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President Donald Trump’s adventures in authoritarianism have taken a turn for the ominous in recent days as he’s tried to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, painting the cities as dangerous, Democrat-run hellholes in which ICE agents can’t grab people off the street without a protest breaking out. The pushback has been fierce. A Trump-appointed federal judge, Karin Immergut, has twice temporarily blocked the deployment to Portland and questioned Trump’s reasoning. Democratic leaders, such as Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, are loudly challenging Trump and calling his actions an attempted “invasion.” Trump and his top advisers have only escalated in response with White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller accusing Immergut of “legal insurrection” and Trump once again suggesting he’ll invoke the Insurrection Act to get around the courts. On Wednesday, Trump said in a Truth Social post that Pritzker and Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!” Pritzker called Trump an unhinged wannabe dictator in response and added, “If you come for my people, you come through me, so come and get me.” Below is a look at some of the most compelling commentary and analysis that has emerged in response to Trump’s latest power grab.

Reality versus fantasy

In a New York Times op-ed, law professor Steve Vladeck argues that the conflict is a crucial test of the factual limits of America’s system of government:

[T]he federal government is trying to use dubious factual claims about what’s true on the ground in these cities to justify federalizing National Guard troops both from within those states and from outside of them.

That is what we, and more important the courts, face: a factual dispute more than a legal one.

Typically, our constitutional system resolves these kinds of factual disputes through litigation. Neutral judges and juries hear legal arguments and factual testimony and decide for themselves what has, and what has not been, established. But the president’s advisers and supporters have spent the past few days arguing that this is not an appropriate role for the federal courts to play — because the president’s determinations in national security cases should be, and (they claim) historically have been, conclusive.

This, then, is the real legal test Mr. Trump’s deployments raise: Can the courts meaningfully scrutinize the president’s claims, or must they blindly defer? To date, we’ve seen fairly aggressive pushback to the administration’s arguments from the courts — from Judge Charles Breyer in the Los Angeles case and from Judge Immergut in Portland.

The Supreme Court will no doubt have the last word. And the question is going to be whether the president can use a contrived crisis as a justification for sending troops into our cities. In other words, the issue is going to come down to who decides the facts when it comes to domestic use of the military. That question meant one thing when we had presidents who, for whatever reason, were constrained to acknowledge reality. It means something else altogether in an administration for which, to borrow from George Orwell, 2 + 2 = 5.

Turning states against each other

The Bulwark’s Jonathan Last offers an overview of Trump’s increasingly authoritarian approach to Chicago, writing, “I don’t want to be alarmist, but this is an emergency”:

The president instructed federal agents to use extralegal violence against both immigrants and citizens in Chicago. When the citizenry of Chicago objected to these violent acts, the president used their First Amendment demonstrations of protest as pretext to deploy the Texas National Guard into the city, so that armed soldiers from Texas could impose the president’s will on the people of Illinois.

He is setting not just the federal government against one of the states, but pitting armed soldiers from one state against the citizens of another.

He argues that the rule of law is absolutely at risk:

At the moment, the courts could block Trump’s TexNG deployment, but the president has already announced that if a judge does rule against him, he will invoke the Insurrection Act and then continue the military deployments.

This is where we’ve been headed since January 6, 2021. The man who attempted a violent coup—who fomented an actual insurrection—will invent a fantasy insurrection to justify overturning the rule of law and deploying the U.S. military against civilians.

The thing about Rubicons is that they can’t be uncrossed. I struggle to understand why this practice won’t become a standard part of American governance going forward.

Think about it this way. Either what Trump is doing is legal, or it is illegal. If it is legal, then Trumpism must be defeated and there then must be a concerted effort to reform the law—and possibly even the Constitution—to prevent the next authoritarian attempt. If it is illegal, then eventually, someone has to go to jail for what this administration is doing to the country. If this story doesn’t end with one of those two outcomes, then we will see it replayed again. And again.

Will military commanders stand up to Trump if and when he issues an illegal order?

