The Trump administration is talking about making the nation's capital and places like California and Chicago safe again — reminiscent of the campaign's mantra that evolved into an acronym that represents a political movement MAGA, Make American Great Again.

At the same time, President Donald Trump's acolytes are using the criminal justice system to get even with his political opponents. The FBI raided the home of former national security adviser John Bolton.

According to a carefully calculated leak to The New York Post, Bolton — a major critic of Trump — had the search of his home personally authorized by FBI director Kash Patel. Greg Sargent recently wrote in The New Republic, "Patel had openly declared in 2023 that 'the conspirators,' that is enemies of Trump and MAGA, must be prosecuted, and also that more loyalists with the resolve to see this through would be recruited to carry this out."

The Department of Justice appears to be Trump's personal enforcers. Patel's hit list is common knowledge, and his open involvement in the investigation of Bolten is meant to send a message to Trump's critics. This sounds more like the Mob — who decades ago federal prosecutors successfully crushed — than the Department of Justice.

At the same time, the Trump administration is doubling down on its crime crackdown in major cities. Trump has long painted major U.S. cities as unsafe and lawless. This is nothing new. During 2017 inaugural address, Trump spoke of "American carnage" in urban areas, pointing to crime and poverty, particularly in places led by Democrats.

The focus has not changed. Even though, cities like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Chicago have been the focus of Trump's wrath, Southern cities like Memphis and Jackson, Mississippi have been ignored.

Not only is it a lie to say that cities like Chicago are "a mess" and dubious at best to suggest that the National Guard needs activated to clean up the mess — the rationale for deploying the National Guard is not about making cities safe it is about creating a "police state."

It has long been a staple of American governance that local and state law enforcement is to be conducted by civilians, not the military.

Ordinarily, a state's governor controls its National Guard. Under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president can "federalize" the National Guard, placing them under federal control and funding for federal missions like overseas deployments or suppressing domestic insurrections.

Trump invoked this authority first in Los Angles in June during immigrations protests. He cited "incidents of violence and disorder" tied to ICE operations. According to Katie Couric Media, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other officials challenged the deployment, "arguing the order violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits U.S. troops from engaging in civilian law enforcement. A federal judge agreed, but the ruling was ultimately put on hold by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals."

The Posse Comitatus Act was meant to prevent the federal government from using the military as a domestic police force after Reconstruction.

This struggle is again evolving into a fight between red states and blue states — code for rural v. urban. While Los Angeles, Washington, DC and soon Chicago are under siege, there are plans to mobilize up to 1,700 National Guard troops from 19 Republican-controlled states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia and Texas.

This is a modern-day Reconstruction. Major urban areas being occupied by troops from predominately southern states. The Trump administration is breathing life into the lost cause of the Confederacy.

As Ty Seidule, professor emeritus at West Point, described in his book, "Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause," the south rebelled against the north because "(T)he Confederate States of America ... refused to accept the results of a democratic election in 1860."

Sound familiar?

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino

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