'Prelude to martial law': Experts detail Trump’s 'militarization of politics'

Early Tuesday morning, June 24 — as residents of the Middle East were hoping that a reported ceasefire between Israel and Iran would hold — Reuters reported Israeli airstrikes in Tehran. Salon's Heather Digby Parton fears that U.S. President Donald Trump will use tensions in the Middle East as an excuse to escalate his crackdown on dissent at home — a fear fellow Salon journalist Chauncey DeVega shares.

In an article published on June 24, Salon's Chauncey DeVega highlights interviews with three political voices: the American Enterprise Institute's Norm Ornstein, author Katherine Stewart, and historian Federico Finchelstein, all of whom worry that Trump will use the crises of 2025 to ramp up his attacks on dissenters in the United States.

Ornstein told DeVega, "I am extremely uneasy. As soon as (Trump White House adviser) Stephen Miller used the word 'insurrection,' I saw it as a deliberate prelude to Trump invoking the Insurrection Act, itself a prelude to declaring martial law. We are in for a bad time ahead. Trump is destroying public safety, from food to transportation to health, and the world is more, not less, unstable and dangerous with him, (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio, (Defense Secretary) Hegseth, et al. in place."

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Finchelstein, who teaches history at Eugene Lang College in New York, believes that the worst is yet to come in the U.S.

Finchelstein told DeVega, "My feeling is that Trump is increasing his tendency towards fascism. (We've seen) a further escalation of his conflation of politics and war via the classic fascist practice of the militarization of politics. We also saw an escalation in repression in California that was combined at the highest levels with the very open ideological glorification of violence towards the opposition…. Trump's parade…. was a basic example of the authoritarian cult of the leader…. I think we will see further escalation on all fascist fronts: violence and militarization, more demonization and repression, propaganda and attacks on independent journalism and the interference with the judiciary and other state institutions, and democracy."

Stewart, author the 2025 book "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy," warns that "creating an emergency to justify an authoritarian overreaction is one of the most frequently telegraphed stunts in the authoritarian canon."

Stewart told DeVega, "Trump basically told us over and over again before the election, that he wanted to use the U.S. military against U.S. citizens, and that's what he’s doing. He chose to send ICE into downtown L.A. precisely because he knew these actions would yield the optics of chaos that right-wing media requires. This follows the authoritarian playbook. When would-be autocrats wish to establish a government that is not bound by law or reason, they declare an emergency to justify the suspension of laws that constrain them…. The president and members of his cabinet show no awareness of the Constitution they are supposed to defend, a Constitution that asserts the right to peaceful assembly. "

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Stewart added, "The threat of political violence, however, is indeed a true emergency, as judges who rule against Trump, along with Democratic lawmakers, are barraged with threats and abuse."

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Chauncey DeVega's full article for Salon is available at this link.