According to Donald Trump’s posts on Truth Social, Trump’s plan for a second term includes increased militarization of federal law enforcement to arrest people experiencing homelessness, “wag[e] war” on drug dealers, crack down on border crossings and ramp up the use of the death penalty. Many of these plans would represent an unprecedented expansion of presidential power and could lead to a slippery slope of weaponizing the federal government against civilians and infringing their civil liberties. Congress should take action to counteract them.

According to a CREW analysis of over 13,000 of Trump’s Truth Social posts from January 1, 2023 to April 1, 2024, Trump has vowed at least 19 times to weaponize law enforcement against civilians. This includes deploying state and local police, multiple branches of the military and federal law enforcement agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, FBI and Homeland Security agencies against people crossing the southern border, homeless people and protestors. Trump has a niche audience on Truth Social so the full extent of these plans—and the violence they promise—have flown under the radar. 

These tactics are not unfamiliar, but the posts suggest a ratcheting up of an anti-democratic trend in the event of Trump again becoming president. During his one term as president, Trump ramped up militarization of the border by sending more than 5,000 National Guard troops. President Trump and his allies have talked about how they would “immediately deploy a ‘surge’ of federal troops” to the border in a second Trump term, sending “anywhere between 100,000 to 300,000,” a source close to Trump told Rolling Stone. In comparison, President Bush sent 6,000 troops to the border and Obama sent just 1,200. In 2020 Trump deployed the National Guard against citizens in Washington, D.C. protesting the murder of George Floyd, and sent officers from Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to police protests in Portland, Oregon. This was the first time a U.S. President used federal troops against civilians since 1992, when George H. W. Bush sent active-duty troops to Los Angeles in the wake of the Rodney King riots. While the militarization of law enforcement during Trump’s term was already met with alarm, Trump’s Truth Social posts promise even more militarization of government and police power in a potential second term. 

Trump’s public promises should be a wake up call to Congress to put meaningful checks and balances in place on presidential power to weaponize the military and law enforcement agencies against U.S. citizens and within America’s borders. It is clear that Trump would not hesitate to exploit any loopholes and ambiguities in the law and will not be constrained by norms, so Congress needs to act now to require oversight of presidential powers by reforming the Insurrection Act and National Emergencies Act and passing the Protecting Our Democracy Act. 

Migrants coming across the border from South and Central America have been among Trump’s main targets for increased law enforcement. In Trump’s posts he has synonymized these communities with crime, drugs and human trafficking, and guarantees “any and all resources necessary” of the “federal law enforcement apparatus” to end the “incredible invasion” at the border. For migrants already in the U.S. he has promised to use “all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” 

To accomplish this Trump outlines how “massive portions” of existing federal law enforcement agencies, including parts of the DEA, ATF, FBI and Homeland Security investigators, would be shifted away from their duties and moved to his anti-immigration effort. To further reinforce the border and prevent the flow of drugs into the U.S. he plans to move “thousands of troops currently stationed overseas and elsewhere” away from their posts to the border, and order the U.S. Navy to impose a “full naval embargo” on cartels, even including that troops should “inflict maximum damage” on their targets. Trump even proposes going to war with drug cartels, promising to “order the Department of Defense to make appropriate use of special forces, cyber warfare and other overt and covert actions to inflict maximum damage on cartel leadership, infrastructure and operations.”

Trump has likewise focused his plans to increase “safety” in cities and localities around weaponizing law enforcement against protestors, people experiencing homelessness, gang members and drug dealers. The picture he’s painted on his social media platform suggests that deploying the National Guard and Homeland Security officers on civilians like he did in 2020 would be the norm in a second term. In one video about protests in Atlanta, Georgia, Trump admonishes “violent and vicious” protestors and asserts that when he is in charge, he will “not hesitate to send in federal law enforcement to restore peace and public safety,” stepping over local officials if they are not using enough force. In another video about his plans to “End Crime and Restore Law and Order” in cities Trump promises that protests would be met with “send[ing] in federal assets.”

Trump’s plan for drugs and homelessness suggests a constant federal law enforcement presence in cities, not just during times of civil unrest. In a video about the “Fentanyl and Drug Crisis” he promises to direct forces to go into cities “to take down the gangs and organized street crime that distribute these deadly narcotics on a local level.” Trump’s plan to address homelessness is to ban camping in public spaces with any violator to be arrested. Trump devises to indirectly regulate local police departments by teasing increased funding under the condition that they adhere to his stipulations, such as requiring the use of stop and frisk, a largely discredited tactic that disproportionately targets Black and brown men.

Those who violate Trump’s strict policies are bound to face the harshest possible punishment, with Trump promising to charge gang members involved in drug trading with “every crime that we can find.” Trump mentions capital punishment in four posts, promising to “ensure” that drug dealers receive the death penalty.

What should be done?

As Trump repeatedly threatens to use the military and law enforcement agencies against his enemies, Congress should take him seriously and pass reforms that would close loopholes and clarify ambiguities about presidential power. Especially given the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting presidents sweeping legal immunity, Congress should also act now to ensure that presidents’ military powers are subject to vigorous oversight. 

Congress should reform the Insurrection Act, which could be weaponized by the president to use the military domestically against real or perceived enemies. During his first term in office, Trump reportedly considered invoking the Insurrection Act twice, once during the Black Lives Matter protests and again as part of his efforts to stay in office after losing the 2020 election. Now his allies claim they would invoke the Act on his first day in office. 

Currently, the Act grants the president the power to “take such measures as he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.” But without defining the meaning of those terms, it is ripe for abuse. Proposed reforms include defining insurrection, limiting the president’s authority to deploy the military and requiring consultations with governors and oversight by Congress.

Congress should also amend the National Emergencies Act to make clear that an emergency ends after 30 days unless it is extended by Congress. Emergency powers grant the president extended authority during crises, but they have a history of misuse and abuse, including when Trump fabricated an emergency to secure funding for his border wall after Congress refused to give him the money. As troubling as Trump’s emergency declaration was, other emergency powers could grant a leader with authoritarian tendencies even more troubling powers, from seizing control of the internet to declaring martial law. 

In order to curb abuses of power by presidents of both parties and strengthen Congress’s ability to fulfill its constitutional role as a check on executive branch overreach, Congress should pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act, which would curb abuses of power by presidents of both parties and strengthen Congress’s ability to fulfill its constitutional role as a check on executive branch overreach. 

As Trump’s Truth Social posts show, now would be a very good time for Congress to act to prevent any president from weaponizing the military and law enforcement against civilians, from protestors to immigrants.

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