June 8-14, 2025, may go down in history as the week that broke the American Republic. While all of Trump’s second term has been a republican disaster, this week featured all kinds of ominous signs that full frontal fascism has arrived in America: in Los Angeles, large-scale ICE deportation raids by masked federal agents in full battle dress and backed by armored vehicles; Trump then sending the California National Guard and active duty Marines onto the streets of LA to quell minor protests; and sitting US Senator Alex Padilla being manhandled and handcuffed by federal thugs when he tried to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security a question at a news conference in Padilla’s own state. But the decisive sign of a complete rupture with American tradition was Donald Trump’s disgusting speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, NC.
Fort Bragg is home to the XVIII Airborne Corps, including 82nd Airborne Division, the 1st Special Operations Command, including the 3rd Special Forces Group, the US Army Special Operations Aviation Command, and the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. Other units include the US Army Reserve Command and the US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. With due respect to a half dozen other contenders - including the former Fort Benning, GA - Bragg is the inspirational heart of the modern US Army. Donald Trump went to Fort Bragg and made a political speech in which he attacked former President Biden, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and LA Mayor Karen Bass. The speech was full of red meat and applause lines, including condemnations of the free press, which led many of the rank and file troops to whoop and “HUAH” the President’s frankly political message. That’s no surprise for Donald Trump, of course. Along with graft and dishonesty, he specializes in polluting nonpartisan American institutions with rank partisanship.
What was a surprise was the connivance of the uniformed Army leadership at Fort Bragg and in Washington. In the days leading up to Trump’s speech, the local command sent out a memo to invited units demanding that soldiers specifically OPT OUT of attending if they were not Donald Trump supporters. The memo said that the command didn’t want soldiers “rolling their eyes” or providing other visual clues of disapproval, so those who disagreed with Donald Trump were to seek exemptions from attendance by speaking to their unit leaders. Imagine the pressure on a 20 year-old private whose First Sergeant is known to be a MAGA partisan. Imagine the repercussions for that soldier if he shows up in the orderly room and asks to be taken off the list of attendees. Imagine the rewards and punishments meted out to soldiers by NCOs and commissioned officers who are members of the Trump cult, or vice versa!
And yet, no uniformed leader stood up to Donald Trump. No one disciplined the subordinates who wrote the memo asking soldiers to reveal their political preferences. Not General Dan Caine, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not General Randy George, Chief of Staff of the US Army. Not Major General James Work, commander of the 82nd Airborne. No one resisted this tawdry violation of Army values, and one can only conclude that they failed to do so because they are all on board with the MAGAfication of the US Armed Forces.
As a former Army officer, I can’t tell you what a betrayal this is of the traditions of the US military. In 1984, my first year as a platoon leader, I drove on post with a Reagan sticker on my car’s rear bumper. While the sticker was NOT a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), within two hours I was called into my company commander’s office and dressed down for violating an unspoken and unwritten rule: that officers, and especially those who command troops, should keep their politics secret. I remember protesting that the sticker was on my private vehicle. And I remember the response by my commander: “An Army officer doesn’t have the luxury of a private life,” he said. The sticker came off that day and for the rest of my time in the Army, I had absolutely no idea who around me was a Democrat, a Republican, or anything else. That’s the way it should be. That’s the way it has to be in a free republic. That’s what Donald Trump would like to destroy. He wants a praetorian guard, a force like the German Wehrmacht in the 1930s and 1940s that took an oath to Adolf Hitler personally.
Which in my opinion was the real purpose of the speech at Fort Bragg: to begin the process of sorting American soldiers and their leaders into Trump followers and Trump “haters” in anticipation of the 2026 elections and a possible civil war thereafter. Yes, I believe that Trump and those around him are actively planning for a civil war in case their plans for an autocracy are met with resistance. In any case, the Republic as we’ve known it is dead.
In 1860, when the Republic was still young and state militias were the backbone of the US military, the sorting was easy. The South Carolina militia left the Union right along with its state. The Massachusetts militia stayed. After the War there was an attempt to build a small, professional standing Army with a tradition of service to the nation, not any state, party, or ideology. The norms now being undone date to that period. That small standing Army changed forever with the advent of World War II, when the United States became a military Colossus bestriding the planet. But still, the norms and traditions of the US Armed Forces held right through the Cold War and post-Cold War period. Until this week. And now, hard on the heels of that disgrace, we’re about to witness another on the streets of Washington, D.C., when a man who never served, who hails from a family in which no one has ever served, a man who described fallen heroes as “suckers and losers,” deploys the US Military to celebrate his birthday, just like Kim Jong Un or Vladimir Putin. No, sorry. Even Putin wouldn’t be so crass. Kim is the only parallel.
For roughly 2,000 years the world has been debating what led to the downfall of the Roman Republic, how a political system that had endured for centuries collapsed within the space of a hundred years or so. Sure, the success of Rome had much to do with it. The influx of gold and slaves into Rome led to huge and unsustainable economic inequalities that undermined the foundations of the state. Those inequalities were the formal cause. But the efficient cause, the thing that really moved the needle, was the phenomenon of private armies, paid for and loyal to the politician-generals who had summoned them. The process began with Gaius Marius, then Sulla, then Caesar, then the so-called “Liberators” who had murdered Caesar, then at last Marc Antony and Octavian, who soon became Caesar Augustus. The Roman Republic died when the Roman legions became the private playthings of fabulously wealthy autocrats.
The American founders were deep students of Roman history. In crafting the Constitution, they tried to identify and correct the structural weaknesses that doomed the Roman state. The early American tradition was not to have a standing Army, but to rely instead on state militias. We’ve seen how that worked out in the 1860s. In the post-World War II period, once the United States began maintaining a large standing Army, it was the broad political commitment to our system of government, combined with a rigorously nonpartisan military tradition, that kept us safe from what might be called “the praetorian impulse.” But Donald Trump is not like other American presidents. He is consumed by his appetites and defenseless against his impulses. He has now set his sights on turning the US Army into the MAGA militia. If he succeeds, it all but guarantees another, this time no doubt bloodier, civil war.
I'm so glad you are writing and speaking out .
It gives me the courage to do what I can to preserve our republic.
I'm proud to be counted among your supporters.
Frank Pendola
Christ, have mercy 💔🙏🏻