Another Major Escalation of U.S. President’s Unchecked Abuse of Power
In a major escalation of his unchecked abuse of power, U.S. president Donald Trump hailed the use of military force to police U.S. cities, telling generals and admirals it is important to quell “the enemy within.”
“San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one,” Trump told hundreds of senior U.S. military officers packed into a hall at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, on September 30.
“We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out,” Trump declared, as he took a significant — and very dangerous — step toward consolidating one-man rule.
“Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances,” he continued. “This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”
EDITORIAL
Trump said he had suggested to U.S. secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, who had concluded an hour-long speech just before the president took to the podium at Quantico, that some U.S. cities would be good “training grounds for our military.”
In June, Trump sent Marines and the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests that erupted there after a spike in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and deportations. In August, the White House sent 2,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to “deter crime” and, last month, Trump signed an executive order to dispatch the Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, on similar grounds. In early October, White House officials notified the Illinois governor that National Guard troops are federalized and will be sent to Chicago.
In every case except Memphis, the troops are sent despite objections from state and local officials. And, in most cases, statistics show that crime has been on the decline in these cities during the past year.
Although the president has some powers to use federal troops for domestic policing, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 limits such deployments to cases in which there is a specific authorization by Congress, or the actions are “expressly allowed by the Constitution.” Sending in the National Guard without a request from the governor of a state is reserved for “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
At Quantico, Trump also singled out Portland, Oregon, describing it a “war zone,” a city “burning down.”
On September 28, Hegseth ordered 200 Oregon National Guard troops to be sent to Portland, under federal authority to fight what the White House has described as rampant lawlessness. The deployment is to “protect federal property” where protests are “occurring or likely to occur,” Hegseth said.
Oregon governor Tina Kotek charged that the deployment of the National Guard is unnecessary and an abuse of power. The state sued to try to block it. On October 4, a federal judge temporarily prevented the Oregon National Guard deployment. Trump responded by ordering California National Guard troops to Portland.
According to Portland city officials, the vast majority of the protests against increased activity by ICE agents and the overall policies of the Trump administration, while sometimes loud and boisterous, have been peaceful.
“The City of Portland is about 145 square miles. This is one city block,” Portland police chief Bob Day said on September 29. “Even the events that are happening down there do not rise to the level of attention that they are receiving,” he added, referring to the location of the federal building that has been the scene of ongoing protests.
Day noted that the portrayal of Portland in a state of anarchy is being driven by “these 30-second, 20-second, 15-second clips … from months or maybe even years ago,” referring to the 2020 anti-police brutality protests. “What’s actually happening … is not in line with that national narrative.”
Initially, “Hegseth considered sending an elite U.S. Army strike force to Portland,” to quell the recent anti-ICE protests, according to an article in the October 3 Minnesota Star Tribune.
“Messages, casually exchanged last weekend in a crowded, public space, show high-level officials in the Trump administration discussing the deployment of the Army’s 82nd Airborne, an infantry division that has been deployed to combat zones in both world wars, Vietnam and Afghanistan,” the Star Tribune reported. “The messages suggest that the once-extraordinary step of sending military troops into an American city has been normalized within the administration.”
Trump’s Quantico speech was couched in language about stemming crime and unauthorized immigration. But it is clearly a declaration of war against the American people, at least those who dare to express opposition to the administration’s policies.
While the target has expanded from undocumented immigrants to protesters, it’s not a big leap to see that it won’t stop there. It is but a short step from sending the Marines to bust up “gang activity” in an urban setting to using the military as a strike-breaking force or to terrorize workers who are trying to fight for better wages or safer working conditions.
Pulling together 800 military leaders from far-flung bases all over the world was also a move to assess their loyalty to the President and the degree to which they can be counted upon to quash any dissent. Urging the group to break with standard decorum and applaud him, Trump “joked” to the assembled military brass, “And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.”
The recent mass protests, led by trade unions, and community organizing in Chicago against ICE terrorism and the threat of Trump’s expanding domestic use of the military offer an example of the kind of resistance needed to counter the White House march toward dictatorial rule. The October 18 “No Kings” protests can be a step along this road.
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Categories: Editorials, US Politics
All the liberal commentary about how much the meeting cost, whether it disrupted “our” security, and how “embarrassing” it was reflects a misguided concern for various organizational weaknesses of “our nation.”
What the Pentagon is doing in Gaza or to Cuba might be considered far more “embarrassing,” if one identified in any way with any part of the imperialist war machine. But we should not be embarrassed by war crimes, we should fight to bring their perpetrators to historical justice.
We all know that the US military is the force required by the capitalist state to preserve its power–one it must increasingly rely on as the grip of the political mythology of bourgeois democracy weakens.
The contradiction is that the armed forces are mostly made up from the working class and the lower parts of the petty bourgeoisie. From a stratum where the job training and pay checks of the military validate the danger of putting oneself at risk in combat.
The crisis that developed in the military during the war in Vietnam, as mostly Black, Puerto Rican, and Chicano working-class troops began to openly rebel against the almost all white officers who sent them up hamburger hills forced the high command to make some big changes in the military. They saw this as necessary to the discipline and cohesion of the rank and file troops in future conflicts, almost all of which could be expected to involve combat with non-white populations. Trump & Co. see this as “woke” foolishness.
It seems that Trump & Co. fear that the existing officer caste and troops formed up under these conditions are not reliable for use in his war against democratic rights, his war against immigrants, his war to lower the social wage, and ultimately attack unions.
He is working to realign them politically as part of a new force of storm troopers, just as he is using ICE. That’s what these speeches are really trying to do. And it would be naive to think that they won’t have some impact. There’s an article in the October 6 New York Times about Trump’s speech to sailors the day before. He is polarizing these soldiers.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/us/politics/trump-navy-portland-troops.html?unlocked_article_code=1.rU8.QfpA.h3dtT2Btophd&smid=url-share]
Trump & Co.,they are going for blood. They are glad that ICE agents are getting a taste of beating
These domestic political/military moves are the flip side of the sharpening foreign policy/military moves developing off the coast of Venezuela and towards tightening the suffering of the Cuban people by way of the blockade.
Thinking through what we can say about this as coalitions united in action around the issue of the blockade will be important. What do we say about our cause when we go to the demonstrations that are already developing against Trump’s war on the workers, oppressed nationalities, and immigrants living in the cities?