What is unfolding right now in California—with hundreds of Marines deployed domestically; thousands of National Guard troops federalized; and military weapons, tactics and equipment on full display—is intended to intimidate, distract and discourage us from pulling back the curtain on the reality of the self-serving corruption, grift, graft, overreach and abuse that have become synonymous with his Administration.

Don’t be distracted. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t be sidelined by the spectacle of a police state.

This is yet another manufactured crisis fomented by the Deep State.

When Trump issues a call to “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” explaining to reporters that he wants to have them “everywhere,” we should all be alarmed.

This is martial law without a formal declaration of war.

This heavy-handed, chest-thumping, politicized, militarized response to what is clearly a matter for local government is yet another example of Trump’s disregard for the Constitution and the limits of his power.

Political protests are protected by the First Amendment until they cross the line from non-violent to violent. Even when protests turn violent, constitutional protocols remain in place to safeguard communities: law and order must flow through local and state chains of command, not from federal muscle.

By breaking that chain of command, Trump is breaking the Constitution.

Deploying the military to deal with domestic matters that can—and should—be handled by civilian police, despite the objections of local and state leaders, crosses the line into authoritarianism.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

In the span of a single week, the Trump administration is providing the clearest glimpse yet of its unapologetic, uncompromising, corrupt allegiance to the authoritarian Deep State.

These two events—the federalization of the National Guard deployed to California in response to protests and the president’s lavish, taxpayer-funded military parade in the nation’s capital—bookend the administration’s unmistakable message: dissent will be crushed, and power will be performed.

Trump governs by force (military deployment), fear (ICE raids, militarized policing), and spectacle (the parade).

This is the spectacle of a police state. One side of the coin is militarized suppression. The other is theatrical dominance. Together, they constitute the language of force and authoritarian control.

Yet this is more than political theater; it is a constitutional crisis in motion.

As we have warned before, this tactic is a familiar one.

In times of political unrest, authoritarian regimes often invoke national emergencies as a pretext to impose military solutions. The result? The Constitution is suspended, civilian control is overrun, and the machinery of the state turns against its own people.

This is precisely what the Founders feared when they warned against standing armies on American soil: that one day, the military might be used not to defend the people, but to control them.

It is a textbook play from the authoritarian handbook, deployed with increasing frequency under Trump. The optics are meant to intimidate, broadcast control, and discourage resistance before it even begins.

Thus, deploying the National Guard in this manner is not just a political maneuver—it is a strategic act of fear-based governance designed to instill terror, particularly among vulnerable communities, and ensure compliance.

America is being transformed into a battlefield before our eyes.

Militarized police. Riot squads. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Stun grenades. Crowd control and intimidation tactics.

This is not the language of freedom. This is not even the language of law and order.

This is the language of force.

This transformation is not accidental—it’s strategic. The government now sees the public not as constituents to be served but as potential combatants to be surveilled, managed, and subdued. In this new paradigm, dissent is treated as insurrection, and constitutional rights are treated as threats to national security.

What we are witnessing today is also part of a broader setup: an excuse to use civil unrest as a pretext for militarized overreach.

We saw signs of this strategy in Charlottesville, Virginia, where police failed to de-escalate and at times exacerbated tensions during protests that should have remained peaceful. The resulting chaos gave authorities cover to crack down—not to protect the public, but to reframe protest as provocation and dissent as disorder.

Then and now, the objective wasn’t to preserve peace and protect the public. It was to delegitimize dissent and cast protest as provocation.

It’s all part of an elaborate setup by the architects of the Deep State. The government wants a reason to crack down, lock down, and bring in its biggest guns.

This is how it begins.

Trump’s use of the military against civilians violates the spirit—if not the letter—of the Posse Comitatus Act, which is meant to bar federal military involvement in domestic affairs. It also raises severe constitutional questions about the infringement of First Amendment rights to protest and Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless search and seizure.

Modern tools of repression compound the threat. AI-driven surveillance, predictive policing software, biometric databases, and fusion centers have made mass control seamless and silent. The state doesn’t just respond to dissent anymore; it predicts and preempts it.

While boots are on the ground in California, preparations are underway for a military spectacle in Washington, D.C.

At first glance, a military procession might seem like a patriotic display. But in this context, it is not a celebration of service; it is a declaration of supremacy. It is not about honoring troops; it is about reminding the populace who holds the power and who wields the guns.

This is how authoritarian regimes govern—through spectacle.

By sandwiching a military crackdown between a domestic troop deployment and a showy parade, Trump is sending a unified message: This is about raw, unchecked, theatrical power. And whether we, the people, will accept a government that rules not by consent, but by coercion.

The Constitution was not written to accommodate authoritarian pageantry. It was written to restrain it. It was never meant to sanctify conquest as a form of governance.

We are at a crossroads.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Strip away that consent, and all that remains is conquest through force, spectacle, and fear.

As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if we allow the language of fear, the spectacle of dominance, and the machinery of militarized governance to become normalized, then we are no longer citizens of a republic—we are subjects of a police state.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

In March this year, V-22 flights were again permitted after a three-month pause following a fatal crash on November 29 of an Air Force CV-22B off Yakushima Island, Japan and the grounding of all V-22S aircraft in early December.  Col. Brian Taylor, program manager for the V-22 Joint Program Office, told a media roundtable two days prior to rescinding the ground order that a “meticulous and data-driven approach” had been used in investigations.

