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Trump and Military Leadership

Donald Trump's second term transformed rhetorical aspirations during his first term into concrete actions that fundamentally challenged the American system of civil-military relations. While his first term revealed authoritarian inclinations constrained by institutional resistance, developments through 2025 demonstrate a systematic effort to reshape the officer corps, deploy military forces domestically on an unprecedented scale, and create conditions that experts warn could facilitate intervention in the 2026 midterm elections. The patterns that emerged during Trump's first term as warnings and concerns have evolved into documented policy actions that represent perhaps the most significant challenge to American civil-military norms since the founding of the republic.

During his first term, Trump expressed frustration that his generals did not demonstrate the kind of personal loyalty he believed Hitler's generals had shown. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly reported that Trump repeatedly said he wanted "the kind of generals that Hitler had" and commented that "Hitler did some good things." These statements, while alarming to military professionals and scholars of authoritarianism, did not translate into systematic changes to military leadership structures during that first term. Institutional guardrails, combined with resistance from senior officials including Kelly, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, prevented Trump from fundamentally altering the military's constitutional role. The question facing observers in 2025 is whether those guardrails remain sufficient as Trump pursues a far more aggressive agenda backed by carefully selected loyalists rather than institutionalists.

The purge of military leadership

Trump's second term began with an unprecedented wave of senior officer dismissals that represents the most extensive peacetime purge of military leadership in American history. Within hours of his January 20, 2025 inauguration, Trump fired Admiral Linda Fagan, the Commandant of the Coast Guard and the first woman to lead a branch of the armed forces, giving her three hours to vacate her residence. This immediate action signaled that concerns about systematic purges that had been dismissed as alarmist speculation during the transition were instead operational plans.

On February 21, 2025, Trump fired General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had served only sixteen months of his four-year term. The position of Chairman traditionally spans presidential administrations specifically to maintain military continuity and insulate the role from political considerations. No Chairman in American history had previously been fired mid-term. Within days, Trump also removed Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as Chief of Naval Operations, and General James Slife, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, appointed for his loyalty rather than traditional qualifications for the position, justified these removals by characterizing the officers as products or promoters of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. His explicit message that Black and female officers would no longer lead at senior levels represented an abandonment of even nominal adherence to merit-based selection principles.

The firings extended beyond the most senior positions to include the military's top legal officers. Trump and Hegseth dismissed the Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy and Air Force, eliminating the very officers responsible for advising commanders whether presidential orders comply with military law and the Constitution. Former military prosecutors observed that firing the lawyers represents a prerequisite step for leaders planning to issue unlawful orders. Senator Jack Reed, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, stated that the purge was designed to ensure everyone in the Department of Defense was "beholden to the president, not to the Constitution," describing the removal of military lawyers as particularly alarming since "if you're going to break the law, the first thing you do is you get rid of the lawyers."

By November 2025, Trump had fired at least ten senior military officers, most of them women or people of color. Additional officers who had served under or worked closely with General Milley found their promotions delayed or canceled despite meeting statutory qualifications. Retired Major General James Patrick Work, expected to become deputy commander at U.S. Central Command overseeing troops in the Middle East, saw his appointment blocked due to his previous service under Milley. Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command, was forced to step down after questioning the administration's claims about deadly military strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea that the administration characterized as drug trafficking vessels without providing detailed evidence. The pattern suggested that candor and professional military judgment had become liabilities rather than valued qualities in senior officers.

To replace fired officers, Trump nominated retired Lieutenant General Dan "Razin" Caine as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Caine lacks the statutory qualifications for the position, which requires service as Vice Chairman, a service chief (except Coast Guard), or commander of a combatant command. While presidents possess waiver authority for these requirements if deemed in the national interest, the selection of a retired officer who met Trump in Iraq and reportedly impressed him personally underscored that loyalty had replaced professional qualifications as the primary selection criterion. Senator Tammy Duckworth observed that the nomination, combined with the broader purge pattern, demonstrates a deliberate strategy of "prioritizing fealty over qualifications and putting our national security at risk in the process."

