In a closed-door meeting with top U.S. military leaders, Donald Trump reportedly urged them to prepare for a “war from within.”

This speech was not political theater. It was a call to arms—a declaration of an internal war aimed at America’s progressive strongholds: Portland. San Francisco. Los Angeles. New York. Chicago.

If he succeeds, the military, FBI, CIA, National Guard, and local law enforcement would answer to one man—Trump himself. His mission isn’t about law and order. It’s the consolidation of power, the suppression of opposition, and the building of an authoritarian state under the cover of a “national emergency.”

We have seen the dress rehearsal for this movie.

We saw it in Washington, D.C., where federal troops were deployed. We saw it in Portland and Chicago, where National Guard units were dispatched, and where.

Trump openly threatened to imprison elected officials—the mayor and governor—who defied him. These aren’t the acts of a madman. They’re the calculated moves of a man who understands the architecture of power—and how to contaminate and make a mockery of the law by bending, twisting, and corrupting it.

Trump’s legal team has scoured the Constitution for weak spots, and they found two: The Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the president to deploy military force inside the U.S. The National Emergencies Act, which hands sweeping powers to the executive branch in times of crisis.

Trump’s strategy is to manipulate these existing laws, expand executive power, and blur the line between lawful authority and authoritarian ambition.

The short-term goal is to establish a new hegemonic “common sense”—the normalization of military troops patrolling the streets of American cities and the arrest of oppositional forces, including elected officials, as part of everyday life. Trump wants the American people to shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s just the way it is.”

The long-term goal is to turn “martial law into the rule of law”—an essential component of building an authoritarian state. Martial facilitates the criminalization of protests, the censoring of the media, the arrest of dissenters, and the elimination of free speech and the right to assembly.

Trump is real! The big question is “Has the Second Civil War already begun?”

By: Henry L.Taylor Jr.

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UB Center for Urban Studies

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