Shortly after election day, then-President Elect Trump announced his intention to use the military inside the U.S. to deport migrants who crossed the border illegally. I made a TikTok post in which I reported that news and followed it by repeating, “He wants to use the military on U.S. soil.” To my extreme surprise, my little post went slightly viral because of pro-Trump TikTok folks.

My comments section was filled with people saying things like, “Hell, yeah,” and “Why does she keep repeating, ‘On U.S. soil?’” I had to explain that the Posse Comitatus Act is supposed to prohibit use of the U.S. military on American soil. The military is supposed to fight wars; it’s not supposed to be a police force.

Many people responded by explaining to me that the enormous rise in the number of migrants crossing into the U.S. illegally constitutes an invasion. So, the military should be used against immigrant invaders on U.S. soil. I gave up, trying to explain the holes in their logic, to say nothing of the lack of knowledge of constitutional law, immigration law and asylum policy. Instead, I filed away the knowledge that my TikTok account presented alarming evidence of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are more than happy to have the U.S. military act as police officers in cities of the United States.

President Trump this week gathered hundreds of high-ranking U.S. military officers and told them to prepare to command troops to take action against “the enemy within.”  They will be leading regiments with orders to be carried out in American cities that mostly contain Democrats. I’ve heard some members of the media refer to this as the inflection point of the entire descent into authoritarianism currently happening in the United States of America.

Will we citizens (Republican citizens, Trump supporters, Maga followers, first and foremost) permit the president to treat Americans he doesn’t like the way the military is trained to treat a foreign enemy combatant? It was the combination of Republican reaction and the withholding of good ole American dollars that got Jimmy Kimmel restored to his late-night talk show. Something akin to that combination may be the only thing that keeps this country from being a place where some people fear police behavior on the one hand and soldier behavior on the other.

I’ve been off TikTok for months now. I leave it to others to explore the level of enthusiasm for the president’s intended deployment of troops to Portland, Oregon, and beyond. But make no mistake about it: the MAGA reaction on TikTok and other platforms to the military in U.S. cities because of fabricated dangers and to requiring colonels and generals to carry out these unlawful orders (remember the Posse Comitatus?) or find another place of employment, may well seal this country’s fate for the foreseeable future.

Are there enough Republicans out there to speak up, or will we have another round of “Hell, yeah!”?