“No Kings” has become a powerful rallying cry during Donald Trump’s second term. On Saturday, protesters in hundreds of U.S. cities will gather under the banner of “No Kings” to provide a counterweight to a president who is using the coincidence of Flag Day falling on his birthday to stage a massive military parade to feed his ego. The appeal of “No Kings” is obvious: it taps into the noble republican spirit of the American Revolution and rebukes Trump’s autocratic pretensions.
But while “No Kings” is resonant and popular, a more analytical phrase might be “No Warlords.” After all, kings base their power—however dubiously—on tradition and claims to legitimacy. Trump’s abuse of power is cruder than that. It is rooted in nothing more than his assertion that, as president, he should be able to command anyone in government (including law enforcement and the military) without checks from the judiciary. This isn’t royal power, which—even in its absolutist form—was constrained by tradition and concessions to powerful nobles. This is the power of a warlord, a ruler whose will must be executed at all costs.
That Trump is an aspiring warlord is clear in the way he’s tried to erode the tradition of keeping the military apolitical. Over the past week, Trump has undertaken a series of moves—ranging from turning a speech at Fort Bragg into a campaign rally to sending troops to suppress protests in Los Angeles—all signaling that he views the military as subservient to him.
Trump’s attempt to dominate the military is central to his authoritarianism. Pundits and historians skeptical of claims that Trump poses a fascist threat often point out that he doesn’t have a mass movement like the classical fascist dictators did—the Proud Boys can hardly compare to Hitler’s Brownshirts, the organized paramilitary terror squads that shattered political norms. The January 6th attack on the Capitol was a serious attempt to subvert democracy, but it ultimately failed when Capitol Police, supported by the National Guard, restored order. The MAGA movement, fitting for the social media age, is more about passive spectacle than street battles.
Yet despite MAGA’s limitations as a mass movement, Trump has always had a clear path to fascist-style rule. If he can overcome the traditional taboo against politicizing the military, he could destroy democracy. Instead of MAGA Blackshirts, Trump could simply command a MAGA army. He could do the same with federal law enforcement, creating a MAGA Gestapo.
In Trump’s first term, there was a particularly dangerous moment when he wanted to use the military to crush protests following George Floyd’s murder. As I noted at the time, this was the clearest example of Trump’s authoritarianism—and the fact that military leaders resisted his attempt to use them as political tools helped preserve American democracy at a critical juncture.
Present-Day Danger
In a second Trump term, he is clearly working to eliminate any military resistance to his rule. On Tuesday, his speech at Fort Bragg broke tradition by being blatantly partisan. Addressing troops, Trump said:
“In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor of Los Angeles—they’re incompetent, and they paid troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists. They’re engaged in a criminal attempt to nullify our administration.”
Alarmingly, some soldiers cheered Trump’s invective. But as the new site Military.com revealed, even that applause was politically orchestrated, as audience members had been screened for their beliefs:
Internal communications from the 82nd Airborne Division reviewed by Military.com reveal a tightly choreographed effort to shape the optics of Trump’s visit, including hand-picking soldiers for the audience based on political leanings and physical appearance. The troops selected to stand behind Trump and be visible on camera were almost exclusively male.
One unit-level message bluntly stated: “No fat soldiers.”
Trump’s Fort Bragg speech was an orchestrated use of the military as a political prop. His merchandise was the only kind sold on the base. As The New York Times notes, the speech “was just the latest in a series of high-profile efforts to reshape the military more in his own image.”
The Times offers a startling catalogue of Trump’s militarization:
- His administration removed many senior officers—often Black or women—from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other leadership roles, reportedly as part of an anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative.
- He reinstated and paid former service members who had been discharged for refusing COVID vaccines, in violation of military health mandates.
- He sent active-duty troops to create militarized zones along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But Trump’s most dangerous move this week was deploying 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines onto the streets of Los Angeles after protests erupted over his immigration policies. The president is now pitting U.S. military forces directly against American citizens—most of whom are nonviolent and simply upset by his administration’s decisions.
At Thursday’s congressional hearings, Representative Ro Khanna asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth whether the administration would comply with a Supreme Court ruling declaring the Los Angeles troop deployment illegal. Alarmingly, Hegseth repeatedly refused to affirm that the administration would follow the law. This is another sign that the longstanding tradition of a military constrained by the Constitution is being replaced by warlord-style governance.
Beyond the threat of dictatorship, Trump’s policies are also damaging military morale. On Thursday, The Guardian reported:
“National Guard troops and Marines deployed in Los Angeles to help restore order during anti-Trump protests have told friends and family they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and concerned about being used for political fanfare, not because they joined the military for this.
Trump makes for an odd warlord. Unlike great military despots of the past—from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan—Trump never served. He dodged the Vietnam War draft. In 1997, he said avoiding STDs while single was his “personal Vietnam.” In 2015, Trump said of Senator John McCain, “He’s not a war hero… He’s a war hero because he got captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Trump associates, including former White House advisers, report that in private he called soldiers who died in war “losers” and “suckers.” (Trump denies making these comments.)
But Trump doesn’t need to respect the troops to be commander-in-chief. Nor does he need to admire soldiers to rule as a warlord.
Trump’s warlordism is merely an exaggerated version of a longstanding American problem dating back to World War II: the imperial presidency. As power has become increasingly centralized in the White House, the president has enjoyed unchecked authority more like an autocrat than a democratic leader. With the invention of nuclear weapons, U.S. presidents became thermonuclear monarchs with power over life and death for billions. As a mass movement emerges to oppose Trump’s autocracy and militaristic damage, it must challenge not only the chaos of one man—but also the constitutional crisis created by the imperial presidency.
Jeet Heer
Jeet Heer is national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of The Nation‘s weekly podcast, The Time of Monsters. He writes the monthly column “Morbidity Symptoms.” He is the author of In Love with Art: Françoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays & Profiles (2014). Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic, and The Boston Globe.
