WHY ARE US TROOPS OCCUPYING AMERICAN CITIES?Trump's homeland invasion may be a prelude to election interference
President Donald Trump is now doing what every American president has done since Israel came into being in 1948: using the power of his office to give the Israel leadership all the public and secret support it needs. Trump has helped free the remaining Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity and has garnered domestic and international praise in the process. What will happen next there, in brutalized and demolished Gaza after the hostages’ release—in terms of Israel’s pursuit of its own interests, the fate of remaining Hamas forces, and the future role of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—is not known. What is known is that Netanyahu has no intention of allowing Hamas to survive as a military organization and little interest, as the last two years have shown, in the fate of the surviving Palestinians in Gaza. Trump and his advisers are aware of these dynamics. The unasked question today concerns the plan for the future of the battered Palestinian survivors of the horrors of Israel’s violent response to October 7, 2023. For them the long game is far from over. The Trump administration is playing another long game, or trying to, in the streets of US cities under Democratic Party governance, using existing presidential emergency powers to send National Guard, Army troops and ICE agents to hunt down and arrest suspected undocumented immigrants and detain and deport them, without the due process demanded by the Constitution. What’s happening now may be a trial run for the use of those forces to interfere on the behalf of the president and the Republican Party in states where the Democratic Party has a chance to win crucial seats in next fall’s Congressional elections. I’ve been told by someone with inside knowledge that planning for such action is now under way in the White House. The administration’s plan to seize unprecedented unilateral power upon winning the election last year was no secret. Although some issues are now in the hands of the Supreme Court, the GOP’s notion was always to wipe out a large portion of the federal workforce in Washington and elsewhere. A major reveal came last fall in an interview Russell Voight gave to Tucker Carlson before his approval by Senate Republicans as head of the Office of Management and Budget: “We have to solve the woke and the weaponized bureaucracy and have the president take control of the Executive Branch,” he said. “The president has to move executively as fast, and as aggressively as possible with a radical Constitutional perspective to dismantle the bureaucracy and their power centers. “There are no independent agencies,” Vought told Carlson. “There are going to be massive layoffs and firing, particularly across some of the agencies that we don’t think should exist.” All of this was God’s mandate, Vought explained: “We’re put here for a reason . . . because God has given us a particular purpose for a particular time, and it’s incumbent on us to use to be responsible with those moments that we’re given.” (I wrote about that interview last fall.) Vought has taken advantage of the current government shutdown to fire even more presumably Democratic federal workers. Before and after the rise of Trump, the Republicans have had the ability to think strategically beyond immediate political skirmishes—something the flailing Democrats in Congress never seem able to do. That’s why their plan to ensure that Democrats do not gain control of the House in the Congressional elections next November is so dangerous—and un-American. I’ve been reliably told that there is a method in what seems to be the unnecessary insistence of President Trump that National Guard and even some active-duty American combat soldiers be sent, primarily into cities and states governed by Democrats, to restore order where significant disorder does not exist. In some areas the president’s actions have led to increased violence, and federal courts are now coping with repeated complaints by Democratic governors, mayors, and legislators about unnecessary White House intervention. Trump says he believes he has the legal authority, upon finding that an emergency exists, to combat crime in all states, including those now under Democratic control. I have been told, however, that there is a parallel and even deeper motivation on the part of the White House political team: to establish a precedent for emergency federal involvement—pursuant to a presidential order—to intervene with troops before Congressional elections next fall. It is understood by some in the White House—and not necessarily the president himself—that the invoked emergencies are “fake emergencies” but, as one who is up to date on insider thinking put it, if “you do it repeatedly” such emergencies can have future political impact. Call it a new political normal. I have also been told that the White House political operators are convinced that public support for the president, as measured by internal polling, is positive, and the team there believe there is evidence that a majority of American voters will continue to support the administration’s often violent efforts to search out and seize immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally. (These beliefs contradict much public polling, including on the subject of immigration.) That remains to be seen, but as of now, five states are seen as crucial to what’s predicted to be a close Congressional election: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. The Congressional elections are a year away but there is thinking now inside the White House about “how not to lose the House.” And declaring a domestic emergency and sending in troops despite knowing there is no emergency has, in this view, become a useful and successful political tool of the White House—and will be invoked, as of current thinking, if needed to keep Republicans, and Trump, in control of the Congress in 2026. More dark days may be ahead for the politically hapless Democrats. Invite your friends and earn rewardsIf you enjoy Seymour Hersh, share it with your friends and earn rewards when they subscribe. © 2025 Seymour Hersh |