The purge extends beyond individual firings to create systemic pressures throughout the officer corps. Secretary Hegseth delayed or canceled multiple promotions of officers associated with previous leadership or perceived as insufficiently aligned with administration priorities. Defense experts note that this creates powerful incentives for self-censorship and political calculation among officers aspiring to senior ranks. Former naval destroyer captain Gene Moran warned that politicizing military advancement "will be decades to recreate," as the institution's fundamental promise that advancement depends on merit and performance rather than political loyalty is destroyed. Retired Major General Paul Eaton characterized the actions as creating a "MAGA Military, pledging fealty to Donald Trump" rather than an apolitical force loyal to the Constitution.

The loyalty apparatus: oaths, boards, and vetting

Beyond removing officers deemed disloyal, the administration has developed multiple mechanisms to ensure that military leadership demonstrates personal loyalty to Trump. Reports emerged in June 2025 that Secretary Hegseth and his inner circle were seriously considering requiring written loyalty oaths to the President from all active duty, reserve and National Guard officers at the field grade level and above—that is, Majors and above in the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps and Space Force, and Lieutenant Commanders and above in the Navy and Coast Guard. A senior officer reporting to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation stated that the proposal appeared "imminent" and represented the culmination of administration efforts to bind the officer corps to Trump personally rather than to their constitutional oaths.

Retired Brigadier General Walter Donovan, former senior lawyer in the Marine Corps, immediately recognized the historical parallels. In 1934, German military officers were required to swear personal loyalty oaths to Adolf Hitler rather than to Germany or its constitution. These oaths proved instrumental in binding the Wehrmacht to Hitler's person and policies, creating a sense of personal obligation that many officers cited when explaining their failure to resist illegal orders. Donovan advised officers that if ordered to sign loyalty oaths they should "do neither" sign nor resign, but rather stay in office and accept court martial if necessary, as they would be acquitted for not complying with an unconstitutional order. The requirement that military officers demonstrate personal loyalty to an individual leader rather than fidelity to law represents one of the defining characteristics distinguishing constitutional from authoritarian systems.

Before the June loyalty oath proposal became public, Trump's administration had already begun implementing more subtle loyalty screening mechanisms. By July 2025, Trump personally met with candidates for four-star promotions, a departure from traditional practice where the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs manage such appointments subject to Senate confirmation. A White House spokesperson justified these meetings as ensuring military leaders were qualified, but civilian-military relations experts noted that the meetings created obvious opportunities to assess political loyalty. Professor Lindsay Cohn of the Naval War College observed that the practice "will give the impression, both to the military itself and to the public, that this is a personal loyalty test and that people will be selected based on how personally loyal they can convince him they are."

These loyalty vetting mechanisms create profound risks for military effectiveness beyond their constitutional implications. Most senior officers have at some point publicly praised diversity as institutional policy when women and minorities gained prominent roles, or emphasized vaccination importance when military readiness required it. The creation of loyalty review processes reporting directly to Trump outside normal performance evaluation systems effectively imposes retroactive political tests on professional conduct. Senior officers interviewed by multiple news organizations expressed concern that succeeding in their jobs would become secondary to constantly ensuring they pleased political overseers. One currently serving general told Military.com that "it could be very hard to do our job if we have to constantly be making sure we're appeasing someone on a political or partisan level." Militaries led by officers selected for political reliability rather than professional competence historically perform poorly in combat, as evidenced by Saddam Hussein's forces in 2003 and Stalin's Red Army in 1941.

The Quantico speech: American cities as training grounds

On September 30, 2025, Trump convened an unprecedented gathering of over 800 generals and admirals at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia. The hastily arranged meeting brought together the military's highest-ranking officers from across the country for what Trump and Hegseth characterized as a national security address but what observers described as political theater designed to assert dominance over military leadership and signal new directions for domestic military deployment. The substance and tone of Trump's remarks at Quantico revealed how far his civil-military relationship concepts have evolved from constitutional norms toward personal command authority.

Trump told the assembled officers that they should use "dangerous" American cities as "training grounds" for military operations. "I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military," Trump stated, referring to Secretary Hegseth. "We're going into Chicago very soon." He described "inner cities" as "a big part of war" and explicitly named Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Washington as cities where military forces should operate. This represented the first time an American president had publicly advocated using domestic cities as military operational training environments, a proposal that civil-military relations experts immediately identified as potentially violating the Posse Comitatus Act's prohibition on using federal troops for domestic law enforcement.

