The Trump/Hegseth Military Versus Protesters in the US
Photograph Source: Gage Skidmore – CC BY-SA 2.0
It might be a dangerous time to be a protester in the US, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth serving under President Trump. Trump is eager to use the military against civilian protests, which was stymied during his first term by two things: its illegality under the Posse Comitatus Act, which traditionally bars federal troops from civilian law enforcement; and the repeated objections of military leadership.
When massive demonstrations erupted around the country, protesting the May 25, 2020, murder of George Floyd, then-President Trump succeeded in illegally deploying thousands of National Guard troops to Washington. To use them against the protest, Trump told his Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley that he wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act, a loophole in the Posse Comitatus Act that allows the president to identify a dangerous protest as an “insurrection.”
This would permit the president (ironically, later the indicted Insurrectionist in Chief) to use the military for civilian law enforcement. But Esper and Milley refused to allow this, and Esper later recounted his refusal when Trump had asked him if the military could “just shoot [protesters]…in the legs or something” in response to a demonstration. A similar refusal was issued in a June 5, 2020, statement by 89 former defense officials, which called on Trump to desist in any plans to use active-duty military personnel to control civilians.
So Trump, in his first term, was prevented from rushing the military to quell protesters due to the guardrails in place by his own lawful military and defense leadership. Trump later expressed his regret about this, insisting at a rally, “The next time, I’m not waiting.”
Enter Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee, offering Trump a second chance at carnage. He has said, “When President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense.” Not surprisingly, Hegseth declined during his Senate confirmation hearing to say whether he’d follow a Trump order to shoot at demonstrators. His refusal was taken by Senators to mean he would indeed follow such an order to shoot.This means the guardrails are now down, and Trump’s intent to use military force against protesters is no longer contained.
Even more frightening still is that Hegseth will not only fail to contain the use of the military against civilian protests. In his writings he makes clear that he, as defense secretary, intends to proactively swivel the US military’s target away from foreign enemies to the “enemy within,” by which he makes clear is the left in all its forms. I have been reading recently about the horrific military violence used on peaceful protesters by the Argentine junta and Chile’s Pinochet, rounding them up into stadiums to shoot them en masse or throwing them into the ocean from so-called “death planes.” If we’re not paying close attention and pushing back, US protesters could be next.
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