Trump Has Taken a Deliberate Step Toward Making the US a Repressive Police State

Donald Trump’s 2025 deployments of the National Guard and military forces domestically – particularly in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and along the U.S.-Mexico border – signal a shift toward authoritarian rule indicating a further step in America’s journey toward a far right dictatorship. Trump’s deployments are aimed at consolidating power and suppressing dissent, with the potential to institutionalise a repressive police state.

Trump’s 2025 actions are unique in their proactive use of military forces absent a declared war, potentially signalling preparation for domestic control amid global tensions.

While Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson federalised troops to enforce civil rights against state defiance, and Bush responded to riots and disasters, Trump’s actions target lawful immigration protests and false narratives of skyrocketing urban crime, often in Democratic strongholds. Trump seeks to cow mass resistance and even the tepid responses of Democratic mayors and governors.

This is a major step towards fascism, American style.

The precarity of ruling elite hegemony fuels Trump’s deployments

Ruling elite hegemony is held together – usually fairly precariously - through a combination of coercion as well as broader popular ideological consent, or “common sense”, that aligns with elite interests while at least appearing to offer some of the subordinate classes a stake in the system.

In the U.S., a GOP-Democratic bipartisan elite consensus – rooted in corporate-backed neoliberalism and imperialism – historically managed dissent through persuasion and concessions, resorting to coercion when hegemony falters, usually against selected radical groups on the Left or racial minorities. In a 2023 The Wire article ,  I described the U.S. as entering a “simmering civil cold war,” marked by institutional authoritarianism within both major parties, exacerbated by Trump’s January 6, 2021, attempted coup and insurrection. Trump’s behaviour represents a “personalist form of presidential power” that threatens constitutional norms while being enabled by a complicit elite establishment.

However, it is important to note on thing to offset a widespread misconception: Trump is not doing all this alone. He is the blunt force instrument of a ruling elite in lockstep with his administration. That elite is clinging on to its vast corporate wealth and the political power it buys them at a time of rising mass discontent. And that mass resistance is threatening to skyrocket in the coming period.

Trump’s 2025 deployments extend the dictatorial pattern which, frankly, he promised to deliver. In Los Angeles, the federalisation of 4,000 California National Guard troops and deployment of 700 U.S. Marines to counter protests against ICE raids reflect a disproportionately coercive response to legal domestic resistance.

By invoking Title 10, Section 12406, without state consent, Trump bypassed California Governor Gavin Newsom, falsely framing protests as a “rebellion” to justify military intervention. This move, upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, stretches but does not break laws and signals a willingness to use federal power against political opponents in Democratic strongholds.

Similarly, in Washington, D.C., Trump’s recent deployment of 800 National Guard troops and federalisation of the D.C. Metropolitan Police, citing a fabricated “public safety emergency” despite declining crime rates, exploits D.C.’s unique federal status to assert control. Elites turn to authoritarianism when faced with mass opposition, using state coercion to maintain dominance.

Those who complain most about political apathy are among the first to send in the troops when people come out in their millions to express their anger and discontents, and demands for change.

Trump’s deployments are not merely reactive but part of a broader strategy to reshape hegemonic consent. Trump’s rhetoric – labelling protesters as “insurrectionists” and D.C. as a “hellscape”– seeks to manufacture a crisis, persuading segments of the public that military intervention is necessary to restore order. This is classic elite cultivation of social divisions (e.g., along race or immigration lines) to deflect from systemic inequalities, a tactic Trump employs by targeting immigrants and urban protests to rally his base.

Elite collusion and the role of the national security state

The U.S. national security state – encompassing the FBI, CIA, and military – plays a central role in enabling authoritarianism, often with bipartisan complicity. Regarding January 6, the FBI and Department of Justice, under Trump and Biden appointees, delayed investigating Trump’s inner circle to avoid appearing “partisan,” revealing the symbiotic relationship between the two main parties and elite interdependence and collusion.

This dynamic is evident in 2025, where the Pentagon’s compliance with Trump’s deployment orders, despite legal challenges, and the 9th Circuit’s ruling, suggest institutional acquiescence. The proposed 600-person National Guard “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” in Alabama and Arizona further indicates a move toward institutionalising rapid military responses to dissent, a hallmark of a police state.

