The Dictatorship
Americans will soon find out if Trump can keep using the military as a bully squad
The country is at an inflection point when it comes to President Donald Trump using the military as his domestic bully squad. A court just ruled the president’s use of the military for domestic law enforcement in Los Angeles is illegaland Chicago is bracing for the next promised influx of military and immigration agents policing the homeland.
In the coming weeks and months, governors, mayors and — most important — judges will make decisions related to the president’s deployment of the military to Democratic-run cities, for the ostensible purpose of conducting crimefighting operations. Their choices will affect whether America continues as a liberal democracy or backslides into a wealthier, nuclear-armed version of Hungary.
Trump’s overreach is exhausting the public — a tactic familiar to authoritarians throughout history.
Though Trump boasted of his authoritarian ambitions long before even his first run for president, it wasn’t until his second administration that he fully embraced using government for what a number of critics have alleged to be extortionutter lawlessnessdestruction for its own sake and the might-makes-right ethos of fascism.
And why shouldn’t Trump feel emboldened? In a case involving his attempted self-coupthe Supreme Court granted presidents sweeping immunity for any “official acts.” He has almost completely purged the Republican Party of anything but sycophants and ambitious toadies. And he was re-elected despite facing prosecution over his fraudulent attempt to overturn the 2020 election and his conviction on felony charges related to his 2016 campaign.
Now, over eight months into this term, we live in an America fully changed from the one we inhabited on Jan. 19. Back then, the idea that armed, masked, unidentifiable men would be violently apprehending people on the streets — including American citizens and legal immigrants — and sending them without due process to far-flung places (which sometimes include foreign torture prisons) would have been unthinkable. Indeed, it’s the kind of tyrannical government operation that Second Amendment absolutists have long cited as their reason that guns shouldn’t be regulated in any way.
But here we are. Those things started happening with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there was outrage, there were court cases — and there still are — but Americans grow more used to it by the day. And Trump escalated.
In June, the president sent thousands of Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles to assist with law enforcement. On Thursday, a federal judge ruled this was illegalfinding that the administration violated the Could County Act of 1878, which bars the military from executing domestic laws. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer said the administration “systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles.”
In August, Trump saw his chance to implement a federal “takeover” of D.C.’s police force. The emergency that he claimed required unprecedented intervention was a supposed crime wave. And the “Reichstag fire” incident Trump used as a pretext to seize power was an assault on Edward Coristine, the onetime staffer for Elon Musk’s DOGE known as “Big Balls,” in an attempted carjacking in Washington — allegedly by two unarmed 15-year-olds. This has led to absurd images of bored National Guardsmen loitering outside Union Station and camouflaged troops wearing bright highway safety vests while they pick up garbage in low-crime areas of the district.
We shouldn’t blithely give up our constitutional rights even in the case of an actual national emergency, much less a fabricated crisis.
It is worth acknowledging that the presence of the U.S. military in D.C. has led to a sharp drop in violent crime — as one should expect it would. That doesn’t make the deployment an effective crimefighting tool or compliant with the Constitution. The presence of uniformed personnel trained for combat, not law enforcement, has a chilling effect on both the law-abiding and the criminally inclined. But the dynamics that facilitate crime — gangs, guns, drugs and poverty, among them — won’t be stamped out by a performative display of authority. Regardless, this is power that the federal government isn’t supposed to be able to wield in peacetime — hence the fake “emergencies.”
A recent AP-NORC poll showed most Americans think crime is a major problem, providing Trump with the rare issue for which his approval ratings are still above water. But the same poll, and several othersshowed a deep dislike of Trump’s federal takeover tactics.
Now, on the day a judge ruled his California “takeover” was illegal, Trump insists “we’re going in” to Chicago. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is, correctly, taking Trump at his word. In a news conference Tuesday, the governor said he believed Trump is timing the planned federal infiltration of Chicago to coincide with Mexican Independence Day festivities next weekend.
“It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try to disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades. Let’s be clear — the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anybody living here,” Pritzker said. He added“I refuse to pretend that any of this is normal. … I refuse to fall into the pundit trap that demands we sacrifice vital constitutional rights if it’s being done in the fake guise of fighting crime.”
Pritzker is right: We shouldn’t pretend or accept that this is normal. And we shouldn’t blithely give up our constitutional rights even in the case of an actual national emergency (does anyone remember the Patriot Act?), much less a fabricated crisis.
But Trump’s overreach is exhausting the public — a tactic familiar to authoritarians throughout history. And, as evidenced by the brutal mass deportations taking place every day, Americans are showing they can get used to the unthinkable disturbingly quickly.
I want to believe the idea of America — buttressed by the individual rights and limits on government power enshrined in the Constitution — is strong enough to endure a few more years of abuse at the hands of the short-fingered vulgarian. But America re-elected Trump, so I’m a bit discouraged.
This is what Ben Franklin was talking about when he said, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for BLN Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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