Some 800 U.S. generals, admirals and their closest staff were summoned from their assignments all over the world to the military base in Quantico, Virginia, on Sept. 30. There, following their orders, they sat silently as they heard “War Secretary” Pete Hegseth insult them — then stayed silent as their commander in chief Donald Trump ranted for over an hour and advised them to use assaults on U.S. cities to train their troops.
Even in small towns, many people identify with their undocumented neighbors and consider ICE agents 21st century Gestapo. No Kings, June 14, 2025, Rhinebeck, N.Y. (WW photo: John Catalinotto)
The most important takeaway is that Trump declared war on the working class and all oppressed sectors of U.S. society in his usual racist and misogynist style. Hegseth and Trump also declared war on the Pentagon’s attempt to create a professional military that has the loyalty of the diverse rank-and-file troops.
Trump’s threats to wage war on the U.S. people present a clear and present danger that working-class organizations must organize against. Trump means his threats, even if everything else he says is incoherent or an outright lie or both, as it often is.
That threat took shape since the Quantico meeting. Federal ICE anti-migrant forces descended from helicopters Oct. 2 to carry out a nighttime terror raid on civilians in suburban Chicago. On Oct. 5 Trump ordered California and Texas National Guard troops to occupy Portland, Oregon.
This article will focus on the danger to the working class. And it will discuss how the workers and antiwar movements might respond to the challenge. How can we combat and reverse the threat that the imperialist war machine will be used against the civilian population?
The apparent incoherence of the administration’s top leadership makes them look incompetent and detached from reality. Many observers in the corporate media, including late-night comics and retired generals, have commented on this aspect. It has relevance to our assessment should Hegseth’s racism, misogyny and anti-trans orders contribute to increasing open bigotry and tensions within the military.
The role of the U.S. Armed Forces
No one should have illusions about the role of the U.S. Armed Forces. The role stays constant whether or not the Pentagon pursues the “woke” policies that Hegseth and Trump rant against and no matter who is in the White House. The U.S. military wages aggressive wars to protect and expand the private property, wealth and profits of a tiny group of extremely rich capitalists and Wall Street bankers who make up the U.S. contingent of the imperialist ruling class.
From 1945, the end of World War II, to the early 1990s, the U.S. Armed Forces had two main tasks: One was to prevent colonial peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America from gaining real independence from imperialist domination, including gaining sovereignty and control of their country’s natural resources. The other was to prevent the spread of a working-class revolution that would put the forces of production in the hands of the workers instead of leaving it in the power of the exploiters.
Examples of this were the U.S. military occupations of Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines and U.S. aggressive wars that killed millions of people, mostly civilians, in Vietnam and Korea.
After the counterrevolution and disappearance of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the U.S. Armed Forces expanded their role to reconquering those countries that had earlier won some political independence and sovereignty and establishing U.S. world hegemony.
Examples of these aggressions include the long, murderous and wealth-consuming wars against Iraq and Afghanistan and shorter bombing and rocketing campaigns against Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria. They also include NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders and support for a coup in Kiev. This finally provoked Russia’s reaction in 2022 in Ukraine.
The U.S. extended its alliance with the Israeli settler state in West Asia, using it to dominate other states in the region. In the past two years this reached the point of U.S. complicity with open genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
We underline that both big, pro-imperialist parties — Democratic and Republican — and MAGA forces have given near unanimous support to U.S. aggression. MAGA forces present an immediate threat to the people of the U.S., but they are not the sole warmongers.
How to combat Trump’s declaration of war
Trump has taken a step deeper into the abyss by openly declaring war on the multinational working class here in the U.S. — where workers are the large majority of people. In MAGA style, his verbal attacks consist of racist and xenophobic lies directed at migrants and all communities of color.
Trump has unleashed military assaults in Chicago against civilians. These types of assaults were illegal under international law when U.S. troops carried them out in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are illegal under U.S. law and under the U.S. Constitution when carried out in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, and Washington, D.C.
In August 1968, about 100 Black soldiers, most recently back from Vietnam, de facto refused to deploy to Chicago against the Black community during the Democratic National Convention. Here six GIs the officers considered ‘ringleaders’ meet with their attorney, second from left. (Credit: Turn the Guns Around)
That the concerned mayors and governors insist they have no need for troops, nor do they want them in their cities, highlights the illegality of Trump’s orders. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker accused the White House of trying to turn Chicago into a war zone. It is apparent that the MAGA fascists are trying to start battles and then to lie about who started them, using the conflict as a pretext to justify military intervention.
Until early October, it might have been hard to understand what force could counter Trump’s blatant attack. On the Oct. 3 – 5 weekend, however, millions of people erupted in demonstrations and strikes from Istanbul to Lisbon, with up to two million Italian workers in the streets. With a political strike, Italian workers have shut production and ports to demand an end to genocide in Gaza and Italy’s complicity with it, and freedom for all those from the Global Sumud Flotilla now held in Israeli prisons.
At this moment the European and Mediterranean workers are showing the world’s workers what kind of struggle is possible independent of the capitalist parties.
An aroused class struggle as a response to Trump’s attack on the cities can create a new situation in the U.S., too, beyond what Trump is provoking. Ordinary National Guard and even active-duty troops — who did not sign up for this kind of illegal action at all — may be stationed long-term in U.S. cities. They may be in close contact with their working-class peers, yet still be receiving illegal orders that, if followed, would make them criminals.
The working-class and antiwar movements should ask: Is there a way for us to appeal to the fellow members of our class in the National Guard and Army? Can we help them refuse orders to take action against their siblings in the streets and homes of the cities?
People are already courageously confronting the ICE mercenaries. This kind of resistance must be supported and defended. But we should also ask if they can find a way to reach out to National Guard and Army troops. There is no way to find out except in practice.
The article’s writer is the author of “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions.”