Donald Trump Is at War with America

He sees himself as a wartime president.

Jonathan V. Last

Jan 21, 2025

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(Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

1. There Is Only War

There is a way in which you can view Trump’s first term as a mostly intramural kampf.

Trump took office in 2017 without the support of much of the institutional Republican party,1 but came to Washington hoping to become the same lovable host he’d been on TV. Instead, his most substantial opposition came from inside the GOP—people like Jeff Flake, John McCain, and Mitt Romney. (And also Jim Mattis, John Kelly, and Rex Tillerson.)

Over the course of his administration, Trump discovered that this faction might superficially support him, but was fundamentally opposed to him. So he engaged in a power struggle with them for control of the party. Trump ultimately triumphed, but the energy required for this fight precluded him from doing much governing. There simply wasn’t time to both purge the GOP and pass legislation.

Also, Trump discovered that there were two other spheres in which structures prevented a president from acting as emperor. The first was the federal government, in which conscientious political appointees could thwart his will and civil service bureaucrats held their own power. The second was the broader culture, in which business leaders, internet platforms, and media organizations held some sway over public opinion.

But he didn’t have time to wage war on these fronts, either.

I don’t think there’s any way to read yesterday except as President Trump deciding that with the Republican party fully subservient to him, he can subjugate the other remaining power centers in American life.

He can finally be a wartime president. It’s just that he’s going to war against America.

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For a moment, put aside Elon Musk’s Nazi salute, the removal of Mark Milley’s portrait from the Pentagon, and the “Gulf of America.” Look at where the power is.

The Courts. For the next two years, the judicial branch is the only institution with the power to check Trump. That’s why he issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship.

There is no question that this order is unconstitutional. The only issue is whether or not there will be five votes on the Supreme Court to risk a showdown with Trump over enforcement of a verdict.

Trump understands that at some point he is likely to come into open conflict with the Supreme Court. Ending birthright citizenship is a probing action designed to test the Court’s nerve. Will five justices be willing to rule against him on an open-and-shut case? Or will John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett be worried that Trump might defy a contrary ruling, exposing the Court as toothless—and so decide to go along with him now in order to reserve the right to oppose him later?

The Bureaucracy. Trump issued a renamed “Schedule F” order, allowing him to fire civil service workers and replace them with partisan appointees. This is a direct attack on the federal bureaucracy.

The administration also issued a “return to work” order yesterday. The order’s scope is ambiguous,2 but its purpose is clear: To terminate existing federal employees in order to replace them with political loyalists. Think of this as a companion to Schedule F helping to speed up the replacement process by creating another pretext for firing existing civil servants.

Members of the Proud Boys march towards Freedom Plaza during a protest on December 12, 2020 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Mob Rule. Trump set in motion the process to free 1,600 people charged with crimes in his attempted coup. Among them was Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, who had been sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy.

The point of these pardons, clemencies, and commutations is to recreate the street armies on which Trump leaned in his first term.

You may have forgotten, but public violence was one of the hallmarks of the Trump years. Paramilitary organization like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers frequently marched in American cities, engaging in violence and intimidation.

But as the convictions from the January 6th insurrection piled up, many of these groups receded. Trump’s entire 2024 campaign took place under a notable absence of open paramilitary support.

Yesterday, the Proud Boys marched in the nation’s capital for the first time since the insurrection. A few hours later, their leader, Tarrio, was set free.

The message is unambiguous: Trump wants supporters who engage in street violence on the loose. He wants a paramilitary arm for which he has plausible deniability. They are his irregular forces; his Little Green Men.

Freeing those convicted of violence is a go-ahead signal for future violent acts and an implicit promise that Trump will take care of those who fight on his behalf.

Blue States. We have reports that Trump’s deportation raids are slated to target Chicago, Boston, and New York—Democratic cities in Democratic states.

The inherent tension in Trump’s deportation regime is that if he followed through on his promises and deported several million immigrants, he would hobble the national economy. To take just one example: A red state like Texas would experience huge problems in the construction industry, which relies heavily on immigrant labor. Either housing construction in Texas would slow—raising housing prices. Or construction wages would climb—also raising housing prices.

But there is a way for Trump to have his cake and eat it too: If he targets immigrants in blue states, he can create a drag on local, blue-state economies while satisfying the anti-immigrant desires of red-state voters.

