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TO DEFEAT TRUMP’S FASCISM, WE MUST CONFRONT MILITARISM  
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Christine Ahn and Leslie Cagan
June 12, 2025
Common Dreams
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_ While most Americans instinctively understand the threat U.S.
militarism poses to democracy, the times call for more explicit links
between militarism and rising fascism and a blueprint for reversing
this threat. _

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a crowd of servicemen and women
during a celebration open to the public in honor of the 250th
anniversary of the U.S. Army on June 10, 2025 in Fort Bragg, North
Carolina., Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits // Common Dreams

 

President Trump’s deployment of 4,000 National Guard troops and 700
Marines to Los Angeles to quash peaceful demonstrations against brutal
ICE raids is a wake up call. Now is the time to push back against this
administration’s use of military violence against its own citizens
to consolidate authoritarian power. As Trump threatens to arrest
California Governor Newsom and unleash “troops everywhere,” the
people of this country must reject militarization as a tool of
authoritarianism and stand firm to defend and expand democracy.

As tanks and troops descend upon Los Angeles to silence dissent, on
Saturday, they will roll through Washington in a display of power,
revealing the undercurrents of an administration that wields
militarization not for defense, but for domination.

On his 79th birthday, President Trump will finally get his “big,
beautiful” military parade, brandishing unrivaled U.S. military
might on the streets of the nation’s capital. Marking the 250th
anniversary of the U.S. Army, the $45 million parade
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feature nearly 7,000 soldiers marching down Constitution Avenue,
flanked by hundreds of B-17 bombers, Strykers and Apache helicopters.
Washington will look like Nazi Germany, and unless we tackle
militarism in our fight to defend democracy, we, too, may soon live
under authoritarian rule.

As longtime peace activists, we have opposed U.S. wars against Korea,
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and raised the alarm over
militarized U.S. foreign policies like war drills against China and
North Korea which provoke
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dangerous counter-reaction and fuels an arms race that could trigger
nuclear war.

The Trump administration isn't trimming fat from the federal budget,
they're cutting the heart out of communities to further enrich
billionaires, war profiteers, and techno-fascists.

Deluged daily with domestic crises, it is challenging to draw
attention to the dangers of U.S. militarism, especially when most view
it as a problem “over there.”

But now we are in an era where masked ICE agents are raiding schools,
workplaces, churches and homes, tearing apart families by abducting
and deporting legal residents
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up students
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protesting U.S. support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians.

The U.S. public can no longer afford to ignore the lethal consequences
of militarism on our democracy at a time when our Commander-in-Chief
has pardoned
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6th vigilantes, defied
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Constitution and judicial rulings, threatened to invoke the 1807
Insurrection Act, and has already 
[[link removed]]deployed the National
Guard and active-duty Marines in an attempt to quash dissent at home.

While most Americans instinctively understand the threat U.S.
militarism poses to democracy, the times call for more explicit links
between militarism and rising fascism and a blueprint for reversing
this threat.

Contrary to Trump’s campaign promises to end U.S. involvement in
Ukraine and Gaza [[link removed]], he is
calling for an unprecedented $1.1 trillion Pentagon budget
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more war and militarism, including modernizing nuclear weapons,
further entrenching the U.S.’ permanent war footing across the
Pacific and Asia in preparation for war with China, and massively
increasing policing, detention and deportation.

In 2026 alone, Trump and Republicans want to spend an
additional $43.8 billion on mass detentions and deportations
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raids like those in LA. This militarized budget accounts for 75
percent
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entire discretionary budget, which explains why
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top of massive tax cuts for billionaires, there is no money for social
programs and federal agencies that actually help our communities feel
safe – clean air and water, healthcare, child nutrition, education,
and housing assistance.

U.S. taxpayers are told this historic increase in more militarism is a
“generational investment
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in defending our country, or that it’s to honor the sacrifices of
U.S. service women and men.

But the truth is that half of the Pentagon budget goes to defense
contractors that sell weapons of mass destruction to authoritarian
states and human rights abusers
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like Saudi Arabia
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genocidal assault on Gaza with $17.9 billion in 2024, U.S. taxpayer
dollars could have provided
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than one million U.S. veterans with VA healthcare.

Our taxpayer dollars also enrich tech billionaires like Elon Musk
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dollar donation to Trump’s campaign landed
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a $5.2 billion dollar Pentagon deal in April, and a free pass to wage
an administrative coup. Billions of our taxpayer dollars also go to
venture capitalist Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Palantir,
which Bloomberg
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as an “intelligence platform designed for the global War on Terror
was weaponized against ordinary Americans at home.” Thiel, who
doesn’t “believe
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freedom and democracy are compatible,” just received
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contract to carry out ICE deportations, and is, along with Musk,
Meta’s Zuckerberg and other techno-fascists, seeking to build
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dystopian future of unregulated “network states” and surveil us
all.

At a time when most Americans want an end to war, Trump is using our
tax dollars to celebrate militarism as a cornerstone of consolidating
authoritarian power...

The Trump administration isn't trimming fat from the federal budget,
they're cutting the heart out of communities to further enrich
billionaires, war profiteers, and techno-fascists. In the
report Trading Life for Death
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the National Priorities Project and Public Citizen
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militarized spending increases in the reconciliation proposals total
$163 billion for FY 2026. That's more than enough to fund Medicaid for
the 13.7 million people at risk of losing health care, and the 11
million people at risk of losing food stamps.

As Trump uses the parade as a spectacle to exalt his unchecked power,
people around the country will join over 1,800 organized protests
under the banners of “No Kings Day
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and “Kick Out the Clowns
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This day of action offers an opportunity to shine a light on the
threat of a highly militarized society to our democracy, from the
bloated Pentagon budget that leaches funding from investments that
make us secure, to state capture by techno-fascists on our taxpayer
dime. We need to do the hard work to redefine our paradigm of national
security. The Feminist Peace Playbook: A Guide for Transforming U.S.
Foreign Policy
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one such guide for moving our country from one defined by war and
violence to one built on care, compassion and cooperation.

Let’s heed the prescient words of President Eisenhower, a five-star
general who led the Allied Forces in WWII to defeat fascism, when
he warned
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to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence… by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists, and will persist."

At a time when most Americans want an end to war, Trump is using our
tax dollars to celebrate militarism as a cornerstone of consolidating
authoritarian power at home.

_[CHRISTINE AHN is the executive director of Women Cross DMZ, a
movement of women mobilizing for peace in Korea._

_LESLIE CAGAN is a decades long leader in the U.S. peace and justice
movement.]_

* Fascism
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* Militarism
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* democracy
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* peace movement
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* Militarization
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* Donald Trump
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* Trump 2.0
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* Trump Administration
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* Trump foreign policy
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* war profits
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* war profiteers
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* Pentagon Budget
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* military-industrial complex
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