Burcum: Americans are not the enemy, Mr. President

Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

There’s a clear, bright line marking the moment that the Tuesday gathering of U.S. military leadership went from cringe-inducing to downright chilling.

The unusual event featured Minnesota-born Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump. Hegseth’s remarks did not even come close to providing a credible rationale for creating the extraordinary risk of gathering leaders of the U.S. military in one location.

Hegseth’s lecture to the top brass on personal grooming, fitness and the “warrior ethos” could have easily been conveyed in an email or a videoconference. This was a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars and military leaders’ time, all to stroke the ego of a former Fox News weekend host.

I wish the event had stopped with Hegseth’s self-serving chest-thumping. It didn’t. Trump also took the stage, and that’s when the gathering turned ominous.

Trump’s rambling remarks covering everything from tariffs to battleship architecture at first sounded like yet another shopworn campaign rally. Then came a pronouncement that should set off alarm bells in a nation where Kent State University remains shorthand for the deadly consequences of deploying the military domestically.

While the president has advanced this argument before, his Tuesday remarks represent a troubling escalation, with Trump telling the top brass that they would have a “major” role combating domestic enemies, the Washington Post reported.

“And this is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said. “It won’t get out of control once you’re involved at all.”

Shockingly, Trump even called for using some cities, specifically Chicago, as “training grounds for our military.”

Who is the enemy in these maneuvers? Answers are needed, because it sure looks like it would be Americans.

The president’s words raise troubling questions about crossing legal guardrails against domestic military deployment. Mentioning Chicago, and Trump’s previous moves to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., also suggest this is less about crime control than it is about controlling the president’s political opposition.

Minnesota and the Twin Cities are also longtime Democrat strongholds. At our own peril we ignore the risk that Minneapolis and St. Paul could be “training grounds” as well.

What happened May 4, 1970, at Kent State offers a tragic reminder of the need for caution and pushback by the military leadership ordered to attend the Hegseth/Trump show Tuesday morning.

A photo of those in attendance show many gray-haired leaders in uniform. They’re old enough to remember Kent State. As for those who are younger, if they’ve risen this high in the ranks, they should be well versed on that tragic day in Ohio. Despite the passage of time, it still shows how inherently volatile the mix of civilian protesters, the military and provocative political rhetoric can be.

Kent State University has information posted online to ensure “historical accuracy” and describes events that led to student protests turning into a massacre. Four students died that day and nine were wounded.

Members of the Ohio National Guard were mobilized and arrived late on May 2, a Saturday, to find a “tumultuous scene,” with a wooden ROTC building on fire and surrounded by protesters.

“Rhodes also indicated that he would seek a court order declaring a state of emergency. This was never done, but the widespread assumption among both Guard and University officials was that a state of martial law was being declared ... .”

The tragic outcome was all but sealed on when Guard members turned their weapons on the crowd as tensions dangerously escalated. A news photo shot shortly after noon on May 4, showing a young woman kneeling over a dying, 20-year-old student, is a haunting reminder of all that can go wrong when everyone is on edge and a military trained for war is instead deployed domestically, even if it’s to keep the peace.

There are uncomfortable parallels in today’s era, with deep divisions, campus protests and inflammatory rhetoric, the latter enhanced exponentially by social media. It’s not hard to see how things could go wrong quickly if cities become a military training ground.