Los Angeles is burning, literally and metaphorically speaking. There are violent riots, mass looting, and officers being attacked in the streets.
Now, President Donald Trump isbreaking a bombshell: he is definitely thinking about using a 200-year-old law passed in 1807 to suppress the upheaval.
Los Angeles has gone to Hell.
Peaceful demonstrations that began in the Latino communities soon gave way to the blaze of anger as the raids of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents grew in the city. Residents went out in the streets seeking answers, yet all they received in response was a military action — at the direct request of Donald Trump.
On the weekend, the ex-president ordered 2,000 National Guard soldiers to the Los Angeles region. And when the situation failed to simmer down? He redoubled.
Another 2,000 troops had been deployed by Monday night (June 9). And to top it all, the Pentagon threw in 700 U.S. Marines into the ingredient.
But Trump did not stop there.
Well, in case of insurrection I would most surely invoke it. “We will find out,” he threatened at a press briefing on Tuesday.
Used before
He is invokeing the Insurrection Act of 1807, which is seldom used but gives presidents the ability to deploy active-duty military into American cities to seize power during times of severe lawlessness. When was the last time it was used in LA? In the 1992 riots after the Rodney King verdict.
The Insurrection Act was invoked by President Ulysses S. Grant during the aftermath of the Civil War to help fight an outbreak of racial violence, especially by the Ku Klux Klan, which was terrorizing Black communities in the South.
In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower looked to the same law to implement school desegregation years later. He ordered the U.S. Army to make sure that nine African-American students could successfully enter Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas, after the governor of that state declined to follow a federal order to integrate the school.
And Trump is threatening to use it once again.
”It is an all-out attack on peace, on public order and national sovereignty by rioters waving foreign flags with the intention of perpetuating a foreign invasion of our country, he said Tuesday during a visit to troops at Fort Bragg.
”This chaos will not be tolerated. We will not tolerate the assaulting of federal agents, we will not tolerate the invasion and conquest of an American city by a foreign foe.”
The American government has historically shunned the application of military force on American soil, especially on American citizens. There is still uncertainty as to what form of legal resistance or constitutional challenges Trump might face should he choose to deploy the Insurrection Act.
Trump retaliates against Gavin Newsom speech
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been an ardent critic of the Trump military crackdown.
I have official asked the Trump Administration to withdraw their illegal troop surge in the county of Los Angeles and back them back under my orders.
We didn t have an issue, until Trump intervened. It is a grave violation of state sovereignty — of stoking tensions and withdrawing resources where they are in fact required.”
Newsom gave a fiery televised speech in which he charged that Trump was making force into a political spectacle: Raising his voice in front of the U.S. and California flags, he was not subtle about the larger message of what Trump was doing.
California may be first, but it is obvious that it will not be the last. warned he would take on other states as well.
He became even more urgent in his message when he talked about the increasing unrest and the federal intervention.
Next is democracy. Right before our eyes, democracy is being attacked. This feared moment has come upon us.”
The situation is growing tense in a number of cities
But Trump, as usual, responded on Truth Social:
“When Governor Gavin Newscum [sic], of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, are unable to do their job, which we all know they cannot, the Federal Government will take over and get the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, solved the way it is supposed to be solved, with firmness and decisiveness!!!!”
As the responsibilities of the National Guard troops have now been extended to not only securing buildings but also ICE agents during immigration raids, the tension is growing rapidly not only in LA but all across the country. Similar protests are erupting in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Austin.
