dominated by white Americans.
Trump’s recent decision to send American troops to an American city is a deliberate attempt to escalate conflict on the streets, intimidate opponents, and introduce an even greater air of menace into his war on immigration. In his first term, Trump notoriously tried to get the military to shoot protestors — an insane plea rejected out of hand by military leaders at the time. There is no reason to think that his bloodlust has diminished; in fact, there is good reason to believe that Trump is more comfortable than ever with state violence on his behalf, given the January 6 attack on Congress that he incited, and his return to the Oval Office on a promise of “retribution.”
At bottom, there is nothing particularly complicated going on here: Donald Trump has seen how other aspiring dictators around the world resort to violence as the final arbiter of politics, and has decided that this is the way to go. How will your opponents dare to oppose you if you shoot a few demonstrators in the streets — or even just threaten to? I could go on, but you get the point: it’s completely anti-democratic and authoritarian for a president to respond to political opposition with violence, or even threats of violence. Democratic politics are not possible when one side attempts to dominate through the barrel of a gun rather than compete at the ballot box. Yet this is what Trump is doing, his lies about an “invasion” and “rebellion” in sunny Southern California notwithstanding. And as plenty of reporting has made clear, including this recent piece from CNN, the strategy of using the military to provoke conflict with blue state governors and expand the anti-immigrant regime have been months and even years in the making.
Though it may seem less ominous, the unprecedented presidential birthday parade/Army birthday celebration set for this Saturday is another warning that Trump sees violent threat as key to dominating American politics in his second term. Estimates for the parade run between $25 million and $45 million, including millions to repair streets due to the damage that will be done by tracked vehicles designed to defeat enemy forces, not roll down pacific domestic avenues. Although the Army originally planned some smaller celebrations of its birthday, a military parade has been a Trump dream since his first term — though back then, generals more willing to stand up to him managed to put the kibosh on it.
The event will transform Washington, D.C. into the site of a warlike display far more often associated with autocratic, repressive regimes like North Korea and Russia, where such events are intended to intimidate external enemies and citizenry alike. Yet this is the image of the U.S., and of himself, that the president appears obsessed with promoting. Ostensibly meant to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Army, it’s really intended as an assertion of Trump’s own supposed power, both by associating himself with belligerent imagery and by fostering the perception that he shares a special bond with the armed forces. The president’s wish to cloak himself in an aura of martial triumph is deeply anti-democratic, part of an effort to paint himself as a figure of menace and might.
But with the D.C. parade now coinciding with troops patrolling the streets of another American city, its already-unnerving cast has grown only darker. The New York Times notes how the parade may come off as a tacit endorsement by the U.S. military of its participation in Trump’s intimidatory deployments in California. But I would go a step further: the events in California inevitably implicate the armed forces and the parade in the crackdown, not least because the military actually is already implicated. No senior officers have resigned over a deployment that has placed the military directly in service of partisan goals, frayed the military’s role as America’s defender against external enemies, and raised the specter of violent repression on American streets.
In fact, Trump himself couldn’t help but make an explicit link between the California troop deployments and the military parade, telling reporters that any protests at the D.C. event would be treated harshly. “For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force. And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.” In other words, even as Trump admitted he wasn’t even aware of planned protests in D.C., he still fantasized about their occurrence and a suitably repressive response. Given that a “very heavy force” of tanks, self-propelled howitzers, and other weapons of war will be present in D.C., it’s within the realm of possibility that Trump’s mind jumped to the cheerful prospect of tanks crunching over protestors as infantry troops bayonet sign-waving radicals.
Even more chilling and absurd, Trump seemed to be saying that Americans no longer have a right to protest if the military is involved — a bizarre subversion of our basic rights. Yet what he said is also deeply illuminating, of a piece with his seeming belief that the armed forces are the president’s ultimate trump card, a weapon not of national defense but of political dominance, against which opposition is futile.
Finally, this past week presented yet more evidence of President Trump’s twisted view of the armed forces, as he delivered a highly partisan speech in front of troops at Fort Bragg. As Military.com reports, he told those assembled that “We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,” that California Governor Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass are “incompetent,” and that these Democratic politicians are assisting “insurrectionists.” Completing the grotesque scene was the fact that “the soldiers roared with laughter and applauded Trump's diatribe in a shocking and rare public display of troops taking part in naked political partisanship.” The soldiers’ participation also included openly booing when Trump attacked declared enemies like Newsom and Bass. Military.com correctly notes that this speech and the crowd reaction blurred “the long-standing and sacrosanct line between the military and partisan politics.” Just as troublingly, the participation of uniformed military in a political rally violated various Pentagon rules — yet no senior active-duty military leaders have yet broken their silence about this deeply disturbing display.
But the danger here is not just in a generic violation of norms and regulations. Let’s be crystal clear about how this speech synergizes with other recent events: even as he has illicitly ordered troops into the streets of Los Angeles, and demanded that the nation spend millions on a militarized Donald Trump birthday parade, the president incited American soldiers to support his invective and lies about illicit political actions involving the U.S. military. In effect, he recruited those Ft. Bragg soldiers into the MAGA cause, fostering the impression that the military is on his side and supports partisan moves against political opponents.
As we noted, this goes deeply against the non-partisan stance that the U.S. Army and other branches are sworn to maintain. The idea that the military is on the side of one particular political party, especially as that political party is edging up to the line of using violence against its political adversaries, is vile and anti-democratic, incompatible with the United States as most of us understand it.
Adding to the deep danger of the Ft. Bragg event, Army officials engaged in “a tightly orchestrated effort to curate the optics of Trump's recent visit, including handpicking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance. The troops ultimately selected to be behind Trump and visible to the cameras were almost exclusively male.” In other words, military leaders made themselves complicit in creating a mini-MAGA army for Trump to address: predominantly male, supportive of Trump, and — perhaps most unforgivably — willing to violate clear military regulations.
Years of evidence, including the striking events of recent weeks, leave little doubt that President Trump conceives of the American military far differently than his predecessors. He sees it not as a shield to protect the United States or to pursue foreign policy goals, but as an extension of his personal power at home. Even worse, he views the armed forces not simply as a symbolic aid to his rule, but an actual weapon to be deployed against domestic opponents and supposed immigrant “invaders” that together he accuses of insurrection and lawlessness. This is the nightmarish mentality of a dictator, not of a president sworn to defend the Constitution and the American people.
For opponents to treat Trump’s subversion of the military as a fait accompli or a “diversion” would be an enormous, possibly fatal error for the country; his illegal and anti-democratic attempt to recruit the American armed forces into a de facto MAGA army demands massive public outcry and unyielding opposition. Indeed, Trump’s blatant coercion of the military into domestic repression is so offensive to basic American values that it may yet galvanize the citizenry into a wave of political resistance that brings the Trump administration to its knees, and the nation to its senses.