On September 30, 2025, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth took the stage before hundreds of senior military leaders at Quantico, Virginia, unveiling a vision for the U.S. military that has since ignited national debate and deepened concerns among scholars, veterans, and advocates for civil liberties. Their remarks, emphasizing a return to "lethality" and a hardened "warrior ethos," were anything but routine. Instead, they signaled a dramatic shift in military culture and doctrine, one that critics warn blurs the lines between national defense and domestic political conflict.
According to Salon, Hegseth wasted no time in declaring the Pentagon a "woke department," promising to reverse what he called decades of "politically correct" rules of engagement. His directives, he insisted, would reassert a "war fighting" ethos that he claimed had been eroded by a focus on inclusivity and social issues. For many in the room, the rhetoric was familiar—but for others, it carried a chilling undertone.
Historian Timothy Snyder, a University of Toronto expert on authoritarianism, interpreted the speeches as an ominous signal that the Trump administration’s priorities had shifted from traditional military strategy to internal ideological battles. "The 'war fighting' and 'lethality' they plan is inside their own country and comes from conflicts inside their own minds," Snyder wrote on social media, capturing the unease felt by many observers.
Political scientist Risa Brooks of Marquette University, who specializes in civilian-military relations, echoed that concern. She warned that the speeches reflected a calculated effort to realign the military with a partisan political agenda. "This is not about enforcing standards," Brooks said, "it’s about inculcating a particular value system within the officer corps." On BluSky, she added, "The ultimate aim is that people will no longer expect the military to serve the public at large, but that its goal and purpose is to advance the interest of one faction or party."
Trump’s own remarks only heightened those concerns. He provocatively suggested using "dangerous cities" like Chicago as "training grounds" for the military against an "enemy from within," a phrase that many interpreted as a direct reference to political opposition and unrest in Democratic-run cities. The president, who has previously deployed soldiers to urban areas across the country, was even more explicit than before in embracing the use of force against domestic protest. "They spit, we hit," Trump declared, urging military members to respond with aggression to what he characterized as hostile protests.
Veterans’ advocacy groups responded with alarm. Common Defense, a prominent veterans’ organization, condemned the remarks on X, stating, "Trump just declared a ‘war from within.’ That is not just dangerous rhetoric that will lead to violence—it is a threat to American lives." The group’s statement captured the sense of crisis felt by many in the military community, who view the politicization of the armed forces as a fundamental threat to American democracy.
But the administration’s aggressive posture was not limited to domestic affairs. Trump also defended the military’s controversial actions against Venezuelan boats, dismissing concerns about international law in favor of what he described as a more lethal approach to countering threats abroad. This willingness to sidestep legal norms in pursuit of "lethality" has only deepened the anxieties of legal scholars and international observers.
Meanwhile, just days earlier, President Trump signed a national security memorandum on September 25, 2025, titled "Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence" (NSPM-7). As reported by The Daily Pennsylvanian, this followed a September 22 executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. The memo outlined a sweeping new national security strategy aimed at disbanding networks accused of promoting organized violence, intimidation, and conspiracies against rights—explicitly citing educational institutions as possible sources of "radicalization" on race and gender.
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor Kermit Roosevelt voiced grave concerns about the memo’s broad language. "It seems to have a pretty broad theory of what foments political violence—educational institutions that radicalize students through extremism on race and gender are mentioned explicitly," Roosevelt explained, warning that NSPM-7 could be "pretty easily read" as a pretext to harass left-wing organizations and universities. The memo, he noted, listed "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," and "extremism on migration, race, and gender" as common threads animating violent conduct.
History professor Jonathan Zimmerman described NSPM-7 as part of a "recurring theme" from the Trump administration: the urge to control speech and ideas from the executive chamber. "College was made for protest," Zimmerman told The Daily Pennsylvanian. "It’s been a hotbed of protest since it began. The reason [for this] is that college is supposed to expose us to new ideas and inspire us to act on them."
The memo’s expansive definition of "domestic terrorism" has also raised legal and constitutional questions. Penn Carey Law professor Claire Finkelstein noted that labeling protest as "terrorism"—rather than crime—gives the federal government powers and legitimacy it would otherwise lack. She speculated that this could provide a basis for invoking federal agents to conduct counterterrorism work on college campuses, a move that would signal a shift from the administration’s earlier, and legally fraught, use of the National Guard.
Finkelstein and others have criticized the administration’s focus on left-wing violence, arguing that the data does not support such a narrative. "In fact, there is much more right-wing violence than left-wing violence over time, over the history of this country," Finkelstein said. Supporting this, a recent study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that, in the past decade, left-wing attacks killed 13 victims, compared with 112 and 82 victims for right-wing and jihadist attacks, respectively.
Concerns about free speech and the right to protest have only grown in the wake of these developments. In January, the administration signed an executive order directing federal agencies to identify and deport noncitizen participants in pro-Palestinian protests, including college students. On Tuesday, a district judge in Boston ruled that actions taken by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State following the January order had "deliberately" and "intentionally" suppressed "the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble" of the affected students.
Legal experts like Vic Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, argue that the administration’s actions have little basis in law and could be challenged in court. Yet Walczak acknowledged that many institutions might "capitulate" to avoid the costs and publicity of a prolonged legal battle. In July, the University of Pennsylvania entered into a $175 million settlement with the White House to recoup frozen funding, a move that soon became a model for other universities facing similar pressure from the administration.
"Ultimately, we would certainly encourage the University of Pennsylvania to stand up to such bullying and intimidation tactics from the White House," Walczak stated. "The First Amendment is a bedrock of our democracy, social justice, and ability to make progress in this country."
As the dust settles from a week of extraordinary announcements and controversial policies, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. The Trump administration’s aggressive new approach to military culture and domestic security has raised profound questions about the balance between national defense, civil liberties, and the role of protest in American life. With critics and supporters alike weighing in, the coming months are likely to test the country’s commitment to its founding principles as never before.
