Trump Channels National Guard for Public Safety and Order

A recent directive issued by Donald Trump invigorates the National Guard, providing them with a dedicated task force to handle ‘domestic civil disturbances and safeguard public safety’. Throughout his tenure, Trump has perpetuated the image of a strongman flaunting his private force – a phalanx of armed personnel under his command, to silence dissent, cow adversaries, and harness the potential of violence for his own purposes. His initial term was speckled with social media threats, claiming that he could marshal ‘law enforcement officers, biker gangs, and soldiers’ to impose his will. The context is not lost now as he sanctions a fresh Executive Order named ‘ADDITIONAL MEASURES TO ADDRESS THE CRIME EMERGENCY IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA’.

The primary message embedded in the order covers Trump’s severe attempts to corner the law enforcement authority in Washington. Despite its overt proclamation, it covertly encodes an alarming directive to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He is ordained to ‘guarantee the readiness of a permanent National Guard quick action team, which is to be adequately resourced, skilled, and prepared for immediate countrywide assignment.’ The purpose of this force includes assisting federal, state, and local law enforcements to ‘contain public uprisings and ensure public safety and order’. This action, potentially, is a manifestation of a strategy that The Washington Post had exposed in the previous month.

Based on the Post’s account, this special force would comprise 600 soldiers prepared for deployment on Trump’s orders, anywhere in the nation. The blueprint also flattened the suggestion that this force is primarily intended to respond actively to protests and other forms of civil unrest. The mere fact that such a proposition is clandestinely slipped into an executive order that seeks to combat common crime is unsettling. It silently echoes the idea of Trump broadening the perception.

An inalienable fact arises here. The National Guard is not a policing agency; it’s a structured military establishment usually stationed under the command of state governors. The soldiers within the Guard are not instructed or honed to manage protests, maintain law and order or apprehend people for minor legal contraventions. Foregrounding this concern, it’s vital to reflect on the tradition in the United States of ensuring non-interference of the military in internal policing.

The roles and responsibilities of police officers and soldiers are visionally distinctive. While the civic duty of police constitutes maintaining tranquillity and shielding citizens’ rights, soldiers are entrusted with the duty of combating and defeating hostile military forces. The prospect of an active military doing routine civic policing was one among many potential threats that the Founding Fathers had envisioned.

Presumably, Pete Hegseth, in his capacity, would helm a force majorly representing soldiers yielding utmost loyalty to Trump. Furthermore, this swift deployment plan might trigger an inevitable counter-reaction from judicial bodies. The deployments in Los Angeles marked the first instance in American history where a president commandeered and stationed Guard soldiers in a state, overriding the governor’s disagreement.

Historically, this manoeuvre contradicts established norms and has now been codified as an unending federal guideline through Trump’s plan. Retired Major General Randy Manner, who formerly served as the National Guard’s deputy chief and the deputy commanding general of Army forces in the Middle East, voiced concerns aligned with those of Olmstead in a recent interview with MSNBC.

“The sheer concept of U.S. military forces being stationed in our cities should serve as an alarming wake-up call for every American,” he opined. Emphasizing the gravity of the situation, he reiterated that the military’s operational design is to neutralize enemy forces, not enforce laws in cities. Such a deployment should, in his view, “raise alarm bells for any person living in this country”.

It seems that Trump and Secretary Hegseth have undertaken a purge, removing voices of dissent such as Olmstead and Manner from the Pentagon. However, hopefully, they have overlooked some, maintaining a balancing perspective within the power structure.