When it comes to Trump, it’s not hard to connect the dots. Or to know what he wants to do.
He’s pretty easy to figure out.
As he reminded us just the other day, he wants to crack down on what he considers “the enemy within.” And as he’s made clear for years, he wants to use to United States military to do it.
And when he talks enemies, he paints with a very broad brush. But he also names names. Groups he doesn’t like. People he doesn’t like. Those who’ve tried to hold him accountable.
And he’s consistent…he’s talked about unleashing the military on those enemies for years. His lemmings have as well.
Worse, there’s a legal mechanism that would enable him to do it. It’s called the Insurrection Act. And he talks about that too. He talked about it as President, but military leaders stopped him. And as his former Chief of Staff John Kelly explained last night—that’s the type of pushback that causes Trump to complain that he wanted “the kind of generals that Hitler had.” And he will no doubt enlist such dangerous loyalists this time.
Despite all this…the prospect of lethally equipped US troops policing US cities and cracking down on Trump’s enemies seems so unimaginable and foreign, it’s glossed over like every other crazy thing he says of late.
But rather than dismissing it, we’re far better off imagining what would it actually look like.
And the answer is: it would be scary as hell…and dangerous as hell. For all involved.
With the help of Mark Hamill, and expertly co-written by Daniel Miller—a lawyer, writer and democracy advocate—the next episode of “Trump’s Project 2025: Up Close and Personal” captures that hell. And it does so from the vantage point of a soldier assigned to crack down on a protest in the City of Brotherly Love. And from the view of an activist who is caught in the chaos of that protest under fire.
I warn you: it’s a disturbing scene.
But one which accurately captures the sky-high risk that presents itself if Trump is given the chance to do what he promises so frequently, without the guardrails that protected the country last time.
You can listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our website HERE to find it along with the other episodes.
And, as always, please share it with others.
Author’s Note:
In the United States, federal law ensures that U.S. military forces are not to be used as part of domestic law enforcement.
But an old law—the Insurrection Act of 1807—allows the President of the United States to remove that bar and order National Guard or active-duty military to quell unrest, “domestic violence” or “conspiracy” that he deems a domestic rebellion or insurrection. The Act’s language is so open-ended (“bafflingly broad,” according to the Brennan Center), it gives the President “almost limitless discretion” to determine what meets the Act’s standards. And an old Supreme Court decision ruled that it is “exclusively” the President’s decision to make. No surprise, experts call for the Insurrection Act to be reformed.
Here’s the problem: it is well documented that in his first term, Donald Trump pressed to invoke the Insurrection Act in wake of the Black Lives Matters protests in June 2020. That’s when he infamously asked military leaders: “Can’t you just shoot them?…Just shoot them in the legs or something?” He even had an order drafted to that effect.
Even worse, it is equally well documented that Trump associates are “drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.” And repeatedly, on the campaign trail, Trump himself suggests he would “unilaterally send troops into Democratic-run cities.”
As if this wasn't clear enough—he doubled down on all this just last week. He referred to “radical left lunatics” as “the enemy from within,” and then said the following: “I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Do NOT let this nightmare become a reality.
Share this post