What is Trump's endgame?

Does he have one?

We are not quite three-quarters into the first year of Donald Trump’s second presidential term, and the pace of Trump’s overreach seems to be quickening. Trump is attempting to send troops to Chicago and Portland, launching attacks on Caribbean boats with impunity, and openly threatening the political opposition at home. At the same time, the government is shut down and, with the House in recess, Republicans seem to have no interest in reopening it. The domestic economy is slowing, and Trump and Republican approval ratings are falling.

When I look at the Trump-Republican agenda, I see few, if any, signs that the party ever plans to be out of power. They just don’t act like they have anything to lose by going full authoritarian. (Never go full authoritarian.) That isn’t to say that Trump is going to cancel elections. There are other explanations for the attitude.

Photo credit: Twitter screenshot from https://x.com/billifer1973

One plausible explanation is that Trump and MAGA are so securely protected by their bubbles of confirmation bias that they don’t see the growing tide of discontent and domestic problems. Maybe they actually think that they are doing a good job and that voters are pleased despite the polls. This is plausible because it has happened before as recently as the Biden Administration and the first Trump Administration and the Obama Administration.

Another possibility is that it’s an exercise in intimidation. Maybe Trump & Co. are trying to frighten potential opponents into standing down. Maybe they think making examples of a few high profile opponents will cow the rest. If that’s the case, they don’t know Americans very well.

There seems to be more to it this time, though. With Trump exercising more and more broad and unchecked power and becoming increasingly aggressive towards his political critics, calling for the arrest of some Democrats, this definitely feels different from previous presidents.

There are a couple of possibilities. One is that this is all for show, red meat for the MAGA base, and that Trump should, as his defenders have often said, be taken seriously but not literally. Maybe the small-scale deployments to Democratic cities (are there any other kind?) are yet another example of Trump acting to create a momentary headline while everything remains essentially unchanged.

Or maybe we are seeing harbingers of things to come, a boiling frog scenario of acclimating Americans to the sight of soldiers patrolling our cities and breaking down legal and psychological barriers to military occupation and law enforcement. There are at least two reasons that I think this is the likely answer.

First, the troops are being deployed at a time when there is no appreciable unrest. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that ICE protests in Portland were small and “low energy,” which sounds like a Trump insult, before the news of the deployment. Since then, Portland protesters have rallied in inflatable animal costumes, danced the “Cha Cha Slide,” and even held a reportedly-real wedding (between inflatable Kenny from “South Park” and a unicorn) rather than engaging in violence. Things have been more tense in Chicago, but local law enforcement still seems to have matters well in hand, and much of the violence seems to originate with ICE, which is amassing a record of excessive brutality including attacks on journalists and priests.

So why is Trump deploying the National Guard? My theory is that he hopes to provoke a violent response that will allow him to use the Insurrection Act. This law gives the president broad powers to use the military domestically with a low threshold for activation.

As Sarah Isgur and David French recently discussed on the Advisory Opinions podcast, Trump has two paths to the Insurrection Act. So far, deployments have involved National Guard troops under Title 10, a different part of federal law with a higher bar for use than the Insurrection Act, which can basically be implemented at presidential discretion. Use of the Insurrection Act without an insurrection would come at a high political cost, however. (The fact that the Insurrection Act has not been used already is one of the few considerations of political cost that I have seen from the Trump Administration.)

But if the National Guard deployments trigger violence and unrest, then Trump has a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act. This also explains the heavy-handed ICE tactics that are angering communities. It would be another classic case of “Trump Uses Emergency Power to Deal With Crisis Created By Trump.”

As Isgur and French further explain, the Insurrection Act bypasses the Posse Comitatus law, which restricts the use of the military for law enforcement. Under the current deployment rules, the National Guard can only be used for things like protecting federal buildings. Under the Insurrection Act, we could see regular army units patrolling cities and arresting people. It would be a hair away from martial law.

