Last week, Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of state leaders, delivered a highly partisan speech to uniformed troops at Fort Bragg, and held a military parade in Washington, D.C. on his birthday.
None of these actions are entirely without precedent, but taken together, they raise a pressing question: Can the U.S. military remain apolitical in an era of hyper-partisanship and hyperpolarization?
Dan and Shawn dig into the historical context of domestic troop deployments, the shift to an all-volunteer force, and how political realignment may be reshaping the military’s cultural identity and threatening America's tradition of an apolitical military.