One of my favorite reads, The Glory And The Dream by William Manchester, was first read when in high school.  (The two-volume treasured hardcover set is on bookshelves above where I now type this column.) The first 20 pages tells the gripping story of President Herbert Hoover ordering the U.S. Army, led by General Douglas MacArthur, to forcibly evict the Bonus Army from Washington, D.C. in July 1932. The military used tanks, cavalry, and bayonets, burning the veterans’ camps in the process, which resulted in widespread public condemnation. There is no way not to harken back to that story from our history as the dangerous and absurd performative actions of Donald Trump are playing out in American cities. This weekend Chicago, one of our most iconic cities, became ground zero as federal military officers confronted their fellow citizens.

Manchester allowed his readers insight regarding the mindset of a nation following the attack on the Bonus Army.

“At the executive mansion in Albay, New York, the atmosphere was funereal. Eleanor Roosevelt had read the papers with what she later called “a feeling of horror”.  Her husband seemed even more deeply affected.  Professor Rexford Tugwell of Columbia, a house guest, was summoned to the master bedroom, where his host lay surrounded by clouds of newsprint. As Tugwell entered, Governor Roosevelt covered photographs with hands, as though in shame for his country.”

Readers of history know there are those terrifying moments when the line between democracy and authoritarianism is drawn not in ink, but in boots on pavement. What we are witnessing as Trump deploys military troops into American cities is not just a fundamental break with constitutional norms but that he also has tried to smash the very ideals that our nation was established upon. Make no mistake about the lies from Trump that “Portland is on fire’ or “Black women in Chicago are wearing MAGA hats”. None of this military madness is about law enforcement. This is not peacekeeping. This is not about abiding within the laws of the land. What this is can only be called a show of force against the people Trump swore to serve.

The Constitution is not a suggestion. It is a covenant. And nowhere in that covenant is there room for a president to turn the instruments of war inward, to treat American streets as battlefields and American citizens as insurgents. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, was designed precisely to prevent this kind of domestic militarization. It is not a technicality that the throw-back to Germany of the 1930s–Stephen Miller–can disregard as he whispers in Trump’s ear to promote tyranny.

The opening pages from Manchester’s book looks at the crushing of the Bonus Army, who were World War I veterans peacefully protesting for their promised compensation. The sight of tanks rolling through Washington, of soldiers bayoneting their fellow Americans, horrified the nation.

But what Trump is doing is worse, and here is why.

Trump is creating a false narrative of unrest to use as a pretext for escalation to the point he is placing military troops in American cities. He desires some sort of dominance through a deployment of military force in our cities under the guise of “law and order”. That is complete provocation. It is a betrayal of the American promise that government derives its power from the consent of the governed, not the barrel of a gun. So, yes what Trump is now doing is worse than what Hoover did in 1932.

Trump is proving daily that he is mentally impaired. He is demonstrating that he thinks that fear will lead to respect. That strength comes with men dressed in camouflage. He thinks he can cower the nation by using fear and thinks that if he can silence multitudes, he will have his autocratic order. But if he had read just one chapter of our great national story, he would know the very protests he is trying to quell are in fact the very beating heart of the liberty that we simply will not give up. Trump may want to mimic the power of his buddies in Moscow and Beijing, but he must first deal with Americans who will not kneel.

We must remember Roosevelt’s horror. We must remember the Bonus Army. And we must remember that when the government turns its weapons on its own people, it is not protecting the nation. Instead, it is desecrating it.

Let us be clear: this is not who we are. And if we do not speak now, if we do not resist this militarized vision of America, we risk becoming a country where ideals are buried beneath the boots of soldiers sent not to defend us, but to suppress us.