Americans should tread carefully. Do we want a military comprised of citizen-soldiers representing all of us or one potentially comprised of ideological adherents? The first is traditional, the second is dangerous.

For over five decades, the military has been an all-volunteer force. As such, recruiting and retention policies have focused on drawing citizens from every region, ethnicity, religion and social class into the military regardless of political views. These efforts have been largely successful, even with two concurrent wars spanning two of those five decades. For example, of the 10 soldiers serving in my military adviser team in Iraq in 2004-2005, at least five voiced disagreement with the war. Yet politics never polarized the team, and all strived 100% to accomplish the assigned mission.

President Donald Trump has recently deployed military troops to American cities. Intended or not, this politicizes the military and establishes a new norm for its use.

This is risky for a republic. Domestic use of military troops may act like a centrifuge for military recruitment and retention. It is conceivable, if the recent applicant pool for hiring new ICE officers is indicative, that those who support Trump’s policies will join and stay in the ranks while many opposed may leave or never join. In our polarized nation, such a centrifugal force could result in a more ideologically homogenous military establishment willing to push the traditional bounds of its own domestic use. We will not feel these effects immediately: it takes years for young recruits to advance into leadership roles.

A republic is predicated on the honest debate of opposing ideas. One-party rule is antithetical to republican government. By extension, a republic cannot be guarded by a partisan military establishment. Thomas Jefferson and his acolytes believed that a republic should be safeguarded by all its citizenry, in the form of citizen-soldiers serving in local militias regardless of political viewpoint. Although this model did not survive, as the need for a trained, professional military that was available for an immediate emergency became readily apparent, the general idea stuck. The American military is comprised of, and therefore is representative of, all Americans. This explains why Americans tend to have more trust in their military than many other institutions.

If one takes Trump out of the conversation for a moment, this argument should appeal to MAGA supporters. Many fly the yellow Gadsden Flag, which has a coiled rattlesnake and lettering that states, “Don’t Tread On Me.” But to whom is this message addressed? When Christopher Gadsden presented it to the Provincial Congress of South Carolina in February 1776, it symbolized American unity against the British government. That government, years earlier, dispatched its professionalized military in the role of law enforcement. To Gadsden and other patriots, this military trampled their rights as British citizens. Americans, despite differing regional, religious, class, and philosophical views, joined together to fight this oppressive centralized government.

This explains why the Tea Party movement, arising during the Obama Administration, popularized the flag among themselves. The flag served as a means of linking their anti-Obama beliefs to some of the anti-central government sentiments of the American Revolution. The flag later generalized from the Tea Party to the MAGA movement.
But why haven’t the flag-wavers also generalized the target of their message? Although Obama (and Biden) are out and Trump is back in, shouldn’t the message be the same? Isn’t the enemy of liberty an oppressive central government, no matter who controls the levers of power? American patriots believed this in the 1760s and 1770s, even as British Prime Ministers and Cabinets came and went.

If use of the military in domestic law enforcement becomes the norm, we risk future presidents expanding the scope of the practice to transform the tradition-based citizen-soldier American military of today into one akin to the oppressive British military of the 1770s. Every President inherits the powers of previous presidents. Precedence has no political party. Today, Trump may deploy a nonpartisan military to support law enforcement, creating controversy. Tomorrow, President X, drawing upon Trump’s precedent with less controversy because of that precedent, may deploy a more ideologically-aligned military as law enforcement, possibly oppressing political opposition and establishing one party rule.

Don’t Tread On Yourself.

Michael Szalma is a professor of history at Valencia College.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/09/24/commentary-america-dont-tread-on-yourself/