The coming insurrection
We are getting closer to the president invoking the Insurrection Act. The military will face an impossible choice.
The fact that Donald Trump has, in recent days, taken to calling Democrats “insurrectionists” is pretty much all you need to know to confirm that it’s probably only a matter of time until the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
On Monday, Trump told reporters he was open to invoking the act, which gives the president broad powers to deploy the military within the United States. If you needed further proof, the Trump administration has helpfully begun arguing in court that Americans are in open rebellion against the federal government.
During a federal court hearing in Oregon on Friday, DOJ attorney Eric Hamilton said that “there is at least a danger of a rebellion” that justifies Trump’s attempted deployment of the National Guard to Portland.
While Hamilton effectively had no choice but to make this argument — the Justice Department cited section 12406 of U.S. code, which allows the president to federalize state National Guard troops if a rebellion is underway — his defense of the claim signals how far the Trump administration is willing to go in arguing for domestic deployment of the military.
Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee who, tomorrow, will decide whether to allow the National Guard to deploy to Portland, that she did “not have to find that an actual rebellion has occurred” to allow Trump’s deployment to proceed. Immergut noted that the Justice Department invoked the rebellion argument when it sent troops to Los Angeles in June.
“That was classified as a riot. We haven’t had that here, right?” Immergut said, asking Hamilton if he knew of “[...] any case that you know of that the rebellion statute has been invoked.”
Hamilton said he did not.
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Arguing in court that a “rebellion” is underway in Portland is not too far from a full embrace of the Insurrection Act, which is what’s probably coming next.
Of course, there is no rebellion, or insurrection, or crime “emergency,” or anything else the Trump administration claims as justification for the increasing presence of the military in everyday American life.
While all of this is obvious to many Americans, what’s less clear is where all of this is headed.
The National Guard isn’t really doing anything when its members wind up in places like Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Memphis. So what’s the point of sending them at all?
Some have posited that it’s meant to get Americans used to seeing soldiers in the streets, inuring the nation to what should be a shocking and rare occurrence. But if that theory holds — and the National Guard continues to essentially be in place for presidential photo ops — then that means that Trump plans to send in other military units who are better trained for things like civil unrest, detainment and arrests, and urban warfare.
Why? To bring states and cities that stand in opposition to Trump and Republicans under their control.
Over the weekend, as Immergut released her order that sought to prevent Trump from federalizing the Oregon National Guard, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published a stunning story.
White House advisor Stephen Miller’s deputy, Anthony Salisbury, had been in town for his uncle’s funeral. Someone spotted him in a public place texting about plans to deploy the military in U.S. cities with Patrick Weaver, a top advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The observer took photos of the texts and handed them over to the newspaper.
Among the units being considered for domestic deployment by Hegseth and Trump, according to the texts, was the 82nd Airborne, an elite Army unit with a storied past going back to World War I.
The texts revealed that Hegseth wanted Trump to make the final decision on sending in the 82nd. That way, if something were to go wrong, Trump would be legally accountable.
“Between you and I, I think Pete just wants the top cover from the boss if anything goes sideways with the troops there,” Weaver wrote to Salisbury, apparently referencing Portland.
The texts show that Salisbury wondered whether the 82nd was part of the “quick reaction force” of National Guard members that was created by executive order to respond to instances of civil unrest. It wasn’t clear. A Department of Defense planning document refers to this National Guard force of some 600 members as the “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force.”
Now, combine this unprecedented development with the reaction to the killing of Charlie Kirk. The Trump administration and its allies in Congress have said they’re going after liberal groups under the auspices of funding and support for “left-wing terrorism.”
Trump already has a private police force in ICE, whose masked agents appear to be poorly trained but very aggressive. Now, the White House is standing up a military unit specifically for domestic deployment, and planning for widespread crackdowns on liberal opposition groups.
What does that sound like to you?
Following Immergut’s initial ruling that halted the National Guard’s deployment to Portland, White House advisor Stephen Miller said the decision was part of a “legal insurrection.”
Miller claimed that the ruling and Portland police’s alleged refusal to aid immigration agents in the city amounted to “an organized terrorist attack.”
Terrorism, rebellion, insurrection — these are not words one uses when they’re planning to wind things down.
During last week’s hearing, the Oregon Attorney General’s Office argued that the Justice Department was using the “broadest possible definition of the word rebellion, covering just about anything that encompasses opposing authority.”
Oregon lawyers argued that rebellion in the context of a National Guard deployment should mean “invasion by a foreign nation.” Instead of that, the Justice Department’s definition of rebellion was “[s]o broad that it would encompass ordinary first amendment activity,” the lawyers said.
If Immergut decides again tomorrow to block deployment of the National Guard to Portland — and a federal judge in Chicago decides the same — it may force Trump’s hand. To continue his war against Americans, he’ll have no choice but to invoke the Insurrection Act.
In June I wrote that American police have a difficult decision to make — whether or not to work with Trump’s masked immigration agents, who have violated fourth amendment rights en route to their violent occupation of several major cities.
Now, another difficult decision may lie ahead — this time for America’s military.
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