I concur with the editors of the Chicago Tribune:
What we haven’t seen until now is Donald Trump appearing before a gathering gathering of the nation’s military commanders — summoned to Quantico, Virginia, from all over the globe for what turned out to be a bizarre made-for-TV rally of sorts — and describing our fellow citizens as “the enemy within” and who and adding our city to his list of potential “training grounds” for troops who enlist enlist to defend America from foreign adversaries.
Trump speaks illiberally as a matter of habit. It’s sad to say that many Americans, whether supporters or opponents, at this point are inured to the schoolyard taunts and cartoonish bravado from our nation’s commander in chief.
But context in this case makes all the difference. It made these words — as Chicago braces for an incursion of federal troops over the objections of Gov. JB Pritzker — disturbing.
I urge Chicago’s elected leaders not to sink to Trump’s level. I also urge them to think twice before defending conduct including throwing things at law enforcement officers or assaulting them as “protected speech”.
Update
And I agree with the editors of the Washington Post:
America’s cities ought not to be training grounds for preparing troops for future conflicts. That’s not why soldiers serve. Defending the homeland is different from policing it.
There are ways of blurring the difference and we should avoid them.
Despite the rhetoric from Trump and others, there are still strict legal limits on what federalized troops can do. The example of the deployment to DC is illustrative – troops mostly standing around and picking up trash. As with most things, Trump cares more about the optics than the reality.
What Trump said about “training grounds” is risible, but it’s also risible to assume what Trump says is true as the WaPo does here.
The National Guard units being deployed have police training and/or certifications. Many are volunteering for the duty. In Oregon at least 166 out of 300 of the NG volunteered for this type of duty. In Illinois 100 NG are being deployed. Volunteerism engages a lot of motives beyond agreement with policy, but the WaPo is disconnected from any knowledge of why they serve and what the NG does. In Chicago, the NG was deployed for crowd control at mass COVID vaccination sites. In New Orleans, they took up the slack following mass attrition of the NOPD. I get the distinction between governors ordering the NG to supplement policing and the federal government’s more limited authority, but that doesn’t change member composition and training.
The governor of a state has the legal authority to deploy the guard and I think they reasonably low bars for doing so. They live in the state and have an understanding of the capabilities of their police and support structures. However, we have a long history of the military (mostly) avoiding being involved in domestic disputes. Trump is ordering in troops when the states dont want them. He is choosing cities based upon his political preferences noting that he is not sending them to cities with the highest crime rates and there is no evidence of an emergency anywhere.
Legal limits? They are now fully armed. You are still going to have a group of 19-20 y/o guys somewhere with a butter bar lieutenant in charge somewhere that has to decide when to shoot. Our past, heck, the history of the world, shows that leads to troubles.
Volunteers? Heck yes! If you actually served in the military or the police you know that here are a sizable number who will want to go put people in there place. A lot fo them will true MAGA. Heck, some will just have jobs they want out of for a few weeks, while still getting paid.
So I think what is being down here is the breaking down of norms, again. Trump has established that he can send troops anywhere and for any reasons he wants. He has not laid the groundwork for expanding that and let military leaders know they need to support current and future changes. Trump can now call anyone he wants a terrorist and order the military to kill them. If any officer disputes that, citing legal limits like Andy alludes to, they are OTD.
Steve
The legal limits are that federal forces are being deployed only to protect federal personnel and property. (D.C. is different) The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Newsom v. Trump affirmed in June that there was no evidence that federal forces had exceeded those limits by participating in any arrests. This read as a marker that the ruling would change if there was such evidence.
The trial court recently found that they was now evidence of violations of the Posse Comitatus Act with the military “setting up protective perimeters, traffic blockades, crowd control, and the like.” There was an instance where someone attempted to enter a federal building after being warned twice by a Marine that he couldn’t enter. The trespasser was restrained without questioning until a federal law enforcement officer took him away. At a residential immigration enforcement operation, the military set up a traffic road block to stop incoming traffic while DEA raided a cannabis farm operation. The trial judge conceded that deployment had “deterred engagement by the public, especially by those who might have attempted to hinder or protest an arrest by ICE agents.” But also noted some of these operations didn’t appear to have anything to do with immigration.
This ruling was immediately stayed by the Court of Appeals. What it means to “participate” in arrests will set the limits. But if someone wants to argue that in the 1950s, a soldier securing the right of a black girl to go to school, could not set up a perimeter to keep protestors back, and detain someone who trespasses until they could be taken by law enforcement, then I won’t believe you. The stuff about facilitating narcotics enforcement seems to be completely unrelated to the justification given.
“Volunteers? Heck yes! If you actually served in the military or the police you know that here are a sizable number who will want to go put people in there place. A lot fo them will true MAGA. Heck, some will just have jobs they want out of for a few weeks, while still getting paid. ”
“Sizable” and “a lot of” are doing a lot of work here. Sure, there are MAGA people in the military and in the Guard – I think it’s hard to estimate just how many, and one shouldn’t conclude they are ones volunteering, much less that they are doing so to “put people in their place.” And this is a professional force, not some rabble that’s going to allow such people to cowboy.
Having served in the Guard myself, I think your last sentence is more accurate in my experience. Some Guard and Reservists will “double dip” if their civilian employers continue to pay them while they are activated. For others, activations provide more pay and benefits than their civilian jobs. Others are what are colloquially called “Guard/Reserve bums” – these are individuals who want to make military duty almost a full-time job by constantly accepting extra orders, temporary assignments, or drills beyond the standard.