By Russ Bellant
The following is a guest commentary being republished in Fighting-Words.net with permission of the author.
The social needs cuts, the blatantly unconstitutional restructuring of government, the dismantling of disease prevention, the lawless capturing and deporting of legal residents and the serial appointments of MAGA jackboxes has given us ample warning of a devious, dumb-downed D.C.
But hardly any attention has been paid to the prospects of armed forces being put on the streets of cities that could exercise lethal force to crush organized opposition to the current regime in Washington, D.C.
Until recently, Frank Kendall was Secretary of the Air Force. He recently decided to write a letter and appear on news network interviews to raise concerns about U.S. military forces in cities across the U.S. He noted that Trump threatened to use troops on the street during his 2024 presidential campaign. Kendall was alarmed into action by the firing of the Judge Advocate Generals (JAGs) of the Army, Navy and Air Force. These JAGs have the power to order any general to stop any military operation that violated the Law of Land Warfare, the Geneva Convention or U.S. law. If Trump or one of his appointees put troops in the street to counter protesters with threat or acts of violence, the JAG could put a halt to that. Removing them, Kendall said, removed an obstacle to putting troops on the streets.
There are good reasons for Kendall fearing street violence from Trumpworld. First is that Trump ordered Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in 2020 to put U.S. Army forces into the streets to shoot George Floyd protesters. Esper refused. When Senator Elissa Slotkin pressed Secretary of Defense nominee Peter Hegseth in his confirmation hearings on whether he would execute such an order, Hegseth dodged the question.
Hegseth’s recent history adds to concerns about Trumpworld bringing violence to the streets. In podcasts last year, before his nomination, he proudly asserted that he was “organizing an underground army,” adding that “it would become public when it becomes operational.” He made clear in a podcast with a cohort that this army was for “insurrectionary purposes.”
Anyone who follows Christian Reconstructionism knows its extreme theocratic nature. Hegseth is embedded in one such group, which explicitly repudiates democracy and the Constitution, in favor of “Biblical law.” His leader, Doug Wilson, has told to his members through podcasts that they must be “willing to die for the Cause.” Wilson wrote a book in 1996 praising the universal benefits of antebellum slavery and was allied with white supremacist neo-confederates. His Idaho-based headquarters is adorned with images of Confederate generals.
Consistent with that, Hegseth has angrily denounced DEI in the military on podcasts and in hisconfirmation hearings and also said that he would restore the names of Army bases that were once named after Confederate generals. It has just been reported that Hegseth recently added a tattoo “Kafir” to his arm, under the tattoo that was the battle cry of Christian crusaders of a thousand years ago. The tattoo is widely understood to be used by sworn enemies of Islam and Muslims. So Hegseth is no Mark Esper. If Trump says shoot them, he will likely proceed with a smile.
There is a much deeper reason, however, for the fear of violence from Trumpworld. Prima facie evidence is a 2024 book titled UNHUMANS, written by Joshua Lisec and Jack Posobiec. The latter is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a white supremacist and neo-nazi.
The theme of the book is summarized thus: those who advocate for fairness and equality are “Unhumans” and must be crushed! The authors proceed with praise for czarism in old Russia over a hundred years ago and give passages on how to harass “Unhumans,” but devote many pages to what appears to be their heartfelt intent – praising mass murderers for their killing of “Unhumans.”
In their how-to-crush-”Unhumans” models that they recommend for duplication, they invoke Francicso Franco, the Spanish general of the army that overthrew the elected government of Spain in 1936 and proceeded to wipe out those who supported the elected government. The Spanish Civil War lasted for several years, with Franco getting material support from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Franco would later organize the Spanish Blue Division to fight alongside the Third Reich. But the authors are OK with the Third Reich. They praise them for killing so many Russians, even though those victims were allied with the U.S. and Britain. The Franco dictatorship ruled Spain for decades thereafter with an iron hand.
The next model of crushing “Unhumans” recommended was Augusto Pinochet, the top Chilean general who overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973. He also rounded up and killed thousands of supporters of the Allende government. The authors enthuse over the Pinochet practice of throwing “Unhumans” out of helicopters.
A third model advocated by “Unhumans” (the book, not the authors) is most telling. They hero-ize Ian Smith, the prime minister of apartheid Rhodesia. After Britain cut Rhodesia loose from their colonial empire, Black Africans who constituted the majority demanded a new constitution with equal rights, ending the apartheid state.
Smith refused. He became a hero of world-wide nazi networks. When Black liberation armies formed to fight the regime, the authors glorified the high kill ratios of the Rhodesian army! They would likely praise any armed force in the same manner on the streets of our cities.
There is more of this praise for overthrowing elected governments and idolizing murderous dictatorship. But at this point, one may ask, why is such a hateful, sick account relevant to our challenges. Because this book is endorsed by J.D. Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Steven Bannon, Michael Flynn and Tucker Carlson.
Vance has expressed his opposition to democracy. Flynn set up a training camp that teaches impressionable youth to be snipers. Bannon, who wrote the forward to the book and co-published it, is a well-known white supremacist organizer of the MAGA movement. Basically, this book comes out of the inner core of Trumpworld. Do you think that these names would back the book if Trump Sr. opposed it? With his loyal son, his chief MAGA strategist, his vice president, his favorite general all backing it, his signature is not needed.
It should be remembered that Trump, on a number of occasions, expressed his admiration of Adolph Hitler and told generals that he needed more generals like Hitler had. Racialism motivates his appeals against immigrants, false DEI claims and is embedded in key staff. This racism signals to the MAGA base that nonwhite populations will be degraded and targeted.
Within the billionaire techworld surrounding surrounding Trump, there is a long- held outlook that democracy and the Constitution are not justifiable. They want a different social system, where Techworld information management and wealth rule. Peter Thiel, owner of J.D. Vance, and Elon Musk, open nazi endorser and funder, are among those believers. They know they need some brute force to get to where they want to go.
As a concluding observation of Trumpworld/Threatworld, coauthor Posobiec is operating now in coordination with the White House. He was taken with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine in February when Bessent was meeting with Zelensky to negotiate U.S. extraction of Ukrainian minerals. The Washington Post reported, from undisclosed, alarmed Pentagon sources, that Peter Hegseth had asked Posobiec to accompany him to his first NATO summit in Brussels. It is noteworthy that high military officials who are not in the grasp of Trump were deeply alarmed by Posobiec’s presence with Hegseth. Why aren’t we?
(Russ Bellant is a freelance writer who has studied extreme right forces for decades. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Texas Observer, Toronto Star and the National Catholic Reporter. He is retired and lives in Detroit. He served in the Army as a Sergeant in Airborne Artillery. All of his work is self-funded.)
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