NonilexAug 18, 2024

Deploying on #US Soil: How #Trump Would Use #Soldiers Against #Protests, #Crime & #Migrants

Trump’s vision of using the #military to enforce *the #law* [his will] domestically would carry profound implications for #CivilLiberties.

During the summer of 2020, Trump raged at his military & #legal advisers, calling them “losers” for objecting to his idea of using federal #troops to suppress outbreaks of violence during the protests over the police murder of #GeorgeFloyd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/17/us/politics/trump-2025-insurrection-act.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

Deploying on U.S. Soil: How Trump Would Use Soldiers Against Riots, Crime and Migrants

The former president’s vision of using the military to enforce the law domestically would carry profound implications for civil liberties.

The New York Times
Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024
It wasn’t the only time #Trump was talked out of using the #military for domestic #law enforcement — a practice that would carry profound implications for #CivilLiberties & for the traditional constraints on federal #power. He repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure #border states, & even proposed shooting both violent #protesters & #undocumented migrants in the legs, fmr aides have said.
Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024
In his first term in office, #Trump never realized his expansive vision of using #troops to enforce the law on #US soil. But as he has sought a return to #power, he has made clear that he intends to use the #military for a range of domestic #law enforcement purposes, including patrolling the #border, suppressing protests that he deems to have turned into riots & even fighting crime in big #cities run by #Democrats.
Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024
“In places where there is a true breakdown of the rule of #law, such as the most dangerous neighborhoods in #Chicago, the next president should use every power at his disposal to restore *order* [#MartialLaw]— &, if necessary, that includes sending in the #NationalGuard or the #troops,” #Trump said at a conservative conference in Dallas in Aug 2022, shortly before announcing that he was running to be that next president.
Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024
During his time out of power, allies of #Trump have worked on policy papers to provide legal justifications for his intent to use the #military to enforce the #law domestically. In public, they have talked about this in the context of #border states & #undocumented #immigrants. But an internal email from a group closely aligned w/Trump, obtained by The Times, shows that, privately, the group was also exploring using troops to “stop riots” [#protests] by #protesters.
Show threadNonilex

While governors have latitude to use their states’ #NationalGuards to respond to #CivilDisorder or major disasters, a post-Civil War #law called the Posse Comitatus Act generally makes it a #crime to use regular federal #troops for domestic #policing purposes.

However, an 1807 law called the #InsurrectionAct creates an exception to that ban. It grants presidents the emergency #power to use federal troops on domestic soil to restore law & order when they believe a situation warrants it.

#Trump

Aug 18, 2024 at 7:28pmWeb
Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024

Those federal #troops could either be regular active-duty #military or state #NationalGuard soldiers the federal govt has assumed control over.

The #InsurrectionAct was last invoked in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops to help suppress riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating a Black motorist, #RodneyKing. In that case, however, the governor of California… & the mayor of LA… had asked for federal assistance….

#Trump

Show threadNonilexAug 18, 2024

But parts of the #InsurrectionAct also allow presidents to send in #troops w/o requiring the #consent of a governor. Presidents last invoked the act to deploy troops w/o the consent of state authorities in the late 1950s & early 1960s during the #CivilRights movement, when some governors in the South resisted court-ordered school desegregation.

#Trump has boasted that, if he returns to the WH, he will dispatch forces w/o any request for intervention by local authorities.

Show threadGJ Groothedde 🇪🇺Aug 18, 2024
@Nonilex He MUST lose. There's literally never been this much at stake.
Show threadGVF 🇨🇦Aug 18, 2024

@Nonilex So much of the system has relied on the premise that the President is not a criminal narcissist.

Trump would think people calling him fat would be enough.