One of the fundamental differences between democracies and dictatorships is how the military is viewed. In democracies, the armed forces are an instrument of national defense, serving the people. But in authoritarian states, the military becomes a weapon the government wields against its own citizens.
This week, for the first time in our history, Americans are asking whether we have crossed a dangerous line in that regard.
It is the right question to ask.
As deeply disturbing and offensive as has been the deployment of troops in response to relatively small, largely peaceful protests in Los Angeles, it is very likely only the beginning. For years, since he was first elected as President, Donald Trump has sought the ability to use the United States military as a blunt instrument against those he perceives to be his domestic opponents.
While I was writing my book, “American Resistance,” former senior officials in his administration reported to me his deep frustration and visible anger whenever he was presented with constraints on his power. He wanted the military and its civilian leaders to do what he said. And virtually all of them warned that, if Trump were to be re-elected, his goal would be to sweep away such constraints. Many expressed deep concern that the result would be him becoming the authoritarian he clearly longed to be.
Today, many of those former officials see their warnings being realized. In fact, when I speak to them today, as I regularly do, they are among those who are most disturbed by what is happening.
This week, on the “Words Matter” podcast that I host with political expert Norm Ornstein, our guest was one of those former officials, Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term. Taylor, perhaps best known as the author of the “Anonymous” op-ed in the New York Times that first expressed concerns from within Trump’s orbit, was blunt in his warning. He said he believes that too many in the media are understating the dangers of Trump’s incipient authoritarianism.
Taylor made reference to how those closest to Trump, like current Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, have carefully studied those instances when the law gives U.S. presidents emergency powers—and how they can be exploited. Through Project 2025 and their own planning, they have sought to construct an administration where as many of the personnel and institutional guardrails limiting what a president can do would be removed.
Since the inauguration this past January, we have seen plenty of evidence of these efforts. The team around Trump was picked based not on qualifications or experience but rather on the basis of whether they would do exactly as Trump has said. You saw that manifested in the swiftness with which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth deployed Marines to Los Angeles; to the degree to which Trump’s immigration team—Miller, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and “border czar” Tom Homan—have sought to use assertions of “national emergency” or “invasion” to justify sidestepping the rule of law in their efforts to round up “illegal” immigrants.
Indeed, in case after case, Trump and his team of enablers have sought to use the language of crisis (see the president’s social media posts about “insurrectionists” in LA and his wild lies about the extent of the damage they were doing) precisely because it provides a legal justification for him seizing additional powers and removing constraints on the use of that power.
While Trump has avoided invoking “the Insurrection Act” or declaring martial law thus far, with each week of this administration he has moved further in that direction. And this week, with the actions in Los Angeles, he took a particularly ominous stride down that path.
Even if they over-reach and the courts serve as a check on their plans—which they still sometimes do despite the efforts of the Supreme Court to help transform Trump into our first monarch since George III—Trump and his team know that legal battles take a long time and often afford them the chance in the interim to bully, cancel, intimidate, arrest, deport and otherwise seek to strip away the fundamental rights and protections hitherto enjoyed by the residents of this country. They might not win every case, but the impact they have while the wheels of justice are grinding as slowly as they often do can boost the president’s effective power and advance his agenda.
Trump’s role models are clear. His contempt for our laws is a matter of record. He and his team have been preparing for years to make his second term different from any presidency in U.S. history. He is unchallenged within his administration, by Congress or, much of the time, by the majority on our highest court. He has—through that court’s immunity decision—power unlike any chief executive in our history. He also burns with the desire to impose his will both on behalf of his family and friends but also against those he perceives as his opponents. (Taylor, for example, has been accused of nothing less than “treason” simply for expressing his views. He is not alone.)
For these reasons, for those who know or who have studied Trump, the events of this week are so profoundly chilling. Whether it is boots on the ground in Los Angeles or the polished boots that will be marching a four-mile parade route through our nation’s capital this weekend, we now have a president who sees the military as an extension of his own personal power—his most lavish and ostentatious acquisition yet. The unnecessary display of force in California and the D.C. parade alone are expected to cost in the neighborhood of $200 million.
The juxtaposition of his turning the unparalleled resources of the world’s most powerful armed forces against its own people and then presiding on his birthday over a Soviet-style show of might seems deeply intentional.
As a consequence of the agenda Trump has been implementing since he re-took office, many big questions will loom over the parade in dark counterpoint to the celebratory fly-bys of military aircraft.
Will we or our children ever look at a parade in the same way again?
Will the salutes and fanfare be for the troops or for a would-be American dictator?
And will we see the events of this past week, as do many of those who know Trump best, as a dark turning point in our history, a foreshadowing of the undoing of all that America’s soldiers have fought and died for during the past 250 years?
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