What Gen. Stanley McChrystal told me about Trump deploying troops to U.S. cities
He cited The Revolutionary War
Hi you,
I made an intense commitment to watch each episode of The American Revolution each night and post about it the next day. Even amidst travel and live gigs and staying alive in the Year of our Algorithm, 2025.
But like General Washington in late 1777 / early 1778, I need to pause operations in a brief Valley Forge moment. I did watch Episode 5 last night and have my notes, but I’m in no condition to bang that out right now. And it’s Friday.
If you’ve missed the coverage so far, it’s all here.
So instead, I’m going to share my conversation with a living general, Stanley McChrystal.
He and I spoke last month in San Francisco at the Masters of Scale conference. I specifically asked him about President Trump deploying National Guard troops into U.S. cities, and he specifically cited the Revolutionary War in his response.
Here’s my question and part of his response:
How do you respond to the deployment of armed forces in American cities particularly those run by Democrats but really any city or the deployment of immigration officers dressed as special operators? How do you see this, and how do you feel about this use of our military right now?
This is of course personal to me. There’s a tradition of not using the military in the streets of the United States — the posse comitatus rule — and it’s got a really good reason. It’s because you don’t want the American people to identify the military with people that come and police. You’re familiar with the Quartering Act, part of our initial— the founding fathers put in… couldn’t make soldiers live in your homes. And that was because the red coats had done it. And so we were trying to protect ourselves from it. And of course, people grew to hate the red coats.
What we don’t want is we don’t want the American people to grow to fear or be resentful of our own military because the military has to be a mirror of the population. It has to be diverse. It has to be as much talent as we can bring. Parents have to feel good about their sons and daughters going into the service or there won’t be a service.
Enjoy the full episode via Apple or Spotify embeds below, and I’ll be back soon with more reflections on the PBS series by Ken Burns.