Trump hints at expanded role for the military within the US. A legacy law gives him few guardrails
Trump hints at expanded role for the military within the US. A legacy law gives him few guardrails
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.
Remember, ObAmA wanted to declare “Marshall law”?
Remember BiDEn wanted to declare “Marshall Law”?
Every accusation is a projection.
We know they've been wanting to do this for years. The Turner Diaries spells it out very clearly.
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.
It's maddening. They're doing exactly what they did in 2015. Stop repeating anything he says.
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.
"While deploying the military regularly within the country’s borders would be a departure from tradition,"
Not a departure from tradition. Illegal.
Holy fuck, the press is awful. I hope they get lined up and shot first by trump's SS.
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.
Who owns the company that pays the writer who chose those words?
With a platform like that, it's just so insane that a person can actually be in the running for President and have a decent chance at winning. I thought his first "platform" was ridiculous enough and trusted my fellow Americans to see through the obvious bullshit, but how is it, 8 years later, he's upped the crazy and we're right back in the same spot we were before? Even with his disastrous 4 year term and him basically going full-dictator, and involved in multiple criminal trials. A rabid pitbull should be able to do better than him in the polls.
His followers see him saying "I'm going to use the US military against Americans" and they say "he's going to use it on OTHER Americans, not me, so it'll be fine." Then, when it's used on them, they'll act surprised.
It's like the story of the woman whose husband was an illegal immigrant. She voted for Trump and then was shocked that he'd deport her husband.
Permanently Deleted
I think people are forgetful of the daily hell his presidency was. Every day was stressful, and we discovered "outrage fatigue". He keeps warning us that he plans to be even worse, and corporate news is champing at the bit for those angry clicks. My personal aims at the ballot (aside from any policy preferences) will be to keep politics boring.
If he does, the country is truly broken and I will be looking to flee…
By then, it could be too late to flee.
The country is ABSOLUTELY broken.
Even now there are people who look at a close election between Biden and Trump and genuinely think "Well, I don't like Biden, so I won't vote / will throw my vote away instead of voting against Trump."
You have racists, morons, and fascists voting for Trump.
You have irrational moron progressives who will refuse to ever vote for anyone with a D no matter how bad the alternative and no matter how much good that democrat has provably done.
And you have dispirited progressives just trying to get their peers to show up to the polls and do the minimum possible effort. We're seriously fucked because of this.
He's the bookmaker's favourite to win, which blows my mind.
I heard the exact same things in 2016.
Interestingly enough, the most fervent Trump supporters that I know are non-voters. I asked several of them if they planned on voting in the presidential election and they all said no. They Don't want to register with the government.
They Don’t want to register with the government.
Let them keep thinking that this is the way to stay "off the grid" from the government.
His supporters with past felonies say that.
- Posted Oct 2016
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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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