In September 2022, Joe Biden delivered memorable remarks on the threats to American democracy while speaking in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. “Democracy cannot survive when one side believes there are only two outcomes to an election: either they win or they were cheated. And that’s where MAGA Republicans are today,” the then-president said. “They don’t understand what every patriotic American knows: You can’t love your country only when you win.”
The remarks resonated, though they also sparked a brief controversy: Observers noted that the Democrat delivered political remarks flanked by two Marines who were both visible in the background. It led some to argue that Biden had breached protocol and broken with “White House traditions” — concerns rooted in the idea that it’s inherently dangerous to mix politics and the U.S. military.
Three years later, those complaints sure do seem quaint. NBC News reported:
[Donald Trump] delivered a campaign-style speech heavy on partisan politics [Tuesday] at Fort Bragg before thousands of soldiers and their families on the Army’s 250th birthday. Instead of a focus on the Army’s anniversary and its history, Trump’s speech at the country’s biggest Army installation was more reminiscent of his 2024 campaign stump speeches.
For all intents and purposes, the Republican president treated the active-duty troops at Fort Bragg as if they were just another MAGA audience — because, by all appearances, Trump believes members of the armed forces are just another MAGA audience (his own atrocious record on the military and service members notwithstanding).
Over the course of nearly an hour, the incumbent president didn’t just throw partisan red meat to his audience — condemning transgender student athletes, for example — he also goaded U.S. troops into booing Biden. And the free press. And American elected officials Trump doesn’t like.
Trump: “The Gov. of California and the Mayor of Los Angeles, they’re incompetent and they paid troublemakers, agitators, and insurrectionists. They are engaged in this willful attempt to nullify federal law and aid the occupation of the city by criminal invaders.”
— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2025-06-10T20:54:58.026Z
The rhetoric was familiar. Indeed, the speech echoed the kind of rhetoric Trump uses on a near-daily basis. But context matters: It’s one thing when a politician peddles cheap, partisan nonsense by way of his social media platform or his latest Fox News appearance; it’s something else when the commander in chief of the nation’s strongest fighting force delivers cheap, partisan nonsense to active-duty troops on a military base.
The former is forgettable. The latter, as a report in The Bulwark put it, is “grotesque.”
The importance of an apolitical military is a foundational, bedrock principle of the United States. Partisan, ideological and electoral considerations must be utterly irrelevant to what the military is and how it functions. It is a principle for which Trump appears to have no use. The morning after the event, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told Fox News that Trump — who did not serve in the military and who has been credibly accused of disparaging those who wear the uniform — as an “incredible connection … with his army.” Except, of course, it’s not “his” military; it’s the country’s military. When compiling evidence of the president’s authoritarian-style vision, it’s best to keep examples like this near the top.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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