A Force Against the People: Inside the Administration’s Plan for a Domestic Army

5 minutes read time

In the quiet corridors of the Pentagon, a plan is being evaluated that represents one of the most radical and dangerous departures from American tradition in the nation’s history. According to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post, the Trump administration is developing a blueprint for a permanent, national “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force.” This is not a plan for national defense against a foreign enemy; it is the blueprint for a standing domestic army, a force of National Guard troops on permanent standby, ready to be deployed into American cities at a moment’s notice at the sole discretion of the President. It is the realization of an authoritarian impulse, a tool of state repression being forged in secret, waiting for a crisis—real or manufactured—to be unleashed.

Part I: A Solution in Search of a Problem

The specifics of the plan are as alarming as the concept itself. The proposal calls for a permanent force of 600 National Guard troops, stationed at two strategic hubs in Alabama and Arizona, ready to deploy to any American city in as little as one hour. Outfitted with “weapons and riot gear,” this force would operate under a legal authority that allows the President to “circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States,” effectively bypassing the Posse Comitatus Act.

But the most chilling aspect of this plan is that it is a solution in search of a problem. As military expert Lindsay P. Cohn of the U.S. Naval War College pointed out, there is no current crisis that remotely justifies the creation of such a force. “Crime is going down. We don’t have major protests or civil disturbances,” she noted. This is not a response to a clear and present danger. It is the creation of a powerful tool of domestic military intervention in anticipation of a future need, a textbook example of authoritarian planning. As Joseph Nunn of the Brennan Center for Justice warned, “When you have this tool waiting at your fingertips, you’re going to want to use it.”

Part II: The Authoritarian Mindset

To understand the motive for creating such a dangerous and unnecessary force, one must look no further than the President’s own character and worldview. In a brilliant and brutal op-ed in The Atlantic, the case is made that President Punk is, in fact, the “most pro-criminal president in American history.” This is not hyperbole. It is a diagnosis based on a clear pattern of behavior. This is a President who has treated laws as mere suggestions throughout his career, who is himself a convicted felon, and who began his second term with a blanket pardon of the violent criminals who brutally assaulted police officers during the January 6th, 2021 insurrection.

His definition of “crime” is a skewed and racialized political construct. It conveniently excludes himself and his supporters, while including non-criminal states of being, like homelessness. It focuses heavily on the types of street crime he associates with Black and brown communities. The creation of a domestic military force is the logical endpoint for a leader who has demonstrated a long-standing “lust to use the power of the state against his political enemies,” whether they be peaceful protesters or any other group he deems a threat to his authority. This is not a force to protect Americans; it is a force to be used against Americans.

Part III: The “Bukele Model” – An Ideology of Repression

This authoritarian mindset is not just a personal pathology; it is an ideology that is now openly celebrated by the President’s most influential supporters. As The Atlantic also noted, activists on the post-liberal right are no longer hiding their glee at the prospect of a more repressive state. Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, whose ideas have heavily influenced the administration, openly called for a “Bukele-style crackdown on DC crime.”

This is not an idle comparison. Nayib Bukele, the thuggish president of El Salvador, is an authoritarian poster boy. He has smashed constitutional term limits, removed supreme court justices, forced journalists into exile, and locked up tens of thousands of his own citizens without due process in a gulag-style prison system where torture is rampant. To hold this up as a model for the United States is to openly call for the end of American democracy. It is a direct and unambiguous endorsement of a foreign model of authoritarianism, a signal that the goal is no longer to govern within the Constitution, but to use the pretext of crime to “delegitimize all opposition.”

The Pentagon’s Own Warning

Perhaps the most damning indictment of this entire dangerous project comes not from legal scholars or political critics, but from the Pentagon itself. The very same internal documents that outline the plan for the “Quick Reaction Force” also contain, with “unusual candor,” a detailed list of its “possible negative repercussions.”

The military’s own planners warn that the plan would hurt military recruitment and retention, as the “significant impacts of short-notice activations” would alienate volunteer soldiers and their families. They warn that it would strain resources needed for real disasters like hurricanes and wildfires, reducing the Guard’s ability to respond to actual emergencies. And they warn that it would disrupt core military training, eroding the overall combat readiness of the armed forces.

This is the ultimate proof of the plan’s illegitimacy. It is a purely political power grab, so dangerous and so militarily unsound that even the institution tasked with creating it has documented, in its own secret memos, that it is a catastrophic idea. This is the story of an administration so consumed by its lust for domestic power that it is willing to weaken the nation’s actual defenses and build a force to be used against its own people.