From Local Cops to Federal Control: Trump’s Quiet March Toward a National Police Force

What Mussolini, Orbán, and Hoover Teach Us About Trump’s Policing Agenda

Donald Trump hasn’t held a press conference announcing a national police force because he doesn’t need to. Instead, he’s doing something far more subtle and far more dangerous: he's laying the legal and administrative groundwork to consolidate American law enforcement under his direct control.

With a flurry of executive orders since returning to office, Trump has gutted oversight mechanisms, centralized legal authority inside the White House, and begun coercing local agencies to align with federal priorities. At first glance, these moves appear to be routine policy shifts. But take a step back, and a far more disturbing picture comes into focus, a slow-motion centralization of policing power that erodes local autonomy, dismantles accountability, and places ever more enforcement muscle in the hands of the executive.

This isn't just about “law and order.” It’s about political alignment, ideological purification, and the transformation of law enforcement from a decentralized civic institution into a force loyal to one man’s agenda. The methods aren’t new. From the dissolution of civil rights-era protections to the deliberate defunding of noncompliant cities, the pattern is clear: use the federal government’s resources to reward loyalty, punish dissent, and silence reform.

To answer that question, we need to follow the paper trail: a series of executive orders — some dismantling accountability, others consolidating legal power, and still others reshaping personnel and local alliances — that quietly rewrite how American policing works.

Is Donald Trump building a de facto national police force, controlled not by law but by loyalty?

Erasing the Guardrails: How Oversight Was Systematically Dismantled

One of Trump’s first acts after returning to power wasn’t a flashy border wall or a viral soundbite. Instead, it was the quiet dismantling of the systems designed to hold federal law enforcement accountable.

On January 20, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14148, a sweeping reversal of Biden-era reforms. Among its most notable provisions was the termination of the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database (NLEAD). This registry had tracked misconduct, disciplinary actions, and commendations of federal law enforcement officers. In other words, a basic accountability tool. With a single signature, it was gone.

This wasn’t bureaucratic housekeeping. This was a surgical strike against transparency.

By erasing it, Trump effectively blinded the public and policymakers to patterns of abuse, cleared the way for bad actors to move without scrutiny, and sent a signal to law enforcement: you’re free now, and we won’t be watching.

It didn’t stop with a database. Trump’s administration also moved to undermine or eliminate consent decrees — court-enforced agreements used by the DOJ to reform police departments with histories of misconduct. These decrees had forced change in cities like Ferguson, Chicago, and Baltimore. Under Trump’s executive mandate, they’re now labeled “anti-police,” and federal support is being withdrawn from departments that submit to them.

The message is simple and chilling: accountability is weakness, and weakness will be punished.

And when the law itself bends toward one man’s will, that force becomes unstoppable, especially when the very definition of legality is about to be centralized in his hands.

Executive Power Grab: When Law Enforcement Answers to the President Alone

That’s exactly what Trump did with Executive Order 14215, signed on February 18, 2025. This directive requires all executive branch agencies, including independent watchdogs and regulatory bodies, to submit their significant regulations for review by the White House. More alarmingly, it mandates that all executive officials must adhere to legal interpretations issued by the President or the Attorney General.

This is not how American governance is supposed to work.

Traditionally, federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), operate with varying degrees of independence, a safeguard designed to protect investigations and enforcement from political interference. However, EO 14215 effectively short-circuits that design. By centralizing legal interpretation inside the Executive, Trump has turned the law itself into a political tool, wielded from the Oval Office and rubber-stamped by a loyalist Attorney General.

If the President alone defines the meaning of legality, and every agency is bound to that definition, then law enforcement no longer serves the Constitution. It serves the Executive.

Trump doesn’t just control what the law says; he’s deciding who gets to enforce it, and under what conditions.

This isn’t legal reform. It’s a legal takeover.

Rewarding Loyalty, Punishing Dissent: The April 28 EO on Law Enforcement

On April 28, 2025, Trump signed what might be the most dangerous executive order yet:
“Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.”

