Whatever the worst case scenario, Janessa Goldbeck has probably imagined it. In 2023 the US Marine veteran consulted on a documentary that war-gamed a presidential candidate staging a military coup. Last year she advised local leaders on the hypothetical of troops being deployed to their streets for immigration enforcement.

Then Donald Trump won and Goldbeck’s nightmare came true.

“It’s a little surreal to see something that we’ve been talking about and thinking about and stressing out about,” the chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organisation, says via Zoom from her home in San Diego, California. “When we first did War Game, the film, some folks would ask during our press tour, ‘Do you think you’re scaring people? This feels a little hyperbolic?’ It doesn’t feel good to say I told you so in this moment.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has sought to politicise the military like no other commander-in-chief before him and use it as a cudgel against Democratic-led states and cities. He has deployed thousands of national guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans and Washington DC, triggering protests from local officials and residents.

Having read the Project 2025 policy document, Goldbeck saw this coming. Last year Vet Voice Foundation, which mobilises veterans and military families to defend US democracy, ran exercises with local elected officials, activists and journalists to prepare for a second Trump administration conducting aggressive immigration enforcement. It has now become a vital resource for governors, state attorneys general and mayors trying to weather the storm.

Goldbeck, 40, explains: “This year the vast majority of our work has been supporting litigation to halt or slow down national guard deployments, providing subject expert witnesses, retired generals, to talk through with staff what the footprint of these deployments might look like and how to prepare, and training for activist groups on who the guard is, who they’re not – the difference in the uniforms that the guys at ICE are wearing versus the national guard.

“Then serving as advisers for governors and mayors who are living day to day through this, helping them shape their communications and ensure that things don’t become more violent. That’s been a huge line of effort for us.”

It would be a mistake to assume that all national guard members are Make America Great Again (Maga) diehards eager to do Trump’s bidding. In every city except the capital, their role has eventually been restricted by courts to guarding federal property. Some have told Goldbeck that it is tedious and unfulfilling work.

“There’s a wide range of feelings for the folks I’ve spoken to, ranging from boredom – this is a waste of time – to anger because they’ve been taken away from their families and their jobs. Most guardsmen make more in their civilian jobs than they do when they’re deployed but they signed up to serve their communities, to either serve overseas to protect the homeland or to respond in cases of a natural disaster.

“They did not sign up to be ICE – immigration enforcement – and they did not sign up to police their friends and neighbours or to be deployed into ‘hostile territory’ where the governors, local police have said actually, we do not want you here.”

Last month, two West Virginia national guard members were shot in a targeted ambush near the White House by Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who had previously worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and arrived in the US in 2021. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries, while 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe survived and has been released from hospital.

Goldbeck comments: “After the horrific killing of the guardswoman in DC, there’s the question of: is the president putting these folks in danger unnecessarily? The answer to that, I believe, is absolutely yes, especially when they’re not necessarily trained for the mission they’re being asked to execute. But also they’re targets of opportunity for any madman who wants to create chaos or has a vendetta or a mental health crisis or whatever it is.”

Then there is embarrassment. In Washington the national guard have been seen picking up litter, helping commuters with luggage and feeding squirrels. Goldbeck continues: “I spoke to one mother of a guardsman in DC who said she’d had a phone call with him and he said, ‘Mom, they’re calling us the national gardeners on the internet,’ because they’re out there picking up trash. This is a combat vet who was a law enforcement official in his real life.

“That’s humiliating to our service members. It just goes to show how deep this president’s disdain is for people who serve in uniform and how little he understands about the actual ethos of the military and what it’s there to do.”

The deployments come in broader context that has seen Trump expand presidential power. He has sought to sideline Congress, gut the civil service, flout the law, weaponise the justice department against his perceived enemies and coerce law firms, media and universities. Goldbeck warns that he could use the military to cling to power.

