A guest opinion from Everett Wohlers of Idaho.
On August 25, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14339, that on quick reading may seem to be just an elaboration or expansion of EO 14333, which he used to militarize the District of Columbia. But on deeper examination, it appears to go far beyond that in an alarming way. It appears to be a directive to create an American version of Hitler’s SA, a/k/a Brown Shirts — his personal paramilitary that was available to put down any opposition. Here are the key provisions of EO 14339:
Section 2, para (c) provides, “The … Task Force established in Executive Order 14252 of March 27, 2025…, shall establish an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience to apply to join Federal law enforcement entities to support the policy goals described in Executive Order 14333. Each law enforcement agency that is a member of the … Task Force, as well as other relevant components of the Department of Justice…, shall … immediately create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital that can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate, and that could be deployed … in other cities where public safety and order has been lost.” [Emphasis added.]
Section 2, para (d)(ii) provides, “The Secretary of Defense shall immediately begin ensuring that each State’s … National Guard [is] resourced, trained, organized, and available to assist Federal, State, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order…. … [T]he Secretary of Defense shall designate an appropriate number of each State’s trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization for such purposes. In addition, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.” [Emphasis added.]
The language of Section 2, para (c) is so broad, i.e. “Americans with … relevant backgrounds and experience,” that it includes nearly anyone who wants to join federal law enforcement agencies, e.g. ICE, to engage in physical actions to control cities at the direction of the Trump regime. It would, not coincidentally, permit recruitment from Trump-supportive paramilitary groups such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and others to occupy blue cities and blue states. The recruiting materials that are now being used by DHS and ICE include videos and social media feeds that are clearly designed to appeal to those groups by framing their mission as to battle evil and protect their culture. When those Proud Boys and other such thugs who are recruited become part of the “specialized unit,” they will then be in government uniforms and able crack heads and kidnap people with the authority of the federal government behind them. With the ten-fold increase to the ICE budget provided in the Big Beautiful Bill, there will be lots of those thugs – enough to occupy and terrorize many American cities, and to interfere with the clean conduct of elections in 2026 and later.
Section 2, para (d)(ii) is an equally shocking measure to provide for use of the National Guard as a standing military enforcement body anywhere in the country. That is, military forces will now be a standard feature to be used by the President as an occupying force in any city or state that he deems not to be sufficiently loyal to him.
Both of these measures are what we expect to see in a totalitarian regime such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy or, in more modern contexts, Hungary, Turkey and other countries that are nominally democratic, but authoritarian in reality. This EO is a flashing red light warning of the end of the American democratic experiment. We cannot accept it.
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