The message to police departments nationwide is clear: We’ll arm you. We’ll protect you. And if your leaders resist, we’ll come for them.

The EO:

• Offers military-grade equipment, legal protection, and federal resources to compliant departments.

• Encourages the elimination of federal oversight, like DOJ consent decrees.

• Authorizes the prosecution of state and local officials who implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs or sanctuary protections.

This isn’t about public safety. It’s about political obedience.

You don’t need to nationalize police departments when you can coerce them into federal alignment through funding, legal immunity, and targeted threats.

The next step? Change who’s inside the system and who’s allowed to question it, starting with the aggressive purging of DEI programs and the people who upheld them.

See our previous reporting about the politicization of policing here:

Policing the Line: How America's State Troopers Inherited a System of Control

The DEI Purge: Cultural Realignment of the Force

On January 20 and 21, 2025, Trump signed two more orders:

• EO 14151 and

• EO 14173

Together, they dismantle DEI offices, revise hiring requirements, and even authorize the removal of personnel tied to equity reforms.

This is about reshaping the culture of enforcement from the inside.
What remains is a force where:

• Obedience replaces ethics,

• Homogeneity replaces inclusion, and

• Loyalty replaces law.

Trump isn’t just staffing a police force. He’s ideologically programming it.

And if that sounds like something out of a darker chapter in history… that’s because it is, as the next section will show.

What a De Facto National Police Force Looks Like

Trump doesn’t need to pass a law to create a national police force.
He just needs to:

• Define the law through EO 14215,

• Remove oversight via EO 14148,

• Purge internal resistance via EO 14151 and 14173,

• And reward loyalty through his April 28 directive.

The result? A federated enforcement structure of federal agencies, local departments, and deputized allies, all serving a centralized Executive vision.

This is already happening.

Historical Parallels and Real Dangers

• Mussolini centralized police loyalty to the fascist state.

• Orbán hollowed out institutional independence.

• J. Edgar Hoover used federal surveillance to crush civil rights leaders.

• Nixon weaponized law enforcement to punish political enemies.

Trump is following the script. But this time, he’s not trying to hide it.

This isn’t hypothetical. It’s already happening.

The legal framework is in place. The cultural purge has begun. The funding pipeline is flowing.

And it’s all being done by executive order.

Call to Action

We need to act before the next order drops:

• Demand that Congress reestablish oversight tools, including a new version of the Law Enforcement Accountability Database (LEAD). Call your representatives, attend town halls, and support bills that restore DOJ consent decrees and transparency.

• Push local and state officials to reject federal coercion and protect their DEI programs, community review boards, and reform efforts.

• Support watchdog organizations like the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Protect Democracy, which are tracking and litigating these executive power grabs.

• Share this story widely. The more people see the pattern, the harder it becomes to ignore.

Take 60 Seconds to Call Congress

U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Sample Script:

“Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m calling to urge Congress to investigate and reverse the executive orders that are dismantling law enforcement oversight and centralizing police power under the Executive Branch. I support re-establishing tools like the Law Enforcement Accountability Database and restoring DOJ consent decrees. Please act now to protect local control, transparency, and democracy.”

Bibliography:

• The White House. Executive Order 14147: Ending the Weaponization of the Federal Government. January 20, 2025.

• The White House. Executive Order 14148: Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions. January 20, 2025.

• The White House. Executive Order 14215: Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies. February 18, 2025.

• The White House. Executive Order 14151: Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing. January 20, 2025.

• The White House. Executive Order 14173: Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. January 21, 2025.

• The White House. Executive Order: Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens. April 28, 2025.

• Cannistraro, Philip V. Historical Dictionary of Fascist Italy. Greenwood Press, 1982.

• Gage, Beverly. G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. Viking, 2022.

• Kutler, Stanley I. The Wars of Watergate: The Last Crisis of Richard Nixon. Knopf, 1990.