Trump's Quantico speech framed domestic political opposition as equivalent to foreign military threats, stating that America faces "invasion from within" and describing the situation as "no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult because they do not wear uniforms." This rhetorical construction transformed American citizens in Democratic-led cities into enemy combatants requiring military response. He referenced an executive order directing the Secretary of Defense to establish National Guard "quick reaction forces" for nationwide deployment to "help quell civil disturbances," and defended domestic troop use by noting that he was "not the first president to use the military to keep peace," an apparent reference to historical instances where presidents invoked the Insurrection Act during actual rebellions or when state authorities were unable to maintain order.

Secretary Hegseth reinforced Trump's message by pledging to eliminate "politically correct, overly sensitive don't-hurt-anyone's-feelings leadership" at every level. He announced plans to reinstate strict fitness and grooming standards including a ban on beards, and stated that combat arms roles would be held to "the highest male standards," a formulation clearly designed to restrict women's participation in combat specialties. The speech combined demands for domestic military deployment with rollback of diversity policies, presenting these as integrated components of restoring a "warrior ethos" to the military. Critics noted that troops trained and evaluated according to rigid warrior standards are designed for combat operations, not for the nuanced requirements of policing American neighborhoods or supporting civil authorities.

The reaction among military professionals to the Quantico speech ranged from dismay to alarm. Retired Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, characterized it as "the most bizarre thing I've seen in my time on Earth." Multiple current and former military officers told Military.com that they were disturbed by the spectacle of generals being addressed "as if they were platoon leaders" and "being used as pawns in sort of a public relations, political demonstration." An anonymous Army sergeant not present at Quantico described the entire event as "very scary," stating that "my feeling when I first heard about all this was that Hegseth and Trump want to get a loyalty oath out of the military." The speech's substance and staging suggested it was designed not primarily to communicate operational guidance but rather to establish dominance over the officer corps and signal that military forces would be deployed domestically regardless of legal or constitutional objections.

The Quantico speech must be understood in the context of actual deployments that began months earlier. Trump's words were not merely aspirational rhetoric but descriptions of ongoing and planned operations that represented a fundamental shift in how American military forces are employed on domestic soil.

The creeping occupation: military deployments to American cities

Trump began deploying federal military forces to American cities in June 2025, establishing a pattern that expanded steadily through the fall. These deployments targeted exclusively Democratic-led cities and employed varying rationales including crime reduction, immigration enforcement, and protection of federal property. The scale and scope of these operations represent the most extensive domestic military presence since the Civil War era, with thousands of National Guard troops deployed to multiple cities under federal rather than state control.

The deployments began in Los Angeles in June 2025, where Trump sent National Guard forces during protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations. Governor Gavin Newsom had not requested federal military assistance, and California officials immediately challenged the deployment as illegal. In August 2025, Trump deployed approximately 2,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., including 800 from the District itself, claiming that "out of control" crime required federal intervention. This occurred despite the fact that Washington's crime rates were at thirty-year lows in 2024 and had continued declining through 2025. Trump invoked federal authority over the District of Columbia to assume control of the Metropolitan Police Department under the city's Home Rule Act, bypassing local democratic governance entirely.

By September 2025, Trump had authorized or threatened National Guard deployments to Memphis, Portland, Chicago, New York, Baltimore, San Francisco and Oakland. In October 2025, federal forces arrived in Memphis, and the Pentagon completed plans for a Chicago deployment that officials described as a potential model for other major cities. Armed National Guard units in Washington began carrying weapons over weekends in late August, making explicit that these were not symbolic or ceremonial presences but armed military forces with law enforcement implications. An Associated Press photographer documented South Carolina National Guard members outside Union Station with holstered handguns, marking a dramatic departure from the traditionally unarmed domestic military presence.

The legal basis for these deployments remains contested. Trump primarily relies on presidential memoranda that invoke federal authority to protect federal personnel and property, using language so vague that legal experts warn it could justify deployments practically anywhere at any time. The June 7, 2025 memorandum used for Los Angeles deployments does not specifically mention California, instead authorizing National Guard activation for "military protective activities" that the Secretary of Defense determines "are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property." This open-ended language provides essentially unlimited discretion to deploy forces wherever federal facilities or personnel exist—which is to say, everywhere.

