There’s growing concern that President Donald Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act to bring National Guard troops under federal control and deploy them within the U.S. This speculation may be partly because one of President Trump’s Inauguration Day executive orders, which declared a national emergency at the southern border set an April 20 deadline for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to recommend whether to use the Insurrection Act. That date is approaching quickly.
Make no mistake: If Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to activate federalized troops for mass deportation—whether at the border or somewhere else in the country—it would be unprecedented, unnecessary, and wrong. But the president has already been increasing domestic military use. As recently as April 11th, he issued a new memorandum with yet another chill-inducing title: "Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” It’s worth repeating that there is no invasion of America, and if President Trump doubts that, he could consult himself. Last month he declared on Truth Social that the (fictional) “Invasion of our Country is OVER.” Yet under his new directive, the Defense Department is claiming new and potentially expansive powers over large swaths of federal land—including where US citizens and other border residents live. .
Let’s step back a bit first and recall the military’s proper, limited role on U.S. soil, and the dangerous steps President Trump is already taking in service of his cruel anti-immigrant, anti-American agenda.
America needs to get revamp the constitution hard. The president has too much power and the checks and balances don’t work. This shouldn’t be possible.
The constitution has plenty of checks for this and it starts with Congress (Article I).
Republicans can grow a spine and stop this today. They could have voted to impeach him twice. They don’t have to fund this! They choose to. This is the obeying in advance thing.
Three representatives in the house absolutely can pull a John McCain and 👎the slim margin and hold this up. From Rand Paul to Susan Collin’s and everyone in between they can find reasons to hold their vote and bring this action down. Just say hey they lied about social security or they lied about the tariffs and go from there.
But they’re all so close to retirement. They won’t piss any party members off before the bounce. Then write a book about how hard they wagged their finger and write scathing letters.
They do work, the other branches are just fully captured. He was impeached twice. If congress did their jobs he wouldn’t have finished his first term, much less had a second term. He was taken to court and the Supreme Court said he was basically untouchable. Democrats refused to take any action against him, presumably out of fear they’d be seen as reactionary (LOL) and hoping to sway some moderates that would be dissuaded be that. The issue is the people in these branches, many of them with constituents who supported their inaction. If everyone in the other branches was replaced today with people who cared about democracy, things would be very different. Unfortunately, half of all voters legitimately want this and have been supporting people who promised to make it happen. America is a democracy and this is what the people want apparently. Trump just matched his highest ever approval rating. Democracy working as intended.
If I remember the figures correctly, only 30% of eligible voters voted for Trump. The other 30% voted for Harris. Then the remaining 40% of eligible voters sat out the presidential elections (these non-votes didn’t mean that they tacitly approve of Trump though). Strictly speaking, this is not what Americans actually wanted. Moreover, with the chaos of Trump tariff, his approval rating is actually the lowest among the presidents within their first one hundred days.
Yeah, I’m aware that plenty of people did not vote. Unfortunately, if you don’t vote you’re not participating in the democracy part of an actual democracy. I regularly make excuses for people who are otherwise politically active, and just didn’t vote in this election, but that doesn’t change the fact that that this outcome is the outcome of an at the time “functioning democracy.”
Polls (on US adults not just on voters) had been putting his approval/disapproval within 2 points of each other, his approval being higher than disapproval on multiple days and within margin of error on others. His approval rating is higher overall this term than last term. He has a steady lead in approval on immigration. He’s certainly not our most popular president, but both approval and disapproval are generally in the 40s. Hard to act like there is an overwhelming majority of people who dislike his policies. It’s kind of damning in itself that the tariffs are the thing most affecting his rating and it’s still in the 40s. I don’t think this is some big turning point.
Nah they are too scared someone might take away their favourite murder weapons.
I do wonder if anything we came up with would be weak to bad faith.
If all of the checks and balances are effectively under one person’s control then nope. In the end I don’t think there’s any magical text you can write that would’ve avoided this (not Trump specifically but Presidential tyranny). The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Turns out the constitution is weak to ignorant voters
There have been attempts at an Article 5 Convention but often doesn’t get enough traction.
At this point, a civil war is far more likely than a constitutional amendment passing.