Before his re-election, the US president Donald Trump was already talking about refocusing the military on the “enemy within”, a term he uses interchangeably to describe violent criminals and elected Democrats. “I think the bigger problem,” he told Fox News last October, “are the people from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the – and it should be very easily handled by – if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military ...
“It’s the enemy from within,” he added, “all the scum that we have to deal with that hate our country. That’s a bigger enemy than China and Russia.”
Fast-forward to this week.
Local officials describe the unwelcome National Guard arriving in Portland and Chicago as an unconstitutional “invasion”. Trump maintains that a number of US cities, almost entirely ones led by Democrats, need the military to crack down on crime, something troops are barred from doing under federal law. He insists they are also needed to protect federal immigration agents as they carry out mass deportations.
But protests in Portland and elsewhere have largely been calm and crime levels are substantially down. Mayors are asking where the insurrection is and contesting the deployment orders in court – with only partial success.
Addressing 800 senior officers last week, Trump spoke of a new mission against the “enemy within”. American cities would be “training grounds”.
“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms,” Trump warned. He threatened to use emergency presidential powers under the 1807 Insurrection Act “if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or mayors or governors were holding us up ... We’re going to straighten them out one by one,” he warned of Democratic mayors.
He spelt out his intentions in National Security Presidential Memorandum No 7. He cited the murder of Charlie Kirk and a series of disparate events: “This political violence is not a series of isolated incidents and does not emerge organically. Instead, it is a culmination of sophisticated, organised campaigns ...”
A new “national strategy”, he said, would be implemented against an ideology of “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the US Government; extremism on migration, race and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality”.
A new war against his political opponents is to be waged at home in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. This was enacted in 1878 following the post-civil war era of reconstruction. It prohibits the deployment of the military as domestic police except in defence of the constitution. The act, however, does allow the president to “federalise” the country’s 450,000-strong National Guard under his control, which Trump did in California, despite its governor’s objections.
The gloves are coming off. Secretary of defence Pete Hegseth, a former National Guard major turned Fox News presenter, told the assembled officers that the military should not “fight with stupid rules of engagement” and should “untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country”. Hegseth, who rechristened his department the department of war, is a prominent advocate for pardoning soldiers accused or convicted of war crimes.
Trump urged troops, if they were harassed or assaulted by protesters, to “get out of that car and do whatever the hell you want to do”.
The president has been rapidly intensifying domestic military operations during his second term. In April, he expanded the military presence along the southern border, establishing so-called “national defence areas”. Later in the summer, Trump sent in the marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles, and subsequently to Washington DC, Memphis, Portland and Chicago. Others will certainly follow.
The US Navy is also engaged in blatantly illegal lethal strikes against Venezuelan “drug smuggling” vessels in the Caribbean. No evidence has been provided; the administration claims that the US is in a “non-international armed conflict” with cartels. Those murdered in the strikes are deemed “unlawful combatants”.
[ Hegseth says four killed in US strike on alleged drugs boat off VenezuelaOpens in new window ]
Within weeks of assuming office, Trump sacked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen CQ Brown, the second black man to hold the position. This was portrayed as part of his effort to guarantee a compliant military leadership and purge it of unreliable or “inferior” black and female members, allegedly promoted courtesy of “woke” diversity programmes. Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman chief of naval operations, was also dismissed, as were judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force, and general Tim Haugh, head of the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command.
Gone, too, is the congressional opposition that blocked Trump during his first term. Republicans control both houses and have acquiesced to all of Trump’s directives and appointments relating to the military. The supreme court, a useful tool for legitimising Trump’s policies, is no constraint. Trumpism is coming of age.