On September 2, 2025, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the Trump administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act in deploying National Guard troops to Los Angeles, ordering the government not to use military forces for civilian law enforcement in California with the prohibition taking effect September 12. Judge Breyer described the administration's actions and rhetoric as an apparent attempt at "creating a national police force with the President as its chief" and wrote that the deployment rationale was "contrived," noting that "there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests." The Trump administration immediately appealed, arguing that courts lack jurisdiction to review Posse Comitatus Act violations—an argument that, if successful, would make the statute essentially unenforceable and remove judicial review as a check on presidential power to deploy military forces domestically.

The deployments serve multiple administration objectives beyond their stated purposes. They accustom Americans to seeing armed military forces in major cities, normalizing a domestic military presence that would have been politically unthinkable without this gradual acclimation process. Stephen Miller, a senior presidential advisor, made explicit on social media that the deployments represent a deliberate political strategy, stating that "Democrats are trying to unravel civilization" while "President Trump will save it." The messaging frames domestic political opposition as civilizational threat requiring military response, transforming policy disagreement into existential conflict.

The deployments also create facts on the ground that may prove difficult to reverse. Once National Guard units have been federalized and deployed to multiple cities over extended periods, withdrawing them becomes politically and operationally complicated. The infrastructure for nationwide deployment—command structures, legal precedents (however contested), operational procedures—becomes established through practice. Critics including Governors Pritzker and Newsom warn that this represents preparation for more extensive use of military forces during the 2026 midterm elections, with the current deployments serving to establish the legitimacy and feasibility of far more aggressive intervention when electoral stakes are highest.

The 2026 elections: normalizing military intervention

A recurring theme in critiques of Trump's military deployments is concern that their ultimate purpose involves intervention in the 2026 midterm elections. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has stated repeatedly and explicitly that Trump's push to deploy National Guard forces to Chicago and other cities is "really about" creating conditions for electoral intervention. "He'd like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections," Pritzker told CBS News in August 2025. "He'll just claim that there's some problem with an election, and then he's got troops on the ground that can take control if, in fact, he's allowed to do this." California Governor Newsom noted that Trump extended National Guard deployments in Los Angeles through November 2026—spanning the midterm election period—and characterized the administration's actions as attempts to "rig the midterm elections."

Multiple election law experts and civil rights organizations have echoed these concerns. David Graham of The Atlantic, in comprehensive reporting on threats to the 2026 midterms, explained the strategic logic: "If you try to deploy lots of the military in, say, late October 2026, it's going to raise a lot of fuss and a lot of attention. But if people are already accustomed to that, it won't be something new." The gradual deployment of forces to Democratic-led cities throughout 2025 serves to normalize a military presence that would otherwise trigger immediate alarm if suddenly introduced immediately before elections. Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, wrote that "increasingly, there is concern that Trump's ultimate goal with these deployments involves the 2026 election," emphasizing the importance of developing "a well-rounded awareness of our rights as Americans and voters" before electoral intervention occurs.

The administration has fought vigorously against judicial constraints on its domestic deployment authority, suggesting that preserving maximum flexibility for future use is a high priority. In challenging Judge Breyer's ruling against the Los Angeles deployment, administration lawyers argued not only that the specific deployment was legal but that courts lack jurisdiction to review whether any deployment violates the Posse Comitatus Act. If accepted by higher courts, this argument would eliminate one of the primary legal safeguards against using military forces to suppress voters or control elections. Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice emphasized that if courts accept the administration's arguments, "there may still be more indirect theories" for challenging electoral intervention, such as violations of the Constitution's Elections Clause granting states power over elections, but these would face substantial hurdles.

The concern about electoral intervention reflects not paranoia but reasonable extrapolation from Trump's documented behavior. He has never accepted an election result as legitimate without claiming fraud, including elections he won. In 2020, he attempted to overturn his loss through courts, state pressure, and ultimately through violent mobilization that culminated in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol. Former administration officials reported that Trump considered issuing an executive order to seize voting machines, backing away only due to extreme opposition from Cabinet officials. In his second term, Trump has selected Cabinet members primarily for loyalty rather than willingness to resist illegal directives. Conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who led efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, stated on a conservative podcast that "maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward," openly speculating about using emergency authority to control the 2026 vote.