A second reason that this feels different is Trump and Hegspeth’s meeting of general officers. While much of what made the headlines from the meeting was Hegspeth’s changes to grooming and physical fitness standards, there were more sinister aspects that included scaling back whistleblower rules, more lenient rules of engagement, and allowing more hazing. Further, Trump told the generals, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military….”

“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth added.

With Congress under MAGA control and Trump’s appointments starting to fill the judiciary, the military is one of the last bastions of resistance to Trump’s will. It is very possible that Trump and Hegseth want to encourage current military leaders to retire so that they can be replaced with MAGA loyalists in the ranks.

Trump remembers how Gen. Milley and others stymied his actions during his first term. We know this because Milley and others were mentioned in Hegspeth’s speech. Most of Trump’s appointments in his second term have focused on removing obstacles to Trump’s plans rather putting effective and intelligent people in federal jobs.

Beyond these two points, there are a multitude of other reasons to be concerned. The Administration has rolled out new restrictions on the press and punished outlets that don’t toe the line, even suggesting revoking the licenses of critical media outlets. Likewise, the Administration is threatening to hold federal funds for colleges hostage unless schools agree to a broad list of demands. There is the politically-motivated prosecution of James Comey, which was initiated just under the statute of limitations after Trump fired a federal prosecutor who refused to go to court with the very thin charges against Comey.

And then there is Dark Lord Stephen Miller’s recent claim that the president has “plenary authority,” i.e., unlimited control, over the military. For those unfamiliar with the US Constitution and its system of checks and balances, the president does not have unlimited power, although Miller’s claim parallels Trump’s longstanding belief that “I have the right to do whatever I want.”

So what does Trump want to do? What is his endgame? I think there are two possibilities. The first is that he wants to foment civil unrest as a way of making Democrats look bad and convincing voters to reject them and preserve Republican control.

The second possibility is that Trump wants to foment civil unrest to expand his emergency powers. Under this scenario, he may increasingly use lawfare against political opponents and attempt to use the military to control the population.

The first scenario can be beaten back at the polls, but the second includes the possibility that there might not be free and fair elections. Short of attempting to cancel elections, MAGA could intimidate voters and tamper with results, at least in states and precincts with MAGA election officials.

What happens in that case? Violence, for one thing. People would take to the streets in both violent and peaceful demonstrations. A plethora of lawsuits would be filed, for another. The military would likely be ordered to put down the demonstrations. If we get to this point, a big question will be which the courts and the army come down on.

I’m placing my hopes on the American people. A great many despots have been brought down by mass demonstrations and national strikes when public opinion turned strongly against them and the people overcome their fear to stand for freedom. In some cases, the dictator sees the writing on the wall and absconds ahead of the mob. In others, the demonstrations are violently repressed.

My hope is that American security forces would join the pro-democracy, Constitution, and rule of law protesters as we saw in the peaceful revolutions in former Soviet bloc countries, and not start shooting their fellow countrymen the way Chinese solders did at Tiananmen Square.

I hope and pray that we haven’t gone that far.

NOT PRO-LIFE: The Intercept reported that ICE was detaining an unknown number of pregnant women against federal rules. Some of the moms say they are not being provided with prenatal care, basic medical care, or adequate healthy (and edible) food.

265 DAYS since Trump was inaugurated and the Epstein files still have not been released.

TRUMP GUN REGISTRY? AG Pam Bondi’s DOJ just forced several gun groups to reveal their membership lists as part of a lawsuit, raising concerns about a possible government list of gun owners. Trump has historically been squishy on the Second Amendment, and it’s likely than an authoritarian Trump government would eventually target gun owners.

KUDOS TO TRUMP for his role in Middle East ceasefire and release of the hostages. I am frequently critical of Trump, but on the occasion that he does something right, I have no problem with patting him on the back. I’m very happy for the freed hostages and their families. It’s way past time for the Gaza war to end.

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Note: corrected length of Trump’s current administration and spelling of “Hegseth.”