“The Insurrection Act Explained” by Joseph Nunn is not an Anti-Trump article. It was written nearly three years ago, when Biden was president and Trump was not considered probable to be re-elected. https://www.brennancenter.org/…/insurrection-act-explained
I remember hearing about it for the first time following hurricane Katrina when Governor Blanco of Louisiana was afraid to allow federal troops to come help restore law and order. She was concerned about losing control of her state to the federal government. So, Bush ’41, not wanting to upset a fearful governor and create additional chaos, did not use it and worked around it by arranging for US Army General Honore, a native of Louisiana, to be appointed as commander of the National Guard and having US military forces work under him. (or something like that.)
As we all know, Donald Ttump is itching to upset governors of blue states and thrives on chaos.
This is a key excerpt from the article:
“Section 253 has two parts. The first allows the president to use the military in a state to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that “so hinders the execution of the laws” that any portion of the state’s inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy relied on this provision to deploy troops to desegregate schools in the South after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
The second part of Section 253 permits the president to deploy troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.” This provision is so bafflingly broad that it cannot possibly mean what it says, or else it authorizes the president to use the military against any two people conspiring to break federal law.”
As we have seen from the incident with a Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a man who was legally in the US, married to an American citizen, and father of three American citizens, who has broken no laws and is not a member of any gangs, was deported to a Venezuelan prison in direct violation of a federal judge’s order and now, admitting his administration made an administrative error, Mr. Trump refuses to return him home. And it looks like the Supreme Court may let this stand.
So the many comments by Trump supporters who say this is just fear mongering by the Left, rethink this. This is a vague law that gives a president huge discretion to suppress American citizens. And there is no reason to doubt that this president with this cowering Congress, and this complicit Supreme Court will allow him to broadly interpret and use this power.
The Americans who should be most concerned about this are Conservatives who have always said they hate Big Government telling us what to do. Well, this would be Big Government at its absolute most oppressive in US history. If Trump does invoke it, will my Conservative friends finally split sheets with him and join us in the streets to protest?
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