A Reminder to the U.S. Military, Revisited: Your Oath to the Constitution Matters Now More Than Ever

Trump’s secret militarization of American soil isn’t about border security. It’s about preparing to suppress dissent — and testing whether the military will stand with the people, or against them.

Image by Getty for Unsplash+

The time to decide isn’t when the order comes. It’s now. The Constitution you swore to defend is under attack — not from foreign enemies, but from within. As Trump’s administration militarizes American soil under the thinnest pretense of “border security,” the oath you took is no longer a symbol. It’s a test. And history will remember how you answered it.

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Christy here, and once again I find myself writing a piece I wish I didn’t have to write. On March 30, I warned about the very real, very dangerous possibility of Donald Trump using the U.S. military against the American people. I walked readers through history’s bloody lessons — Kent State, the Bonus Army — showing what happens when the military is weaponized to suppress dissent. I pleaded with service members to remember their oaths to the Constitution, not to a man.

I wish I could tell you that those fears were misplaced.

I wish I could tell you that the alarm bells were just the echoes of a worried mind.

But they weren’t.

And this past week, Donald Trump all but confirmed it.

In a move almost surgically designed to evade constitutional scrutiny, Trump signed a clandestine executive order to station active-duty U.S. military forces along a 150-mile stretch of the southern border — from New Mexico through to California. On paper, he has technically folded this stretch into a so-called “military base expansion” — a legal sleight of hand to skirt the rules prohibiting military occupation of American soil.

But make no mistake: this is occupation. It’s just been gift-wrapped in camouflage and buried under paperwork.

And the stakes are far, far higher than they first appear.

It’s Unconstitutional—That’s Why They’re Whispering

If Trump had the constitutional authority to do this openly, proudly, and legally, he would have held a press conference big enough to knock the moon off orbit. Immigration is the golden goose of his campaign, the core of his branding. If this deployment were truly about protecting Americans from an “invasion,” he’d be shouting it from every rooftop, waving the order around like a championship belt.

But he didn’t.

There was no triumphant rally. No blaring Trumpian bravado. Just a few quiet bureaucratic notes buried in the Federal Register and some late-night murmurs that hardly made the national news cycle.

Why?

Because they know.

They know it’s unconstitutional.

They know it crosses a line so bright and sacred that it could — and should — ignite national outrage if Americans fully grasp what’s happening.

So they opted for a workaround. A cheap magic trick.

Released in a whisper.

They simply redefined the land the military will occupy as part of a newly designated “National Defense Area” — a place where constitutional protections can be quietly shuffled to the side without the public fully realizing it.

The New Militarized Zone: A Dangerous Precedent

Here’s what’s happening beneath the surface:

In April 2025, Trump signed a memorandum transferring a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land — the Roosevelt Reservation — from the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, and Homeland Security to the Department of Defense. Originally set aside in 1907 to help combat smuggling, this land has now been reclassified as part of a newly created National Defense Area that spans approximately 170 square miles along the southern border.

By designating this land as a military installation, Trump’s administration has effectively handed the Department of Defense the power to deploy active-duty troops with arrest authority inside U.S. territory, sidestepping Posse Comitatus Act restrictions that traditionally prevent federal military personnel from engaging in domestic law enforcement.

It’s an audacious maneuver — one that tries to make an end run around both the spirit and the letter of the law.

Instead of seeking Congressional approval, instead of invoking the Insurrection Act and facing the inevitable backlash, Trump’s team simply redrew the map with a black Sharpie.

They moved the goalposts. They invented a new legal framework, one that treats parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California as if they are battlefield property, rather than communities of American citizens living under the Constitution.

This National Defense Area allows troops to patrol, detain migrants, and even build infrastructure — all under the pretense of protecting a “military base.”

And it sends a chilling message: the administration is willing to reclassify American soil to suit its political needs — and to militarize it against its own people.

The Border Is a Prop. The American Public Is the Target.

It’s important to note that border crossings have already dropped significantly. According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), encounters at the southern border are down by nearly 40% compared to last fall. Multiple policies — however controversial — have resulted in fewer crossings, fewer migrants, and less so-called “crisis” footage for the right-wing outrage machine.

