When President Donald Trump rolled out the National Guard in Washington, many Americans saw it as a controversial and highly unusual step for a nation that has long barred the use of the military for domestic peacekeeping on U.S. streets.
Now, nearly four weeks into the project, what’s most remarkable might be the quiet. There have been some protests against the deployment – as there have been, in varying degrees, against many of the president’s actions. Yet most residents in this city, whether supportive or not, appear to be simply going about their business.
Some immigrants hunker down at home in hopes of avoiding arrest or detention by federal agencies. Some residents welcome more uniformed personnel focused on public safety. And a few of the tourists on the iconic National Mall take selfies with National Guard members – some of whom are now armed – in front of venerable monuments like the Smithsonian Institution.
Why We Wrote This
Americans have long rejected the idea of armed troops patrolling city streets, absent a security crisis. But President Donald Trump’s ability to normalize such dramatic actions has in some cases earned support or at least blunted opposition.
Whether people support President Trump’s move or not, what’s happening on the streets of the Capital is part of a long-standing trend:
The current president has shown a desire and an ability to normalize actions that past leaders have long avoided or considered unacceptable.
Change follows a pattern. Mr. Trump proposes ideas and then refuses to back down even in the face of factual or legal challenges.
“That is one of his skills; he tells you what he is going to do and by the time he does it, it’s lost the sense of urgency,” says Jeffrey Tulis, a professor emeritus of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “By January 2025, the Republican leaders who were appalled by the Jan. 6 attacks [on the Capitol four years earlier] were backing Trump. The violent offenders were pardoned. The awful, most contemptible thing has been normalized. The public’s outrage is gone.”
Yet, the reality is nuanced. There is no guarantee that controversial Trump actions will stand the test of upcoming elections, stock market fluctuations, or court challenges, as shown this week in decisions by two federal judges: One ruled that the administration’s deployment of the Guard to Los Angeles in June violated federal law because the troops performed law enforcement functions; another ruled it was unconstitutional for Trump to freeze Harvard University research funding based on allegations that the institution has antisemitic and “radical left” agendas. (The administration is expected to appeal the decisions.)
Recent polls show more Americans oppose Mr. Trump’s intervention in Washington than support it – similar to many other Trump actions and policies. But noticeably absent is sustained public resistance. By sticking with policies, stiff-arming legal opposition, and pressuring his own party into acquiescence, Trump has seen many of his gambits earn at least a surface-level acceptance.
Some examples:
- Asserting presidential power to fire a wide range of federal workers – even 17 independent inspectors general and officials on independent commissions or the Federal Reserve.
- Assuming a share of Congress’s constitutionally mandated “power of the purse,” by refusing to spend some of the money authorized by lawmakers.
- Threatening federal funding to public and private universities unless they change their policies on diversity.
- Ramping up deportation of unauthorized immigrants, including by sending them to third countries with little opportunity for due-process in the legal system.
The use of troops for domestic peacekeeping has long been anathema and illegal, with limited exceptions. National Guard troops are generally called out for natural disasters or to quell rare outbreaks of urban revolt. This reluctance to summon federal troops was enshrined in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which banned the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement without the consent of Congress.
By some measures, the Guard presence in Washington might be reducing crime – and finding support for that reason. At a news conference, Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said the federal surge in her city has helped in reducing gun crimes, homicides and carjackings. But the surge has also had a cost, leading to what she called a “break in trust between police and community, especially with new federal partners,” she added. “We know having masked ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents in the community has not worked. And the National Guard from other states has not been an efficient use of those resources.”
In addition, having military forces on the streets of the capital, and then arming them, sets a precedent, opening a door for the Trump administration to potentially expand the use of the U.S. military in domestic society and politics, Professor Tulis adds. Last week, the White House requested that a military base outside Chicago assist with immigration operations in that city.
“Normalization, the idea that something this bad isn’t really that bad, is in fact the key to how serious the problem is today,” Professor Tulis says, referring to people getting used to extreme statements or actions. The normalization, he adds, was made possible not just by one man’s force of personality, but also by Congress’s steady abdication of its core duties to the president and to the courts; the rise of hyperpartisan politics in which party members reject cooperation or compromise, even on issues where they agree; and demagoguery, or the manipulation of people through fear.
For those who have studied authoritarian regimes in other lands, the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in cities such as Los Angeles and Washington crosses a line that may be difficult to erase later.
