Posted at Hartmann Report on Aug. 13, 2025
The Strongman’s Test Run, and Why the Next Deployment Will Be Bigger, Longer & Deadlier
Deploying troops without police training, defying the courts, and threatening the media, Trump is importing dictator tactics in plain sight and daring Americans to stop him...
He says he's deploying the military to Washington DC because of a "crime emergency," but armies don't do policing: Their job, and their training, is to blow things up and kill people.
They have no training in evidence-chain-of-custody, arrest procedures, civil rights protections, criminal investigation, or any other aspect of policing. Sending a militia to do policing is like inviting the neighborhood butcher to perform your brain surgery.
In America, it's also illegal. Under Posse Comitatus, the American military is explicitly forbidden from engaging in any police activities against civilian populations. Even though the Trump administration is bragging that the National Guard arrested almost 50 people yesterday in DC, the Posse Comitatus Act consists of just one sentence:
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."
Armies are really good, however, at facing down large crowds of protestors.