Protesters hold a banner as they gather around the Los Angeles Federal Building following multiple detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in downtown Los Angeles, California, U.S., June 6, 2025. REUTERS/Daniel Cole
This story was originally reported by Errin Haines of The 19th. Meet Errin and read more of her reporting on gender, politics and policy.
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On two separate coasts this week, Donald Trump is wielding the military as a signal of his dominance and a hypermasculine display of leadership that is at odds with how many Americans think of the role of a commander-in-chief in a civilian-led democracy.
In Los Angeles, Trump has deployed thousands of members of the National Guard in an outsized response to protesters who took to the streets to oppose his immigration crackdown in the city. This was over the objections and without the cooperation of California’s governor, in the absence of a national emergency. There were incidents of violence, but the protests were overwhelmingly peaceful and in response to the administration’s own actions in sweeping up immigrants who were working, not specifically targeting violent criminals.
In Washington, dozens of tanks, thousands of soldiers, a parachute team and more than 50 types of aircraft will descend Saturday in a military parade to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary — a celebration that, coincidentally, falls on Trump’s 79th birthday.
Both scenes are the latest in Trump’s reality show presidency, where strength and power are defined by a public and excessive show of force and pageantry is a means of reinforcing control.
For Trump, the military is the ultimate masculine accessory, said presidential historian Alexis Coe.
“Historically, war-making was seen as the most ‘masculine’ presidential duty,” Coe said.
What if the country isn’t at war, and the threat doesn’t rise to the level of crisis? For this president, patriotism still needs to be performed — and the perception, not reality, is the point.
But many Americans are also exercising their power in this moment. It’s a reminder that military might isn’t the only definition of strength, particularly in a democracy.
The last time an American president deployed the National Guard without a governor’s permission was 60 years ago. Then, it was to protect the civil and First Amendment rights of Black citizens in Alabama peacefully marching from Selma to Montgomery pushing for voting rights and a freer and fairer America. Now, it is a president’s actions that are raising questions about whose freedoms and rights matter in a democracy.
Unlike then-President Lyndon Johnson’s actions in Selma, Trump’s use of the military in Los Angeles is a counter to the protesters attempting to protect rights, said Maya Wiley, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. He’s protecting the rights of armed law enforcement — not protesters or immigrants as his government faces rebukes in court for ignoring constitutionally-guaranteed due process rights.
“It demonstrates that he can use ‘his military’ as law enforcement, which is the ultimate strongman stereotype,” Wiley said. “It’s intended to say, ‘I dominate you and the people you elected to office to enforce public safety and I can take their power.’ It suggests that what power is, is hurting people.”
Trump villainized protesters as a threat to his authority in his first term, from Charlottesville to the racial reckoning of 2020. He has suggested shooting protesters in Washington, to the alarm of military officials in his administration. But guardrails in official Washington seem to be largely gone: His current defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has deployed 700 active duty Marines to Los Angeles and is backing Trump’s decision to send troops to any American city to enforce his immigration policy.
This week’s two-part performance points back to the administration’s larger project of the erasure and exclusion of marginalized people in Trump’s America. The president took office decrying diversity in the military and nominated a defense secretary who pledged to eliminate “wokeness” from the country’s armed forces. The administration has attempted to ban transgender troops, ended programs to boost women’s leadership and participation in the national security sector, erased references to the historical contributions of women, Black and Hispanic Americans from military websites and banned books in military libraries they deemed as promoting “anti-racism.”
Trump has long coveted a large-scale military parade — he openly lobbied for one after attending France’s Bastille Day festivities in 2017 — but such events are rare as displays of democracy and more common in authoritarian-led countries like China, North Korea and Russia.
Trump, who has not served in the military, sees himself in the mold of former presidents like Andrew Jackson, who built his presidency and reputation as a military hero who would crush his opposition, or Teddy Roosevelt, who served in the Army Reserves, and his “speak softly and carry a big stick” mantra. (Even if the first part of that mantra clearly holds less resonance.)
It’s worth noting that the leaders he admires, here and abroad, are men.
“This kind of performative force has always targeted anyone challenging traditional power structures,” Coe said. “It’s not always deployed by men, but in America, it seems to be.”
Coe said Trump’s style of leadership is less like that of many of his predecessors and more like those she has studied in fascist history.
“He rules by spectacle. He speaks mostly of intimidation. He equates dissent with insurrection,” Coe said.
“Trump is always going to see how far a president can stretch power in order to transform the office into that of an authoritarian — and that depends on weaponizing fear.”
Amid Trump’s show of force, Americans have taken to the streets to send a message that this is a moment they neither recognize or accept.
As the military occupation of Los Angeles continues, protests have spread to cities including Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, New York and Austin. On Saturday, millions of Americans in more than 1,500 cities nationwide are expected to join the "No Kings" protests in opposition to Trump's military parade.
Many in the crowds will likely be people who have historically been marginalized in our democracy, raising their voices in support of the vulnerable being targeted by the administration. Collectively, theirs will be a different public display of strength.
Much of the events of the first five months of Trump’s second presidency have reinforced who he is, as he has attacked American institutions, values and norms. The current moment is another opportunity for Americans to consider who we are.