The approach, however, may well have been less meticulous and data-driven than a matter of desperation and self-interest, not to mention the role the aircraft is intended to play in the lighter, more agile forms of conflict envisaged by the “Force Design 2030” strategy.  A feature of that strategy is EABO, known to the military wonks as Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations.

Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, offers a blunt assessment.  “There’s not a clear backup for the Marines, there’s not a clear backup for the Air Force, and soon there won’t be a backup for the Navy’s [carrier onboard delivery] mission.”

The Osprey’s failures have also left their spatter in Australia.  On August 27, 2023 a V-22B Osprey with 23 US marines crashed to the north of Darwin on Melville Island, leading to three fatalities.  Darwin, having become a vital springboard in projecting US power in the Indo-Pacific, hosts an annual Marine Rotational Force, so-called to avoid suspicions of a permanent garrisoning of the city.

The crash also stirred unwanted memories of a previous Osprey crash in Australia, when a Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 failed to safely land on the flight deck of USS Green Bay on August 5, 2017.  That lethal occasion saw three deaths and 23 injuries.

The Osprey has pride of place in a military force that specialises in lethal aviation mishaps during training and routine operations.  Join the US Armed Forces, and you might just get yourself killed by your own machinery and practices.  The investigation into the Melville Island crash was instructive to that end, showing the aircraft to be, yet again, an object of pious reverence in US defence circles.

The initial investigation into the crash was initially eclectic: the Northern Territory police, fire and emergency services, along with personnel from the Australian Defence Force and the US Marine Corps.  At the time, acting assistant commissioner and incident controller, Matthew Hollamby, expressed his enthusiasm in carrying out a “thorough investigation”. “We are in the recovery phase and working closely with NT Fire and Rescue Service to assist us with a safe and respectful recovery operation of the three deceased US marines.”

Despite such utterances, it soon became clear that any investigation into the matter would ultimately be pared back.  Either the servitors were not considered up to the task, or all too capable in identifying what caused the crash.  In September 2023, the local press reported that territory officials were no longer needed, with NT News going so far as to claim that local agencies had been “ousted from the investigation”.  The Marines had taken full reins over the matter.

The top brass accordingly got the findings they wanted from the US Marines’ official report, which involved sparing the Osprey and chastising the personnel.  There had been no “material or mechanical failure of any component on the aircraft”.  The crash had been “caused by a series of poor decisions and/or miscalculations.”

The squadron’s attitude to procedure had also been less than enviable, marked by a “culture that disregarded safety of flight procedures”.  There had been a “lack of attention to detail and failure to comply with proper pre-flight procedures”.  There had also been a “lackadaisical attitude across the squadron” towards maintenance practices.  Command responsibility in not addressing that particular culture was also acknowledged, while the conduct of the Australian Defence Forces and “local nationals” in responding to the crash were deemed “admirable”.

Such reports are hardly intended as ironic, but the executive summary notes how Australian defence protocols were so developed as to enable the Marines to operate with even greater daring than they otherwise would.  The ADF’s “casualty evacuation (CASEVAC) and mass casualty (MASSCAS) support structure is allowing Marine units to conduct multi-national military training events in the Northern Territories without sacrificing force requirements.  Without these well-established relationships in place this mishap may have been more tragic.”

The findings should have given the then Northern Territory Chief Minister Eva Lawler pause for concern.  Squadrons of personnel operating such machinery indifferent to safety would surely stir some searching questions.  But NT officials, under the eagle eye of the Canberra military establishment, aim to please, and Lawler proved no different.  She knew “that the US Marines will do the work that’s needed now to make sure that any recommendations out of any inquiry are implemented in full.”

In a statement of unconvincing worth, the Marines insisted that they remained “unwavering” in their “commitment to the world class training of our aircrews and ensuring their safety”.  And that commitment, not to mention the type of training, is precisely what we should be afraid of.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Binoy Kampmark.

Senior government and military leaders from the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Japan are in Honiara to mark the 80th anniversary of the World War II Battle of Guadalcanal.

Minister of Defence Peeni Henare is leading the New Zealand delegation along with Secretary of Defence Andrew Bridgman and the Commander of the Joint Forces Rear Admiral James Gilmour.

The New Zealand High Commissioner to Solomon Islands, Jonathan Schwass, said New Zealanders from the army, air force and navy “served with distinction in the Solomon Islands between 1942 and 1945”.

• READ MORE: Solomon Islanders in World War II: An indigenous perspective
• LISTEN: RNZ Pacific Waves audio flashback from the 75th anniversary

“As WWII starts to slip beyond living memory, it is important that we continue to honour people of all nationalities who served and who died here,” he said.

Schwass said the remembrance ceremonies being organised this weekend showed that they were not forgotten.

A series of commemoration events start today.

Schwass said they were a reminder that the ties between New Zealand and Solomon Islands went back far into the past.

Solomon Scouts and CoastWatchers Trust chair Sir Bruce Saunders said filming the stories of those who served the US Marine Forces when they landed on Guadalcanal on 7 August 1942 was under way.

He said Solomon Islands students did not know their own history and he hoped to change that.

More than 25,000 soldiers died in the battle including dozens of Solomon Islanders.

Sir Bruce said the stories of their grandfathers and their role in saving their country needed to be passed down.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.