Security as a Form of Government
The Trump presidency's approach to national security is highly revealing, as it significantly impacts both the country's form of state and its form of government and therefore offers a useful vantage point on the ongoing transformation of American democracy.
More specifically, the National Security Strategy of the United States of America (NSS 2025) — adopted on the basis of a 1986 law and submitted to Congress in December 2025 to illustrate the Executive Branch's national security strategy — serves as this administration’s agenda-setting on security matters. Specifically, the NSS defines the scope of national security: it identifies threats, establishes priorities and the appropriate response methods, and, above all, provides the "legitimacy" framework for the adoption of subsequent legal acts, including the well-known executive orders.
The Ideological Approach to Security
The distinctive feature of NSS 2025 is its strong ideological approach, accentuated by a propagandistic style of rhetoric, which embraces a clearly binary narrative: on the one hand, the mistakes of previous administrations are harshly criticized, while on the other, the achievements of President Trump's first term are widely celebrated. At the same time, the new objectives to be pursued in Trump's second presidential mandate are outlined, which are obviously antithetical to those established by Democratic administrations over time.
In short, considering a perspective focusing on ideological strands, domestically, there are clear sovereignist, protectionist and neoliberal impulses, attributable to an ethical and cultural form of conservative nationalism, which finds its ultimate flaw in the idea of plebiscitarian democracy and the "messianic" role of the Head of State, the sole interpreter of the national interest. Externally, we must also emphasize a neo-imperialist stance firmly opposed to multilateralism. Ultimately, the National Security Strategy seems to reiterate the cornerstones of Trump's doctrine, and therefore offers a useful lens for reflecting on the current transformation of US democracy, which has undergone a shift that benefits executive power.
The Hegemonic Role of the United States
From the analytical perspective just proposed, it can be seen that both levels, internal and external, converge in the objective of reaffirming the hegemonic role of the United States, recalibrated in a world being divided into spheres of influence. In this context, only China is identified as the main antagonist (rectius, the other empire), while other great or middling powers are given a regional importance, that is, they are considered instrumental to the stability of given geopolitical areas.
In light of this framework, the important aspect to highlight is the political and legal process of deconstruction and redefinition of traditional categories proposed by the document in question and, more generally, by the Trumpian narrative. More explicitly, domestic problems, public order, public health issues, and economic and trade issues are all systematically brought together under the umbrella of national security. A case in point is immigration, which is continually and emphatically presented as an "invasion" of "other" subjects, dangerous to public order, and indeed as an existential threat, rather than a complex social issue requiring an interdisciplinary and cultural approach.
National Security as the Foundation of Government Action
These examples reveal that a process of redefining the concept of national security is underway, as distinct and traditionally autonomous spheres are now being brought under the single rubric of national interest and, via this concept, state security. National security thus becomes the organizing principle of government action.
Taking this angle, Donald Trump's second term appears driven by the intent of disruption. The impulses to distort factual reality and the legal instruments employed to address it, all deformed by the imperative of national security, ensure that the latter becomes instrumental to the progressive weakening of institutional checks and balances, explaining the backsliding of American democracy. Indeed, the fact that numerous issues are now within the sphere of national security affects the balance of powers outlined by the constitution, both on the horizontal axis of the separation of powers (i.e. the form of government) and on the vertical axis of federalism (i.e. the structure of the state).
Checks and Balances
In conclusion, the atypical nature of the Trump presidency emerges from the constant effort to alter the system of checks and balances: this radicalism has triggered transformative mechanisms, marking a surge in processes erosive of democracy already underway, and attributable to other presidencies, both Republican and Democratic. Ultimately, the goal of the Trump administration seems to be the overcoming of neoliberal constitutionalism, accompanied by a redefinition of the world order.