“Trump is different from other authoritarian leaders. Most don’t want to appear authoritarian. This is a government that is advertising its authoritarianism,” says Steven Levitsky, professor of government at Harvard University. “Right now, he’s deploying troops in the nation’s capital, something that ordinary politicians would have never done. Once you cross that line, and demonstrate you can do it, and that you may even gain power by doing it, it is very hard to unlearn that.”
It is difficult to know just how popular these moves are. Mr. Trump campaigned hard and won on the very issues – immigration enforcement and fighting crime – that he is now implementing in Washington and elsewhere. Recent polling shows conflicting signals on how Americans feel about federal troops patrolling their streets. In a Quinnipiac poll, 56% of respondents disapproved of the president’s Guard deployment to Washington. Meanwhile, in an Associated Press/NORC poll, 55% supported “using the military and National Guard to assist local police.” Governors from six states, all Republicans, enthusiastically sent National Guard troops to support Mr. Trump’s D.C. takeover. In April, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, authorized her state’s National Guard to help Albuquerque police with “ongoing public safety challenges.”
Professor Levitsky says: “We don’t know what this means yet. Is it because a certain part of the country likes this and he’s feeding his base? Is it just Trump’s whims? Is it just a trial and part of an effort to systematically repress dissent and to control elections? We don’t know, but it’s certainly not benign.”
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
Democratic erosion
Tourist numbers have plummeted nationwide since Mr. Trump returned to office, largely because of concerns about stricter immigration policies. Local businessmen report that the new federal crackdown is hurting their sales. Freedom House, while ranking the United States highly overall in its 2025 report on civil liberties and political rights, noted that America’s political institutions “have suffered erosion, as reflected in rising political polarization and extremism, partisan pressure on the electoral process, mistreatment and dysfunction in the criminal justice and immigration systems, and growing disparities in wealth, economic opportunity, and political influence.”
From his studies of Latin American societies that turned to street protests and other forms of resistance to thwart authoritarian regimes, Professor Levitsky says that the normalization of authoritarianism in the U.S. has – for the moment – neutralized a well-established and powerful civil society, made up of political activists, academics, and news media.
“We have a very muscular civil society in the United States. We have come this far toward authoritarianism primarily because civil society has not pushed back,” he says. “Stephen Miller and Trump are much bolder now because we let them do it. Power is not being seized. It’s being surrendered, and that’s on us.”
Another factor: The share of society supporting some degree of autocracy might be enlarged when many voters feel distressed about social or technological change. Similarly, one view on the right is that problems sown by liberal elites are so entrenched that norm-busting techniques are required to dislodge them.
“[President Trump] is the only official in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation,” Mr. Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, told reporters in April. “The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.”
Timothy Snyder, an American historian specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, sees something else. He says that one reason Americans are slow to see the dangers of a slide toward authoritarianism is that many agree with the underlying premise that freedom inherently means freedom from government.
The danger, Mr. Snyder says, is the potential that once government functions or agencies have been cut back, citizens will be left to fend for themselves, with no protections against tainted food, unsafe work conditions, or monopolistic businesses raising prices at will.
“If you make the government smaller, the oligarchs remain, and they are relatively much more powerful than they were, and that’s where we are going,” says Professor Snyder.
A quiet protest
At Washington’s Union Station, which the Trump administration recently announced it would take over and restore under the Department of Transportation, there are three rings of security: dozens of Metropolitan Police Department officers inside the station; a pair of Border Patrol vehicles, each with four agents; and a small gathering of National Guard members, who, on this day, are unarmed.
On a public lawn outside the station, two tents have been erected by protesters. One sign quotes Benjamin Franklin’s famous phrase: “A republic if you can keep it.” Another reads: “Impeach. Convict. Remove.”
Five U.S. military veterans, carrying upside-down American flags (a traditional signal of distress) and bullhorns, confront the Border Patrol agents. Their leader shouts, “By deploying a U.S. military intervention on U.S. soil, you are undermining confidence in the U.S. military.” He turns to the National Guard members. “You have a legal and moral duty to disobey unlawful orders.”
The Border Patrol agents climb into their vehicles and drive away. The National Guard soldiers simply stare.
Just 50 feet away, the exchange barely causes a ripple. A young family with suitcases hold hands, cross the park, and enters the station.
Staff writer Sarah Matusek contributed to this article.