So if immigration is trending downward, why the sudden urgent need to deploy the military?

It doesn’t add up — unless you stop assuming that immigration is the real problem they’re trying to solve.

Because it isn’t.

The real target is domestic dissent.

This deployment is a laboratory. A testing ground. A place to work out the kinks, adjust the optics, and rehearse what it looks like to send active-duty soldiers into American streets under the fig leaf of “law enforcement.”

If they can pull it off at the border, they can pull it off anywhere.

And you can bet your last dollar they are already gaming out the next steps.

Urban centers. University protests. State capitals. National monuments.

Wherever dissent dares to gather, the government will claim an “emergency,” draw an invisible line around it, and declare it part of some freshly minted “security zone” — just another “base” extension in the name of “public order.”

You will be standing on a sidewalk in Philadelphia, or Atlanta, or Madison, and the men in fatigues staring you down with rifles at the ready will not be National Guard called by the state.

They will be soldiers of the United States Army.

And if history is any guide, it will not end well.

The Insurrection Act Without Saying “Insurrection Act”

In my March 30th article, I warned that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act as a legal pretext to federalize National Guard units and use them against civilian protesters.

This latest move isn’t a direct invocation of the Insurrection Act — but it doesn’t have to be.

It’s a dry run for the same outcome by different means.

If Trump can successfully normalize the idea of soldiers with arrest authority operating on U.S. soil under “expanded base security,” then when the time comes to unleash the military on protesters, he won’t need to declare a formal insurrection. He will simply need to declare the protest a “threat” to a nearby “military installation” — no matter how freshly or fictitiously it was created.

And suddenly, you’re no longer a citizen exercising your First Amendment rights.

You’re an “enemy combatant” threatening national security.

This is the shell game.

This is the chessboard.

And if we don’t wake up now, we may find ourselves in checkmate before we even realize we sat down to play.

Echoes of Authoritarianism

We have seen this movie before, though we like to pretend it only plays in faraway lands.

In Hungary, Viktor Orbán used “emergency powers” to consolidate control, deploying military police to suppress dissent under the banner of public safety.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin began by using security forces to “protect” critical infrastructure — and ended up jailing political opponents, journalists, and ordinary citizens who dared to question him.

Authoritarianism doesn’t announce itself with jackboots and gunfire at first.

It slides in quietly, under the cover of “public order” and “national emergency.”

It builds new legal frameworks. It creates new “security zones.” It deploys soldiers with broad, vaguely defined powers.

And by the time you realize the Constitution has been gutted, the courts have been packed, and the dissenters have been silenced, it’s too late.

The borders aren’t the crisis.

The authoritarianism is.

And it’s marching toward us with a polished belt buckle and a pen in its hand.

A Message to the Military—Again

So let me say it again, louder this time:

You swore an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States.

Not the president.

Not the party.

Not a particular vision of “order” or “patriotism.”

The Constitution.

That oath binds you even now, even when your commanders tell you otherwise. Especially when they tell you otherwise.

If you are ordered to detain American citizens without due process — refuse.

If you are ordered to disperse peaceful assemblies by force — refuse.

If you are ordered to become the weapon of an autocrat — refuse.

History remembers those who obeyed unlawful orders.

But it reveres those who had the courage to defy them.

A Final Word to Every American

Friends, we are standing at a crossroads that most of us hoped we would never have to face.

This is no longer about partisan politics. This is not about red states and blue states, about Democrats or Republicans.

It is about whether we still believe in the idea of America — or whether we are willing to let it be murdered in broad daylight by people who think power is theirs by divine right.

It is about whether the Constitution still means anything — or whether it is just a tattered relic, rolled up in the back of a filing cabinet, while tanks rumble down Main Street.

It is about whether our children will inherit a republic — or a regime.

And if we fail to recognize what is happening right now, this very minute, we may not get another chance.

This isn’t a drill.

This is the warning siren.

This is the red flare arching across the night sky.

You are being tested.

And the future of the country will be decided by what you do next.

Your support matters more than you know.

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