Elites use the state to protect corporate and imperial interests. Trump’s border deployments, involving 10,000 troops in “national defense areas” to support ICE, align with this, reinforcing a neoliberal order that prioritises corporate-backed immigration enforcement over civil liberties. The blurring of military and law enforcement roles risks violating the Posse Comitatus Act, yet elite institutions, including courts, have largely enabled these actions, reflecting the point that the national security state colludes to maintain elite power.

Domestic resistance and the crisis of hegemony

Gramsci’s concept of an “organic crisis” occurs when hegemonic consent breaks down, prompting elites to rely on coercion. U.S. elites face such a crisis due to mounting resistance to neoliberal policies, as seen in protests following George Floyd’s murder by police and, in 2025, against Trump’s immigration policies.

The Los Angeles protests, sparked by ICE raids, and D.C. demonstrations against federal overreach reflect growing public opposition. Trump’s deployments aim to suppress these movements, signalling a shift from persuasion to naked violence as domestic dissent threatens elite control.

It's worth looking a little more at how widespread are protests and demonstrations across the US since Trump’s inauguration. Since then, protests have surged across the United States, growing in size, frequency, and coordination. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll showed Trump’s approval rating lower than any president at the 100-day mark, with majorities disapproving of his actions, prompting mass demonstrations.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Crowd Counting Consortium recorded over 2,085 protests in February 2025 alone, double the number as compared with February 2017. Protests targeted issues like federal worker rights, LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights, and Trump’s broader agenda. These included the “Hands Off!” protests on April 5, 2025, in Washington, D.C., and nationwide, with an estimated five million participants across cities like Los Angeles and New York, denouncing Trump’s “hostile government takeover.”

In addition, there are legal challenges, court injunctions, federal workers’ resistance and even from within the IRS. There are also reports of disaffection within the national guard and elements of the military deployed on American streets.

Establishment liberals often fail to counter authoritarianism effectively, fearing mass movements more than fascism due to their elitist, top-down ideology, and rootedness in a corporate political economy. In 2025, Democratic leaders like Newsom and D.C. officials have challenged Trump legally, but their reliance on courts and institutional processes has been slow and limited, allowing deployments to proceed. They have never called the mass of ordinary people out onto the streets to stop Trump’s deployment in its tracks. Democrats are complicit in enabling authoritarianism by prioritising bipartisan stability over robust anti-fascist action.

Global geopolitical competition and authoritarian consolidation

Domestic authoritarianism also connects to global dynamics, as U.S. elites use foreign policy to reinforce domestic control. In 2025, intensifying geopolitical competition with China, Russia, and others provides a backdrop for Trump’s domestic militarisation.

By framing immigrants and protesters as threats to national security, Trump frames and aligns domestic policy within a broader imperial narrative, justifying violence as a defence against external and internal enemies. During Trump’s first term, Sinophobia was amplified to shore up domestic support while deepening elite economic ties with China.

Global parallels, such as South Korea’s 2024 martial law crisis, illustrate how leaders exploit geopolitical tensions to deploy troops domestically. Trump’s border “national defense areas” and urban deployments suggest a similar strategy, using global threats to legitimise domestic repression and prepare for potential escalation if international conflicts intensify.

Conclusion

Trump’s 2025 National Guard and military deployments are a deliberate step toward a repressive police state, driven by a crisis of hegemonic consent amid domestic resistance and global geopolitical pressures. The coercive use of federalised troops in Los Angeles and D.C., enabled by legal overreach and elite complicity, reflects a shift from persuasion to force, targeting political opponents and marginalised groups to maintain elite power.

These actions fit within a broader authoritarian trend, where the national security state and bipartisan elites enable coercion to protect a neoliberal, imperial order. While courts and public resistance offer some checks, the institutionalisation of rapid-response forces and the normalisation of street level military presence is entrenching a police state, threatening democratic norms unless robust and united counter-movements emerge.

And they already are and will. Trump has sown the wind; he will reap the whirlwind with worldwide repercussions.

Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics and associate dean of research in the School of Policy and Global Affairs at City St George’s, University of London, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and a columnist at The Wire. He is an International Fellow at the ROADS Initiative think tank, Islamabad, and author of several books including Foundations of the American Century. He is currently writing a book on the history, politics, and powers of the US foreign policy establishment.

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