In 1770, eight British soldiers pointed their muskets at unarmed civilians, and six years later, America was born out of the idea that a government is built on consent, not coercion. The Boston Massacre wasn’t just about anti-British sentiment reaching its breaking point; it was also about defining what kind of nation America would become. And whatever that nation would be, it would not be one where citizens live in fear of their own military.
There has always been a level of trust between America’s military and its people, a sense of assurance that it will never be turned against them. This history makes President Donald Trump’s use of the military on domestic soil a stark departure from the values this country was founded on.
History of Military Presence in America
Presidents have deployed the National Guard in American cities in the past for various reasons, most notably to enforce civil rights. Republican and Democratic presidents alike activated the guards throughout the Civil Rights Movement. President Eisenhower and Kennedy both federalized the National Guard to enforce racial integration when Black students faced resistance from state officials in the American South. President Lyndon B. Johnson used the guards twice during his time in office. In 1965, Johnson sent troops to protect Civil Rights marchers in Selma, and in 1967, he deployed them to Detroit to end days of deadly protests. In 1992, after four police officers were acquitted for brutally beating Rodney King, riots broke out across Los Angeles. At the request of California’s Governor, President George H. W. Bush sent in the National Guard to help put an end to the riots.
Over the decades, presidents justified the domestic use of troops under other circumstances — whether to manage the arrival of Cuban refugees, restore order after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., or provide relief in the aftermath of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. In all cases, the domestic deployment of the military is typically invoked as an emergency power — a last resort when unrest overwhelms law enforcement, public safety is at risk, or existing laws have failed.
Administrations have historically made sure that troop deployments preserved public trust, that their presence should signal reassurance and protection instead of intimidation. But still, presidents should weigh this power carefully, for it chips away at the trust between the people and the military. The idea of sending troops against our own citizens runs counter to this country’s deepest democratic instincts. This historical tradition thus makes President Trump’s deployment of troops to American cities extraordinary.
A War From Within
In June 2025, President Trump federalized the California National Guard and sent them into Los Angeles to crack down on protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids despite Governor Gavin Newsom’s opposition. Just weeks later, troops were deployed to Washington D.C., Portland, and Chicago on a mission to “restore order” and “control crime.” At the time, the White House framed these moves as law-and-order measures, but Trump’s own words soon revealed a far more chilling motive.
In a speech he delivered to top military officials, President Trump said he wanted to use American cities as a “training ground” for the military and declared that there was an ongoing “war from within.” This rhetoric is alarming, and it runs against the traditional understanding that the military’s primary role is to defend the nation and its Constitution, not to police its people.
In some cases, President Trump used Title 32 of the U.S. Code to justify his actions. It permits the deployment of the National Guard under state command, but their duty is federally funded and regulated. Title 32 allows the president to obtain consent from Republican governors to send their National Guard into Democratic-led states and cities. The guardsmen that were sent into D.C. came from South Carolina, Ohio, and Mississippi, under the authorization of GOP governors. But when the Trump Administration sends in the National Guard to Democratic states like Illinois and Oregon, with the opposition of their governors, it violates federalism and state sovereignty.
The framers of the Constitution believed that power ought to be divided between the states and the federal government so that power is not centralized. States have powers that allow them to make decisions and laws independent of Washington. Domestic policing power belongs first to the states, and when the president uses military force to override elected state leaders, he is overstepping federal authority. By turning states against each other, the president is waging his own war from within.
The Price of Fear
The president has justified sending the National Guard into U.S. cities by citing a perceived rise in violent crime. But the truth is that crime rates have been falling for years. These deployments are driven by manufactured fear rather than evidence, and the result is a deep erosion of public trust and a rise in lasting, irreversible fear.
In Washington D.C., the crime rate has decreased as a result of military presence, but polling shows that the majority of residents oppose the administration’s takeover of the city and actually feel even less safe as a result of it. Military presence has prompted them to rethink “how they see their place in the United States — and how they think the United States sees them.” It’s a devastating revelation, but also a revealing one.
The government’s action is counterproductive. There is now a climate of fear and uncertainty in D.C., and it is blending into people’s daily lives. Some parents volunteer to organize carpooling because other parents are afraid of sending their children to school on their own. Students are no longer taking school buses because their parents fear encounters with federal troops. Once people begin to see their own military as a source of fear, the sense of safety will be almost impossible to restore.
The president’s response to his perceived outbreak of civil disorder is disproportionate to reality, and it comes at a high cost. The primary purpose of having these soldiers on the ground is for them to serve as a crime deterrent. They are instructed not to make arrests, but instead simply patrol low-crime areas in the city and carry out simple tasks like picking up trash. It is working — there has been a sharp decline in violent crime in D.C – but the Guard’s deployment there costs $200 million. In California, it costs $120 million. This is simply not an effective or sustainable way to build lasting public safety, since this money could go into funding local law enforcement and crime prevention programs. This strategy also runs against President Trump’s own campaign promise that he will cut “waste, fraud, and abuse,” because having soldiers simply stand by in low-crime areas and not making arrests is an unproductive and performative use of public resources.
“A Sacred Trust”
General George Marshall once described “a sacred trust” that exists between the citizens of the United States and the military: the recognition that Americans neither fear nor distrust their armed forces. Marshall understood that this is a privileged trust, something that military leaders must work tirelessly to uphold in order to preserve the confidence of the people.
In many authoritarian countries in the world, citizens suffer from the fear of military force imposed on them. America is, and always has been, free of this fear. Sixty percent of Americans have a positive view of the military, and this consensus transcends party lines. That level of trust and absence of fear is rare, and indeed sacred.
Instead of preserving that absence of fear, the president is exploiting it. If the military continues to intervene in civilian life, it will only be a matter of time before that sacred trust is gone.
Featured Image: Sky News