It’s a twofer. Trump can hurt businesses and make life more expensive for consumers in New York and Illinois—and then attack blue state mayors and governors for these problems and maybe even help Republican candidates win in those states. Meanwhile, Fox will run B-roll from the raids on a loop, satisfying Trump voters in Texas and Arizona—whose economies will continue to benefit from immigrant workers.

Trump understands that blue states are the last bastions of meaningful popular opposition to his rule, so he will use the federal government to subdue them. That’s what deportations—and tariffs—are for. These are executive powers which can be used in highly-targeted ways to hurt on local economies.

If you live in a blue state, President Trump is going to use the power of the federal government to make your life harder. And if you think that sounds paranoid, here’s Speaker Mike Johnson explaining that he intends to use federal disaster aid to extract concessions from the state of California.

Trump sees himself as being at war with half of America. This is unprecedented.3

And 24 hours in he is governing not for all Americans—and not even just for the benefit of “his” voters—but as an attack on the half of America that opposed him. I hope we can all be clear-eyed about this. Because being clear-eyed is about all we can do for the moment.

2. The Volk

There’s some other stuff mixed in here which gets at the Trump administration’s views of who counts as “real” Americans. You can read the birthright citizenship ban in this light, too: Only Americans who are born to Americans are authentically American.

And even some of them aren’t real Americans, either. That’s why Trump is getting set to kick several thousand trans people out of the military. Think about that: The military is dealing with an HR shortage and Trump is going to discharge something like 15,000 service members who are currently serving their country honorably. Because they’re not the right type of Americans.4

Then there’s his cancellation of the resettlement of Afghan refugees. These are people who fought alongside America, who have gone through all of the legal processes and done everything “the right way.” But the Trump administration doesn’t want them to become Americans, either.

What you have here is a highly conditional view of what makes a person part of the true American Volk.

It is interesting to note that Trump does not appear to view the Democratic party as one of his enemies.

Perhaps that’s why Chuck Schumer and John Fetterman are so unperturbed. Trump seems to regard congressional Democrats as NPCs—inconsequential figures who are not worth wasting energy on. It’s the Democratic voters he wants to crush.

It is also interesting that Trump’s approach is the mirror image of that taken by Biden Democrats.

Joe Biden took office in the wake of an attempted coup, during which Trump supporters attacked the Capitol and many Republican officeholders at the national and state levels attempted to reverse the outcome of the election.

And yet, he saw himself as a peacetime president. His response to the violence of the Trump years was an attempt to win the support of Trump’s voters by shoveling money into their districts to build infrastructure and create jobs.5

It did not work.

To take just one example among many, Jonathan Chait notes that Lordstown, Ohio, saw the closure of its GM plant in 2019 under Trump. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act brought a massive new factory to Lordstown, along with 2,200 new jobs. The result: Trump gained voteshare in Lordstown in 2024.

And even in the midst of this failure, the Democratic response has been to embark on more soul-searching as to how they might please Trump voters in order to woo them.6

To the extent that Biden Democrats villainized anyone, it was MAGA Republican officeholders, whom they attempted to distinguish as a separate class from normal elected Republicans. Biden Democrats viewed these “normal” elected Republicans as governing partners and Republican voters as friends they just hadn’t met yet.

Donald Trump’s theory is the opposite. He sees himself as a wartime president and believes that Democratic voters should not be bargained with or bribed, but intimidated, punished, subdued—and rendered unable to oppose him in his quest for total power.

It’s a novel theory of the presidency. It might even work.

3. Pace

There was no Triad yesterday because I just couldn’t do it—and I want to say a few words about that.

One of the things to keep in mind in the coming months is that there are going to be days when we—all of us—just can’t do it. And that’s okay.

For me, when that happens, it means that I’ll scrub this newsletter. I’m not going to push product to you unless I think it adds value. I will kill a Triad rather than phone it in. This is a thing that is going to happen. I hope you’ll understand.

For you, it means that there will be times when you have to check out of the news—including The Bulwark. You’ll have to hit delete without reading; skip the podcasts; look inward and tend your own garden. And not that you need my blessing or anything, but I am absolutely okay with that. I encourage it, actually.

There is a place between LOL NOTHING MATTERS and Constant Vigilance—and that’s the place where most of us are going to need to live. The authoritarians want us to either get exhausted and melt into the countryside, or become fully nihilistic.

One of the ways to avoid that double-trap is pacing ourselves. Refuse to give up, but be willing to step away to recharge. That’s what I did yesterday and that’s the mode most of us will need to operate in for the foreseeable future.

Hang in there, friends.

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