The mechanics of electoral intervention using deployed military forces are not difficult to envision. National Guard troops already positioned in major cities could be directed to establish security perimeters around polling places in Democratic areas, ostensibly to prevent violence or ensure order but effectively intimidating voters. Federal forces could be used to challenge voter registrations, demand documentation, or create delay and confusion. Under the guise of protecting election integrity, military or law enforcement personnel could seize voting equipment or ballot materials. Governors and election officials who refused to cooperate could face federal charges or removal. The Supreme Court's June 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States granting presidents immunity for crimes committed while performing commander-in-chief duties means that Trump would face no criminal liability for actions taken using military authority, even if those actions were otherwise illegal.

The combination of purged military leadership selected for loyalty rather than constitutional fidelity, normalized military presence in Democratic-led cities, contested legal doctrines about judicial review of military deployments, and Trump's documented willingness to challenge democratic outcomes creates conditions where electoral intervention becomes operationally feasible. Whether it occurs depends on political calculations about costs and benefits, the willingness of military officers to execute or resist illegal orders, state and local officials' capacity to maintain alternative electoral processes, and public response. The fact that Democratic governors and national security experts are issuing explicit warnings about this possibility, rather than dismissing it as implausible, reflects the degree to which American democratic norms have eroded during Trump's second term.

Comparative perspective: from rhetoric to action

Trump's first term revealed authoritarian inclinations that were largely constrained by institutional resistance and personnel unwilling to execute constitutionally dubious directives. His second term demonstrates what occurs when those constraints are systematically eliminated. The purge of senior officers and their replacement with loyalists, the development of loyalty oath and vetting mechanisms, the deployment of military forces to American cities, and the creation of conditions potentially facilitating electoral intervention represent the translation of authoritarian aspirations into authoritarian practice.

Comparisons to historical authoritarian civil-military relationships remain imperfect but instructive. Trump has not bribed the officer corps with estates and cash payments as Hitler did, nor has he executed thousands of officers as Stalin did. The scale of violence and repression remains qualitatively different. However, the fundamental dynamic of demanding personal loyalty over constitutional fidelity, of purging officers deemed insufficiently loyal, of deploying military forces against domestic political opponents, and of eliminating institutional checks on executive military authority closely parallels the trajectory of authoritarian consolidation in other contexts. The question is not whether Trump's actions are identical to Hitler's or Stalin's but whether they represent movement along the same continuum away from constitutional governance toward personal autocracy.

The warnings from former senior military and national security officials gain additional weight in light of 2025 developments. When General Milley, General Mattis, Ambassador Bolton, and General Kelly warned before Trump's second term that he represented an authoritarian threat, critics dismissed these assessments as partisan or exaggerated. The systematic purge of military leadership, the proposal for loyalty oaths, the Quantico speech demanding that cities be used as military training grounds, and the deployment of thousands of troops to American cities vindicate rather than refute those warnings. These officials understood from direct observation that Trump's rhetorical aspirations would translate into policy action if institutional constraints were removed. Their warnings were not speculation but predictions based on intimate knowledge of Trump's thinking and priorities.

The American system of civil-military relations has historically rested on shared commitment to constitutional principles rather than personal loyalty, on military professionalism rather than political alignment, on civilian supremacy exercised through constitutional process rather than individual command authority. Trump's second-term actions represent a systematic effort to replace each of these foundations with authoritarian alternatives. The purges establish that advancement depends on political loyalty. The Quantico speech signals that military forces will be used domestically against political opponents. The deployments normalize military presence in civilian spaces. The loyalty mechanisms formalize personal bonds to Trump rather than constitutional obligations.

Whether American democratic institutions can withstand this pressure, whether military officers will resist unconstitutional orders, whether courts will maintain meaningful checks on executive power, and whether the public will demand accountability remain open questions as the nation approaches the 2026 midterm elections. The trajectory from Trump's first-term rhetoric about wanting generals like Hitler's to his second-term actions purging the officer corps and deploying forces to American cities demonstrates that authoritarian governance emerges not through single dramatic ruptures but through accumulating steps that normalize what was previously unthinkable. Understanding this process remains essential for citizens and officials determining how to respond.