The Spectacle of a Police State: This Is Martial Law Without a Formal Declaration of War
Reporter: “What’s the bar for sending in the Marines?”
Trump: “The bar is what I think it is.“
In Trump’s America, the bar for martial law is no longer constitutional—it’s personal.
Indeed, if ever we needed proof that Donald Trump was an operative for the Deep State, this is it.
Despite what Trump would have us believe, the Deep State is not the vast numbers of federal employees who have been fired as part of his government purge.
Rather, the Deep State refers to the entrenched network of unelected bureaucrats, intelligence agencies, military contractors, surveillance firms, and corporate lobbyists that operate beyond the reach of democratic accountability. It is a government within a government—an intelligence-industrial complex that persists regardless of who sits in the Oval Office and whose true allegiance lies not with the Constitution but with power, profit, and control.
In other words, the Deep State doesn’t just survive presidential administrations—it recruits them. And in Trump, it has found a showman willing to turn its agenda into a public performance of raw power—militarized, theatrical, and loyal not to the Constitution, but to dominance.
What is unfolding right now in California—with hundreds of Marines deployed domestically; thousands of National Guard troops federalized; and military weapons, tactics and equipment on full display—is the latest chapter in that performance.
Trump is flexing his presidential muscles with a costly, violent, taxpayer-funded military display intended to intimidate, distract and discourage us from pulling back the curtain on the reality of the self-serving corruption, grift, graft, overreach and abuse that have become synonymous with his Administration.
Don’t be distracted. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t be sidelined by the spectacle of a police state.
As columnist Thomas Friedman predicted years ago, “Some presidents, when they get into trouble before an election, try to ‘wag the dog’ by starting a war abroad. Donald Trump seems ready to wag the dog by starting a war at home.”
This is yet another manufactured crisis fomented by the Deep State.
When Trump issues a call to “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” explaining to reporters that he wants to have them “everywhere,” we should all be alarmed.
This is martial law without a formal declaration of war.
This heavy-handed, chest-thumping, politicized, militarized response to what is clearly a matter for local government is yet another example of Trump’s disregard for the Constitution and the limits of his power.
Political protests are protected by the First Amendment until they cross the line from non-violent to violent. Even when protests turn violent, constitutional protocols remain for safeguarding communities: law and order must flow through local and state chains of command, not from federal muscle.
By breaking that chain of command, Trump is breaking the Constitution.
Deploying the military to deal with domestic matters that can—and should—be handled by civilian police, despite the objections of local and state leaders, crosses the line into authoritarianism.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
In the span of a single week, the Trump administration is providing the clearest glimpse yet of its unapologetic, uncompromising, corrupt allegiance to the authoritarian Deep State.
First came the federalization of the National Guard, deployed to California in response to protests sparked by violent and aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids across the country. Then, just days later, the president is set to preside over a lavish, taxpayer-funded military parade in the nation’s capital.
These two events bookend the administration’s unmistakable message: dissent will be crushed, and power will be performed.
Trump governs by force (military deployment), fear (ICE raids, militarized policing), and spectacle (the parade).
This is the spectacle of a police state. One side of the coin is militarized suppression. The other is theatrical dominance. Together, they constitute the language of force and authoritarian control.
Wrapped in the rhetoric of “public safety” and “restoring order,” the federalization of California’s National Guard is not about security. It’s about signaling power.
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LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