At The Atlantic, Tom Nichols warns that the “greatest crisis of American civil-military relations in modern history” is upon us:

Trump, of course, doesn’t care all that much about Venezuelan speedboats or costumed pranksters in Portland. He cares about power, which is why he is determined to flex military muscle on the streets of American cities. As opposition grows and his popularity falls, Trump may be tempted to issue orders to the military that will be aimed at suppressing dissent, or disrupting elections, or detaining political figures; he has already floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act, which could enable such actions. He may even become desperate enough to launch a foreign war—as he seems to be trying to do right now with Venezuela. If more of these orders come, how should the leaders of America’s armed forces respond?

He says that it’s up to senior U.S. military officials to stand, together, in Trump’s way and to make it clear to Trump that they will do so:

Even if one officer declines an illegal order, Trump can just keep firing people until he gets to another officer who is enough of a coward, or opportunist, or true MAGA believer, to carry out the order. The officer who finally says yes after the others say no would bring shame upon the U.S. armed forces, endanger U.S. citizens, and undermine the Constitution, but eventually, Trump will find that person.

This is why America’s senior military officers, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, must approach Trump now and make clear to him that they will not obey illegal orders to act against American citizens or disrupt the American political process. …

Military officers are human beings, not Vulcans or robots. Even the most virtuous young officer may tremble at the idea of refusing a direct order—especially one from the president of the United States. Others may be tempted to abandon their oath, either by ideology or a misplaced sense of obedience, and they should recall Hyten’s warning from 2017: “If you execute an unlawful order, you will go to jail. You could go to jail for the rest of your life.” Most American military personnel, however, need no reminder of their constitutional duty. But they do need some reassurance that they have support from their chain of command to resist illegal orders. And the rest of us, whether we’re elected officials or ordinary citizens, should do everything we can to let our fellow Americans in uniform know that if they risk their careers and even their freedom to protect the Constitution, we will stand with them.

Trump is breaking federalism

If You Can Keep It’s Amanda Carpenter writes that Trump’s cross-state National Guard deployments shred federalism:

The National Guard is a hybrid force, typically under the command of a state’s governor. In our nation’s history, the extraordinary federal power to override a governor has been a last resort in moments of true crisis, such as when enforcing desegregation in Little Rock or quelling an actual insurrection. But that’s not what’s happening here. The White House is sending troops from Texas to Chicago, not to address a genuine emergency, but to override political opposition. In sending troops from red states to police blue states who object to their presence, the White House is bypassing that structure and overriding the will of the states.

The troops being sent to Chicago from the Texas National Guard represent an express end run around Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, who stated the deployment is a symbol of “gubernatorial authority being trampled, state sovereignty being ignored, and the constitutional balance between states being attacked.” The United States cannot remain a federalist system when soldiers from one state are sent to police another state against the explicit wishes of its elected leaders and when the justification for it is a lie.

She also explains that Trump “is dangerously and perversely fusing the roles of the U.S. military and domestic agencies”:

The U.S. military is trained and equipped to confront foreign adversaries, operating under rules of engagement designed for war. Agencies like DHS and ICE are constrained by the U.S. Constitution and are supposed to protect constitutional rights. What we are seeing now is the worst of both worlds: domestic agents adopting military tactics, and the military itself being drawn into domestic political conflicts. Neither the military nor federal agents are trained or legally intended to perform each other’s roles. …

Using soldiers to enforce civilian law blurs the line between the police and the military, conditioning Americans to accept armed troops on their streets as normal. It creates loyalty tests for mayors and governors, undermines the nonpolitical standing of our military, and shreds the checks and balances that protect our freedom. This is a hallmark of tyranny, which our Founders recognized clearly when the king’s soldiers patrolled the streets of colonial America, intimidated opponents of the monarchy, and suppressed their speech.

Can Democrats seize the moment?

Our own Ed Kilgore notes an opportunity:

[I]t’s significant that a federal judge is looking behind the curtain at the Trump’s perpetual declarations that any opposition to his wishes represents an emergency, triggering special executive powers. This could be the key to at least a modicum of judicial restraint on the rampant law-and-order president.