“I hope that people have learned that this administration, this president, mean what they say, even it if sounds absurd or anti-American or anti-democratic. They mean it. I absolutely think that this president wants to remain in power much longer, for as long as he can.”

She adds: “My fear is that this is all a lead-up to potential use of the guard or the US military around the next election cycle. I’m not just dreaming about that. It’s because it’s been spoken about by very senior members of this administration and the president himself. That is incredibly alarming. It is not American to conduct elections with troops in the streets and to intimidate voters. It’s very authoritarian.”

Goldbeck’s own story is testimony to the diverse, non-monolithic nature of the military. She was raised in San Diego by parents she describes as “children of the ‘60s and ‘70s” who were “vegetarian pacifist Hindus”. Her mother was an elementary school teacher and her father drove a tow truck.

She attended Northwestern University, studying journalism and African studies. A study abroad programme in Uganda and Rwanda educated her on the unfolding genocide in Darfur, Sudan, sparking her passion for activism. Returning to the US, she became the national student leader of a movement to compel the government to protect civilians in Darfur.

Goldbeck’s activism in Washington brought her into contact with military and security personnel. She observed a disconnect between humanitarian workers and the security forces that enable their operations. To bridge this gap and gain a “master’s degree, so to speak, in military”, she decided to join the Marine Corps at age 25.

This decision was a shock to her family. When she told her parents she was joining the Marine Corps, they were “horrified” and said: “These are not the values we raised you with.” This was the opposite of their reaction when she came out as gay, to which they responded, “We love you no matter what.” But over time, her parents came to take pride in her service.

Goldbeck commissioned as a Marine Corps officer in 2012 and served for seven years as a combat engineer officer — a role she defines as someone who “builds things and blows things up” – while advocating for fellow female and LGBTQ service members. She spent years in Europe training US-allied countries but her final duty station brought her back home to oversee the integration of the west coast bootcamp to include both male and female candidates.

Goldbeck left the Marine Corps in 2019 for two primary reasons: her mother becoming seriously ill and the election of Trump. She felt she could not remain silent in uniform and “wanted to be involved in pushing back” against what she saw happening to the country.

A few weeks after leaving the service, her local member of Congress retired, and Goldbeck was recruited to run for the seat. Although she did not win, the experience led to an offer to lead the Vet Voice Foundation, which represents around 2m veterans, military family members, and supporters.

The foundation has been heavily involved in protecting public lands, citing a deep connection between veterans and the outdoors for healing and reconnecting with family. Following the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the foundation has advocated to ensure that female service members stationed in states with restrictive abortion laws could travel to get necessary medical care.

Earlier this year Goldbeck testified to a Senate forum that the justice department is laying the groundwork for voter roll purges that disproportionately target groups including servicemen and women who move frequently or vote absentee. She noted that more than 30% of veterans have a service-connected disability and for many in-person voting is not feasible.

Joining all the dots, she is concerned that the military’s status as an apolitical institution is under threat from Trump. She says: “This administration is doing harm to the world and to the nation in a lot of different ways but one of my chief concerns is about this generational harm that it’s doing to the professionalism and the apolitical nature of the military.”

In this, she argues, Trump is being aided and abetted by Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence. In a recent speech to senior officers at a military base in Quantico, Virginia, Hegseth railed against “woke” culture, railed against “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon” and insisted: “No more beardos.”

Goldbeck responds: “Pete Hegseth is unequivocally the least qualified person who ever led the department of defense.”

Hegseth has also gone on the record with the opinion: “I’m straight up saying we should not have women in combat roles”. This is anathema to Goldbeck, who put herself forward for infantry officer training, a position then closed to female Marines, and later worked with advocacy groups to successfully repeal the policy. She states that in the decade since women have served successfully and standards have not been lowered.

“To see this fight that has already been litigated, has already put to bed, that nobody in the service is actually still grumbling about except for a few guys that have holes in their soul that will never be filled, is so incredibly infuriating,” she reflects.