Trump itching to turn the military on Americans
Presidents who respect civilian rule try to calm crises. Presidents who don’t look for uniforms.
Once again, Donald Trump says he is considering invoking the Insurrection Act in response to protests. This time in Minneapolis, where folks are demonstrating peacefully against a wave of Immigration and Customs Enforcement violence and abuse. The move would allow him to deploy the U.S. military against civilians on American soil. Trump presents it as an option he seems eager to exercise.
Faced with public anger over the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent, his instinct is not de-escalation, investigation, or restraint. It is escalation. The Orange Menace salivates over the idea of inserting armed soldiers into a domestic crisis created by his own administration. This is not new. Trump repeatedly floated the idea of sending troops into U.S. cities during protests in his first term, only to be checked by military leaders who refused to play along. What has changed is not the idea, but the context. The administration now openly defends federal agents who kill civilians, labels protesters “agitators,” and frames dissent as an existential threat. In that environment, invoking the Insurrection Act stops sounding hypothetical and starts sounding preparatory.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
His warning came just hours after a federal officer shot a man in the leg after an attempted traffic stop in Minneapolis on Wednesday night. Protests against federal immigration operations exploded after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross earlier this month.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday that she had discussed the possibility of using the Insurrection Act with the president. “He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilise that,” Noem told reporters outside the White House.
Using the military against civilians is not a show of strength. It is an admission of failure. It signals that civil authority has either broken down or chosen coercion over legitimacy. Once soldiers are tasked with enforcing political order rather than defending the nation, the line between democracy and occupation becomes very thin, if not illusory.
Presidents who respect civilian rule try to calm crises. Presidents who don’t look for uniforms.
Best to cancel the midterms until things settle down, eh Donnie Dingleberry?