America is in Trouble: Why we should be worried about our democracy this Veterans Day

• Lt. Gen. L. Russel Honoré (Ret.)

For 37 years, three months and three days, I served this nation in uniform. After growing up in the segregated South, I was deployed overseas, and 20 years ago, I led American troops on American soil after Hurricane Katrina and the floods in New Orleans.

I’ve seen the best and the worst of America. Never before, however, have I been as concerned for our democracy as I am this Veterans Day, the day we honor all those who’ve served this country in uniform.

America is in trouble. From our nation’s capital to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, the president of the United States has deployed U.S. troops on American soil. Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rather than patrolling our country’s points of entry, is terrorizing civilians across the nation, assaulting and kidnapping people in plain sight.

So today, even as I am honoring my fellow veterans, I’m also sounding the alarm for all my fellow Americans. Our democracy is in peril, and it will take all of us doing our part to protect it.

That’s why this week, I released this new urgent warning, with my friends at Freedom Watch Media. We cannot normalize what is happening to our country. Everything this administration is doing is an attempt to erode our democratic norms and institutions and undermine our individual liberties. We are being tested, and this is a test we cannot afford to fail.

To anyone who cherishes our democracy, almost every action taken by this administration is an affront to all we hold dear. None, however, should be taken more seriously than the blatant misuse of our men and women in uniform.

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I led troops into New Orleans to help restore law and order and to help the people stranded there after a devastating hurricane. But this administration is putting soldiers in the streets to send a message, and that message has nothing to do with quelling an unlawful uprising, repelling an attack or restoring law and order. It’s about setting the stage for a terrible new normal.

Troops marching into an empty park in Los Angeles or raking public parks in Washington is one small man’s attempt to project power. It’s also, I fear, a precursor to something far worse. Whether it’s to conduct “election monitoring” (that is, voter intimidation) in blue cities during the midterms or to hold on to power after the 2028 presidential election, this administration is signaling that it will deploy troops here at home in far larger numbers and with greater force than it has already done. And by then, they’re betting you’ll be used to the sight of soldiers in the streets — and that you’ll do nothing.

The man dismantling the White House and his enablers are already saying the quiet part out loud. There’ve mused about eliminating habeas corpus and invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow soldiers to arrest citizens. They’ve created fake emergencies to justify waiving the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from acting as a police force. Despite this adminstration’s claims to the contrary, our country is not under invasion (a scenario in which troops could be used to police our streets). But the absence of an invasion has not prevented this administration from pushing the limits and setting dangerous precedents.

We don’t do this in America. It’s not only not normal, it’s against our Constitution. Then again, I would say the same thing about wrongfully prosecuting political opponents, threatening the rule of law and the legal profession, and attempting to silence freedom of expression by defunding colleges and universities — yet here we are. Now at airports, people’s phones are being searched to see if they should be denied entry into the United States for having views this administration views as unpalatable.

This isn’t the behavior of an American president. This is the sort of petty thuggery we see in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and the intrusive, high-tech totalitarianism of Xi Jinping’s China. We need to call it out now before it takes root here at home.

I grew up in an America where I couldn’t drink from the same fountain as a white person, where I had to get up extra early to take the bus more than an hour across my Louisiana parish because I wasn’t allowed in the whites-only school near my house. Today, things feel even more ominous.

This needs to stop now. If things escalate, and our soldiers and Marines are ordered to arrest Americans — or worse, open fire on us — that would be the final death knell of our democracy.

We cannot be passive and save our democracy. It’s up to all of us to protect and defend our Constitution and the freedoms we hold dear.