The second Trump administration has strained civil-military relations, with controversial and sometimes unlawful domestic deployments, sudden politicized removals of senior military leaders without cause, and efforts to change the nature of who can serve. Previous installments in this series have examined the question of military deployments around an election, looking at the legal, practical, and democratic considerations of potential orders. This final article explains how these deployments would also do lasting damage to the military itself.
Eroding the Military’s Role as a Nonpartisan Institution
The military has long held a uniquely admired position in American society. According to a 2026 Gallup poll, the military is the nation’s most highly respected government institution. Much of this respect is born out of the vital role that troops fulfill as a nonpartisan force focused squarely on national defense. That standing is real but no longer secure. The Reagan Institute’s 2025 National Defense Survey found that fewer than half of Americans expressed a great deal of confidence in the military – down 20 points from the same survey in 2018.
When the public sees the military as a domestic partisan political actor, it harms morale, unit cohesion, and effectiveness. Using the military for domestic law enforcement shifts its fundamental role from defending the nation against external threats to policing civilians at home—a shift that places the military at the center of a political firestorm.
That shift has already begun with the administration’s erosion of civil-military relations. The administration has systematically sought to remove senior military leaders, replacing them with officers it perceives as more compliant with the White House’s political agenda. Since February 2025, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Judge Advocates General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and leaders at both the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency.
Breaking with longstanding tradition and DOD Directive 1344.10, Trump and Secretary Hegseth have given politicized speeches on military bases and, in September 2025, they convened an unprecedented meeting of all senior military leaders, where Trump threatened to fire them and to deploy military forces into American cities. The officers removed share no common performance rationale; several had publicly disagreed with administration positions.
Risks with Domestic Deployments
Politically motivated and legally dubious deployments can further undermine the military’s position in American society. Recent deployments into U.S. cities to support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda have drawn the military into a controversial political issue that could have a longstanding impact on public perception. Deployments such as those in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. have forced soldiers, Marines, and National Guardsmen into missions that they never chose or were trained to perform. Rather than training to defend the country against foreign threats, troops have been used as political props, policing their fellow citizens.
Beyond the deployments themselves, the actions of the military in domestic operations can have a long-lasting impact. On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard soldiers opened fire on unarmed protesters at Kent State University, shooting 13 students and killing four. The shooting led to nationwide protests, investigations, and legal action against the National Guardsmen and the state of Ohio. It is considered one of the darkest episodes in the history of the Guard.
A similar failure occurred in 1992 when President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act at the governor’s request and deployed federal troops alongside the National Guard in Los Angeles. Federal troops worked with local law enforcement to try and maintain order during the Rodney King riots, but the differences between military and police training soon became apparent. In one notorious incident, Marines opened fire on a residence with young children at home, due to miscommunication with local police. Thankfully no one was killed, but the incident made clear how ill-prepared the federal military was for civilian law enforcement.
While the military is trained to fight and defeat foreign enemies, civilian law enforcement is trained to protect the community and interact with civilian bystanders. Their respective procedures, rules of engagement, and training are different and are not interchangeable. Forcing soldiers into law enforcement roles ignores these distinct procedures, turning their primary combat training into a domestic liability rather than an asset. Kent State and the 1992 riots in Los Angeles provide a critical warning against further use of the military for domestic operations, especially in sensitive and high-traffic environments where a single miscommunication can result in unnecessary chaos and violence.
Long-Term Institutional Costs
Healthy civil-military relations rely on a social contract in which the public grants the military immense power and respect in exchange for the military’s protection against foreign threats, and assurances that it will answer to civilian leadership and stay strictly outside of domestic politics. Any deployment around an election that is perceived to be politically motivated or benefit a specific candidate or party would break this contract and likely harm the military’s standing with the public. Such a perception would likely have long-term consequences for the military’s funding, its ability to recruit talent, and its legitimacy as a national institution. Two consequences show the scale of this threat:
- Perception and Trust – Americans respect troops because of the vital work they do for the public, but if troops are seen working against citizens by undermining elections, public trust would likely collapse. The presence of an armed soldier at a polling site would likely shock the American electorate and be seen as a threat to the democratic process, creating an atmosphere of intimidation rather than one of security. Instead of being a source of national pride, troops would be seen as political foot soldiers for one president or party. This could discourage many Americans from serving, making the military less ready to address foreign threats. Although the post-9/11 wars of Afghanistan and Iraq have been seen as overall failures by the public – including by many servicemembers – Americans do not hold the rank-and-file military responsible. An intervention by the military in an American election would likely significantly damage public trust.
- Broad Public and Congressional Support – The military enjoys broad support from the public and Congress. Actions that are perceived to support one political party or interfere with an election would likely draw widespread condemnation from the public, from Congress and local elected leaders, and from civil society, isolating the military. Beyond the harms to recruitment, this interference in an election would invite congressional investigations, stall promotions, and potentially put the services’ access to campuses and communities at risk – the kind of damage that took four decades to undo after Vietnam, when universities expelled ROTC programs that did not return until 2011. Bipartisan support for the Department of Homeland Security’s annual appropriation dropped after the January 2026 shootings of American citizens in Minneapolis. Notwithstanding partisan debates over the topline defense appropriation number and funding for specific programs, defense spending enjoys bipartisan support year after year. Any perception that the military is engaged in partisan interference in an election could permanently end this support and lead to significant cuts across the DOD.
In summary, the military is a highly respected institution with a highly specific mission: protecting the nation in times of war—not imposing the will of the president on civilians attempting to vote. Federal law and historical norms make clear that the federal military has no role in the elections process – nor should it. Inserting federal troops into this context serves no purpose other than to call an election into question, which is why federal law is so clear: no boots near ballots. As the president continues to push incorrect interpretations of the law and use the military as his policy enforcer at home, members of the U.S. military must remember that they do not have the same immunity as the president. The president is unlikely to face prosecution for issuing an illegal order, but those who carry it out could be.
Further, the core purpose of the military is to safeguard the constitutional order against enemies abroad. Members of the U.S. armed forces take an oath to “support and defend the Constitution;” violating federal law by undermining an election is a violation of that very oath. Protecting democracy from threats abroad while threatening democracy domestically at home does not “support and defend the Constitution”—it attacks it. The Founders knew this, Reconstruction-era politicians knew it, and Americans today know it: boots off ballots is the rule.
Author’s Note: The authors would like to thank Hayley Durudogan for her contributions to this article.
