These vets and others describe to me a National Guard comprised of young men and women from mostly working- and middle-class families who join to serve their fellow Americans while improving themselves. Many of them are people of color, first-generation Americans, or immigrants. Asking them to be deployed to cities to stand next to federal agents who bully and intimidate people, disrespect Americans, and disregard both human and constitutional rights creates a kind of moral injury. It could have repercussions for generations.
It could also remake the face of our nation’s military. In the last three months, 15 junior officers, all women and people of color, have told Manner that they are eligible to retire in the next year and, rather than stay and serve, they have decided to leave now. He says the surge in military recruitment in the last year is the result of a years-long investment of money and resources by the military. But Manner predicts those gains will be reversed in a year because of Trump’s actions, leaving a military less diverse and more ideologically homogenous, conditions that research shows could hamper both public trust and operational strength.
As I’ve written before, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard is not about cracking down on crime, as he claims. It’s an elaborate attempt to demonstrate a show of strength for a president intent on consolidating power to establish an authoritarian government. Although the law limits when the president can federalize the National Guard to invasion and rebellion, Trump is blurring the lines by demanding that it go after an undefined “enemy from within.”
So far, the Trump administration orders to the National Guard have been broadly understood to be legal orders, the vets tell me: “lawful, but awful.” But they worry about a scenario in which they get an order to fire on unarmed civilians, forcing them to decide whether or not it is an illegal command they have a right to disobey.
They are being abused and used — and they know it. This is incredibly damaging.
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