Not his military

The Fourth of July is a reminder America rejected kings

Every year on the Fourth of July, Americans gather to celebrate the nation’s founding rejection of tyranny and monarchial power. Across the country — in small towns and big cities — we wave flags and light fireworks to affirm our independence.

At the heart of that freedom is a principle as old as the republic itself: We are governed by the rule of law, not the will of one man. The president is Commander-in-Chief of the military, but the military serves the Constitution — not the person in the Oval Office — and it is not meant to be used on American soil, except in the most extreme emergencies.

Today, that distinction is under threat. Under President Trump, the military is being politicized in ways that would have been unthinkable under previous administrations. In recent weeks, we’ve seen troops used as a backdrop to jeer the press, paraded before Trump’s watchful eye in Washington, D.C., and deployed to Los Angeles over the objections of its elected leaders.

These actions vary in scale, but not in significance. They reflect a dangerous throughline: Trump views the military not as a constitutional institution, but as a personal tool.

Politicizing war powers

While other presidents have launched strikes without explicit congressional approval, Trump’s unilateral action against Iran fits a disturbing pattern.

Read more: Congress should decide if we go to war with Iran.

When people raised questions, the Trump administration responded by cutting out Democratic lawmakers from subsequent intelligence briefings and issuing full-throated attacks against members of the press. Rather than making the persuasive case to justify its actions, the White House’s impulse was to defensively lash out, attack, and sideline anyone who disputed the narrative that the attacks were an unqualified success. This response was made possible by a system-wide effort, established early in the administration, to install loyalists across the government — especially in influential legal, national security, and defense roles — and to eliminate the likelihood of any meaningful pushback.

Soldiers on our streets

Domestically, Trump’s personalization of the military is more clear-cut. After declaring there was an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, he deployed thousands of U.S. Marines and National Guard troops to quell protests against his immigration policies, despite vociferous objections from the California Governor and others. Then, troops were sent miles away from any protests to assist in drug raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Trump has warned the Los Angeles deployments may not be limited to that city and that it “is the first, perhaps of many” while senior military officials are trying to shift hundreds of National Guardsmen back to their life-saving roles combatting wildfires.

These actions contradict a foundational constitutional principle, clarified in the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids forces under federal authority from engaging in civilian law enforcement unless “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” No such authorization has been given. Posse Comitatus isn’t a mere legal technicality; it's a fundamental barrier meant to protect us from an overreach of executive power and uphold the rule of law.

These deployments also erode national readiness. Troops are being pulled away from critical missions — from overseas deterrence to natural disaster response — for politically motivated show-of-force operations. Our National Guard, our military’s primary combat reserve, intended to protect our communities when disasters strike, is being rerouted into legally questionable assignments at a moment’s notice. This hinders our ability to respond when real peril arises.

Read more: Sowing confusion in LA with the military.

Expanding ICE

Although the Department of Homeland Security does not oversee the Marines or National Guard, DHS’s increasing use of force, particularly through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), must be discussed in this context. The agency’s methods raise profound questions about transparency and accountability.

ICE’s street-level tactics are alarming. ICE agents are making themselves hard to identify by wearing tactical gear, donning masks to obscure their identity, or, at other times, wearing plain clothes, sometimes without presenting warrants or identification. Their arrests have led to people, including Americans, being deported without due process, sometimes to foreign prisons that are not even in the person’s country of origin.

DHS and ICE’s actions aren’t accidental overreaches; they are chilling, un-American tactics that deny the right to confront one’s accuser and learn the charges.

Earlier this week, in Huntington Park, California, armed agents used an explosive to blow up the front door of a residence of U.S. citizens before sending in a drone to search the house for a man accused of a traffic violation. He was not home, so agents instead terrified his girlfriend and two small children. "If they would've knocked on my door I would have opened the door, but they blew up the window and door first," said Jenny Ramirez. "There didn't have to be that violence to enter my house…They didn't knock on the door, they didn't let me know they were them, they just blew up my window and my door and a drone came in.”

It would be unwise to view this as an isolated incident. Under Trump, DHS has become increasingly politicized and, in turn, less professional from the top down.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem pledged to use federal force to “liberate” Los Angeles from the “socialist and burdensome leadership” of its Democratic mayor and governor — language that sounds more like a military coup than a federal enforcement strategy. Noem made that statement at a news conference shortly before Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was pinned to the ground and cuffed for attempting to ask her a question.

These are the conditions in which ICE is on pace to receive massive spending infusions from Congress. Vice President JD Vance said the funding boosts for ICE were so important that other major components of the spending bill, such as tax cuts and Medicaid funding, were “immaterial.”

USA Today reported that current proposals increase “immigration enforcement spending on a scale never seen before in the United States. It authorizes $168 billion, an almost fivefold increase from current spending on enforcement.” Noem and White House advisor Stephen Miller will use those funds to meet their reported goal of making 3,000 arrests per day.

There is now a preview of what could come from Florida. There, Trump and Noem appeared to praise the Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s construction of “Alligator Alcatraz,” a tent-city type prison quickly stood up in the middle of the Florida Everglades to serve as a “one-stop shop” to detain, house, and process deportations. Trump has signed off on a proposed plan to deputize members of the Florida National Guard to serve as immigration judges.

Speaking to the press while touring the facility, Trump talked about deporting United States citizens for crimes. “Many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here, too, if you want to know the truth," he said. "So maybe that will be the next job."

This isn’t the first time Trump has talked about that idea, either. He also spoke about it publicly in the Oval Office at a press briefing with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who has agreed to imprison deportees sent from the American government, regardless of whether they had any connection to El Salvador.

“Homegrowns are next,” Trump said at the time.

The Founders were right: No kings

Our nation’s founders, after rejecting a king and securing their liberty, built a system designed to prevent the kind of unchecked use of force we are now seeing.

Trump’s repeated references to “my generals” and “my military” aren’t just rhetorical. They reflect a belief that the armed forces answer to him personally. They do not. When he acts like they do, he endangers all of us, weakening these institutions, degrading trust, and putting Americans at risk.

Personalization of the military is not just a breach of tradition. It’s how authoritarians consolidate and entrench power. And it risks unraveling the very republic the military was created to defend.

This year, the Fourth of July needs to be more than a celebration. We need a recommitment to the idea that our military does not belong to our highest office holder. It is ours — sworn to protect the Constitution, and the people who live under it — and not any king.