Who Are the “Real” Americans Here?

Patriotism, Militarization, and the Inversion of American Values

Photo by Jon Sailer on Unsplash

There’s a particular kind of person who cheers when the president deploys military forces against American cities over the objections of their elected leaders. They call themselves patriots. They wrap themselves in the flag while applauding the systematic demolition of everything that flag once represented. They claim to love America while celebrating the transformation of American governance into something the founders would have recognized as tyranny.

So let’s settle this question once and for all: who are the “real” Americans in this moment? Those cheering the militarization of domestic law enforcement, or those defending the constitutional principles that make America worth defending?

The Theater of Fake Patriotism

When Donald Trump announces plans to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago over the explicit objections of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, his supporters don’t see an authoritarian power grab. They see strength. When he federalizes state forces using Title 10 to override local democratic authority, they don’t recognize constitutional vandalism. They see Trump “getting tough on crime.”

This represents the complete inversion of American patriotism. The same people who spent decades lecturing about states’ rights and federal overreach now cheer the most dramatic federal military deployment against local authority in modern American history. What changed wasn’t constitutional principle—it was who holds the whip hand.

It turns out “states’ rights” was never about principle—it was just about who had the whip hand.

Funny how “federal tyranny” became “law and order” the moment their guy was holding the federal badge.

What Real Patriotism Actually Looks Like

Real patriotism in this moment looks like Illinois Governor Pritzker standing up to federal overreach: “There is no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders.”

Real patriotism looks like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson defending his city’s right to democratic self-governance: “There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them.”

But real patriotism isn’t just for elected officials. It’s for every citizen who refuses to normalize military occupation of American cities, who votes against candidates who support domestic militarization, who organizes to defend local democratic institutions, who calls their representatives to demand they choose constitutional principle over partisan loyalty. The founders didn’t create this system to be defended by politicians—they created it to be defended by citizens who understand that democracy dies when good people do nothing.

The Authoritarian Inversion

The people cheering Trump’s military deployments have internalized a fundamentally un-American understanding of patriotism. They’ve confused loyalty to the country with loyalty to whoever happens to control federal power. They’ve mistaken submission to authority for love of freedom. They’ve traded the messy, contentious, argumentative democracy the founders created for the clean efficiency of strongman rule.

They’ve been conditioned to see their fellow Americans as enemies to be defeated rather than citizens to be persuaded. Democratic governors become “radical leftists.” Sanctuary cities become “lawless zones.” Local officials exercising their constitutional authority become “obstructionists” who deserve federal punishment.

This is how republics die—not through foreign invasion but through the systematic redefinition of opposition as treason, of constitutional limits as obstacles, of democratic accountability as weakness.

The Pattern of Militarization

What Trump is doing follows a clear pattern that any serious student of authoritarianism would recognize: declare emergencies that don’t exist, militarize responses to civilian problems, target political opponents, normalize federal military presence in domestic settings, and use military deployment to intimidate broader opposition.

Crime rates are at historic lows in most American cities, but Trump claims unprecedented lawlessness requiring military intervention. Notice that the cities being targeted—Chicago, Los Angeles, New York—are all led by Democratic officials who oppose Trump’s policies. This isn’t about crime; it’s about punishing political opposition.

Each deployment becomes precedent for the next, each “emergency” power becomes standard operating procedure, each violation of constitutional limits becomes the new baseline. The message isn’t just directed at the mayors and governors being overruled—it’s directed at every elected official considering whether to resist federal overreach.

This is the playbook authoritarians have used throughout history to transform democratic systems into military rule.

The Constitutional Crisis

Let’s be clear about what’s actually happening: the president is using military force against domestic populations over the objections of their elected representatives. This isn’t law enforcement—it’s the military occupation of American cities whose only crime was electing leaders who refuse to comply with federal demands.

The Constitution these fake patriots claim to revere contains specific protections against exactly this kind of military deployment. The Posse Comitatus Act exists precisely to prevent federal military forces from being used for domestic law enforcement. The federalist system exists to prevent any one level of government from overwhelming the others.

But constitutional protections only work when people are willing to defend them. When large portions of the population actively cheer their violation, when elected officials refuse to exercise oversight, when courts create immunity doctrines that place executives above accountability—the Constitution becomes paper rather than framework.

The Real American Tradition

The real American tradition is suspicion of concentrated federal power, especially military power deployed against domestic populations. The founders who wrote the Constitution had just fought a war against precisely this kind of military occupation by a distant government that claimed to know better than local communities.

As James Madison warned: “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” They created a system specifically designed to prevent any one person from wielding the kind of power Trump now deploys against American cities.

The real American tradition is messy federalism, where different levels of government check each other’s power, where local communities get to make decisions about their own governance, where federal authority has limits and those limits are enforced.

The real American tradition is that when you don’t like how a city is governed, you work to change it through democratic means—you run candidates, organize voters, make arguments, build coalitions. You don’t send in federal troops to impose your preferred policies through military force.

Who the Founders Would Recognize

If the founders could observe this moment, who would they recognize as defending American principles? The people cheering federal military deployment against elected local officials? Or the governors and mayors standing up to federal intimidation, the citizens defending their right to democratic self-governance, the Americans who understand that constitutional principles matter more than partisan advantage?

The Declaration of Independence was written by people who understood that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, not from their capacity to deploy military force against opposition.

The Choice Before Us

We face a fundamental choice about what kind of country we want to be. Do we want to be a nation where local democratic decisions get overruled by federal military force? Where constitutional constraints get swept aside whenever the executive declares an “emergency”?

Or do we want to remain a constitutional republic where power is divided, where military force is not used against domestic populations, where even presidents must respect constitutional limits?

The people cheering Trump’s militarization have made their choice. They’ve chosen strongman efficiency over constitutional process, federal dominance over democratic federalism, military occupation over civilian governance.

The rest of us need to make ours. We can organize, vote, protest, and demand that our representatives defend constitutional principles. We can refuse to normalize military occupation as “law enforcement.” We can choose to be citizens, or we can be subjects polishing the boots that march over us.

The Test of Our Time

Every generation of Americans faces a test of whether they’re worthy of their inheritance. Our test is whether we’ll defend constitutional government against military rule, preserve democratic federalism against federal dominance, maintain civilian control against militarization.

The people cheering Trump’s military deployments have already failed this test. They’ve chosen tribal loyalty over constitutional principle, the aesthetics of strength over the substance of freedom.

The rest of us still have time to pass it. But only if we’re willing to call this what it is: not law enforcement but military occupation, not patriotism but authoritarianism, not strength but the systematic destruction of everything that once made America worth defending.

Two plus two equals four. There are twenty-four hours in a day. And military deployment against domestic populations over the objections of elected local officials is tyranny, not patriotism.

The real Americans are the ones willing to say so—and willing to act on it.

That’s what real patriotism looks like when democracy is under assault.