Experts in constitutional law and the military say the Insurrection Act gives presidents tremendous power with few restraints. Recent statements by former President Donald Trump raise questions about how he might use it if he wins another term.
Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.
Calling New York City and Chicago “crime dens,” the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination told his audience, “The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,” he said. “Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.”
Trump has not spelled out precisely how he might use the military during a second term, although he and his advisers have suggested they would have wide latitude to call up units. While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition, the former president already has signaled an aggressive agenda if he wins, from mass deportations to travel bans imposed on certain Muslim-majority countries.
A law first crafted in the nation’s infancy would give Trump as commander in chief almost unfettered power to do so, military and legal experts said in a series of interviews.
They shouldn't treat him as a serious candidate. All they should do is keep repeating how he was held liable for sexual assault, how his business is being taken apart for fraud, and all the other crimes. Instead, they act like he has real policy ideas and it normalizes the extremism
Trump seems to be forgetting that he tried that already during the BLM protests and the Joint Chiefs of the military shut it down. They wrote a letter to the President and the Public stating that all branches of the US military support the right of US citizens to protest.
Then later on, during the beginning of the Big Lie about the 2020 election the Joint Chiefs once again made a statement that Joe Biden won the election and would be Commander in Chief of the military upon his inauguration.
When those 2 statements happened I recognized the historic significance of their actions. The Joint Chiefs were acting as an unofficial 4th branch of our government for the purpose of another set of checks and balances. Basically when the shit gets fucked up enough the military steps up and reminds us of their oath to uphold the Constitution against anybody and everybody, including the President. I was proud to be an American when I saw that.
Enter Tom Tuberville blocking military promotions in preparation for Project 2025, where they put loyalists in key positions in government and the military who will do what they're told whatever the Constitution has to say about it.
The point of the article is that it may not be illegal:
The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails merely requires the president to request that the participants disperse.
Even if it is, Trump would hold it up in the courts while military was still on the ground. That's what he does - whatever he wants, dare anyone to stop him, stall the courts that try to do so while he continues to do whatever he wants.
People seem to have conveniently forgotten how he basically gish galloped his way through all our supposed guardrails, and when it was found that what he did wasn't legal, it was far too late, and he was already onto Step 5.
The principal constraint on the president’s use of the Insurrection Act is basically political, that presidents don’t want to be the guy who sent tanks rolling down Main Street,” said Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice. “There’s not much really in the law to stay the president’s hand.”
This is the single most important and relevant line in the article, and the only frightening one.
Once again, the problem is not Trump, but escalating, dangerous rhetoric employed in the short-term to try to garner votes.
We've been on a course for authoritarianism since the rise of conservative talk radio enclaves, and will continue moving down that path so long as fear and "culture war" is the primary driver of our politics.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Campaigning in Iowa this year, Donald Trump said he was prevented during his presidency from using the military to quell violence in primarily Democratic cities and states.
The memo emphasized the oaths they took and called the events of that day, which were intended to stop certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory over Trump, “sedition and insurrection.”
Bush was the last president to use the Insurrection Act, a response to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in an incident that was videotaped.
Michael O’Hanlon, director of research in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank, said the question is whether the military is being imaginative enough with the scenarios it has been presenting to future officers.
“There are a lot of institutional checks and balances in our country that are pretty well-developed legally, and it’ll make it hard for a president to just do something randomly out of the blue,” said O’Hanlon, who specializes in U.S. defense strategy and the use of military force.
Ryan said he thought it was universally understood, but Jan. 6 “was deeply disturbing and a wakeup call for me.” Several veterans and active-duty military personnel were charged with crimes in connection with the assault.
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