Politically, however, the administration will surely continue to probe the boundaries of judicial tolerance at his power grabs on the grounds that the public (or close to half of it) wants strongman conduct to deal with perceived out-of-control immigration and crime. If Democrats want to stimulate an effective backlash to the ongoing military takeover of U.S. cities, they need to do more than articulate legal arguments for state and local control over law enforcement while challenging ICE’s provocative excesses. They need their own credible positions on immigration and crime instead of perpetually changing the subject to “turf” they consider safer. The public is already wary of GOP overreach on immigration and of the GOP’s structural inability to address gun violence other than by arming the population to the teeth in the vain hope that vigilantes will protect us. Voters need alternatives to authoritarianism as strategies for enforcing the law and maintaining order.

Read the rest here.

Provocation may be the point

The Dispatch’s Nick Catoggio points out that Trump’s National Guard deployments are “all being done in bad faith, as a provocation, and quite plainly”:

There’s barely a pretense anymore of a colorable emergency like a riot that might justify the president deploying troops. He’s doing it unbidden and enthusiastically, looking for excuses to intimidate Democrats by symbolically occupying their cities with troops yanked from duty in other states.

It’s a little tease of martial law, just in case he feels obliged at some point to try that, too. Which feels like a form of incitement, no?

I don’t think left-leaning observers are being hysterical in suspecting a dark strategy here in which the Guardsmen who’ve been deployed are essentially being used as bait.

He adds that in the minds of Trump and, in particular, top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, the more strife the better:

The point of all of these provocations is simple. It’s to convince Americans that their political opponents aren’t opponents but enemies and should be dealt with accordingly. The more terrified Democrats get, the more likely it is that the degenerate apples in their bunch will act out. And the more they act out, the stronger the pretext Trump will have to deal with them as true enemies. That may sound cynical, as you and I aren’t used to seeing our government try to incite domestic discord, but we’re also not used to seeing the executive branch repeatedly seize the powers of a second branch while moving toward defying the powers of the third. …

Domestic discord is essential to Trumpist postliberalism, dedicated as it is to the permanent hegemony of one national tribe over another. (If you don’t believe me, believe Miller.) Both parties have done a terrible job this century of encouraging comity between left and right, but only one has glorified ruthlessness toward one’s opponents to the point of talking itself into attempting a coup—which it will do again, I promise, if circumstances in 2028 necessitate it. “American versus American” is the logical end state of Trumpism, and so provocations to incite that dynamic will recur continuously for the rest of his term. Maybe the courts can prevent it. Maybe the public, which is properlyskeptical of his military deployments, can. Or maybe not.

Buckle up, New Yorkers

Ross Barkan peers into the near future:

Since Trump views so much of life as one macabre TV production, the denouement for his National Guard deployment obsession is probably going to be in New York City. Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim socialist, is on track to become mayor, and Trump can dream of no greater foil. NYPD leadership has already urged the Trump administration to stay away, but it’s hard to imagine him resisting the spectacle of flooding his old stomping grounds with National Guardsmen. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic governor, did deploy troops last year to stand in subway stations as a crime deterrent, and Trump will be ready to exploit that reality as a pretext for a much larger escalation. To gin up confrontations, Trump and Miller will seek to further surge ICE agents into the city next year, and protests, if peaceful, will be quite large. At that point, Trump will gladly federalize more guardsmen, perhaps dispatching the Texans that he’s been so eager to wield against other states. This is the future Democrats must prepare for. One can only hope, as in Los Angeles, that Trump eventually loses interest — or that he views all of it, at some point, as a political liability. Until then, or until, somehow, the Supreme Court intervenes, he will keep renewing the National Guard road show for new seasons.

Read the rest here.

Will Americans reject all this?

Though he doesn’t seem to realize it, Trump is already unpopular, and his strongman tactics against Democrat-led cities and states aren’t likely to help with that. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday indicates that 58 percent of Americans (including just over half of Republicans) think the U.S. military should only be used to confront external threats. The poll also found that 83 percent of Americans believe the military should remain politically neutral. Then again, since Trump seems to invent polling in his head, a popular backlash to any of this might not matter to him in the slightest.

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