blackjack21 wrote:Not exactly. The president does have that authority. Bush federalized National Guard troops in California during the LA riots. Eisenhower did too to enforce school desegregation. Troops are not allowed to enforce basic laws, but they can put down insurrections and rebellions.
But in LA, this was after California's governor requested for Federal assistance. In Little Rock, it was a Civil Rights issue, which is one of the exceptions to that rule.
blackjack21 wrote:Basically, the president has the authority to suppress rebellions and insurrections, and that is what we're seeing now. The president announced today that he would do that. I suggest he starts with Lafayette park first, and then move on to Minneapolis. It's going to take 100k troops on the streets. It's not going to be a small use of force.
The President does but it's not unlimited either (obviously to prevent the Federal Government from abusing power, which is also why they made it a Federal crime at the pressure of the South to stop the Reconstruction - it's a bit ironic this is now limiting Trump's powers):
US Code wrote:Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.
blackjack21 wrote:They fought the Civil War. So... Do you think the Civil War was illegal?
Also an exception under the preamble to the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation (which said that the Union is to be perpetual - how can the Union become more perfect yet stop being perpetual?). And then, if it happened again, I guess the following would apply:
US Code wrote:Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.
blackjack21 wrote:A lot of the people commenting here are not American and do not understand the sentiments on the ground.
Although I live in the US, I'm not American. Maybe that's why I see things differently, and can read the signals differently as well.
@Saeko posted something from Reddit that is saying what I did earlier with regards to the Democrats: They are being deserted by its far left wing, and while I would not be so sure they will leave electoral politics to do politics by other means in the long run, it does seem to me many may stay home come November. If they do, you'll get Trump again.
This isn't even an American thing, it's been happening in other countries. And indeed, one could even say this should have been expected to happen here given the ideological influence from the American far left: Americans are kinda self-centered not to realize this, but their identity politics is one of the US' nontraditional exports that also happens to be even more damaging than one of America's
other nontraditional exports (CO2) and has gone to the extent that Marxism is secondary to the far left outside America even if there has not been an explicit repudiation of it. Snowflakism, along with the zealotry that goes with the most extreme cases of if, has also been another thing both the American far left and far right have been exporting abroad although the former has been more successful so far.
The far left they have been influencing abroad has also been deserting the party system in presidential republics, and for the same reasons as in the US: The rest of society isn't willing to vote for them and give in to everything they demand, even if some of their concerns are shared by much of the public, at least in part because of how they conduct themselves - you know, cancel culture, snowflakism and the like, so why would the US be an exception? The left wing of the Democrat party lost twice in 2016 (first, within the Party to Hillary Clinton and then they got Trump), and lost again (and with a lot more authority) to Biden in the Democratic primary. Since they see both as being part of the same system (in the same way that they see African American majors, police superintendents and cops themselves to be part of the same racist system), and they are absolutely convinced to be beacons of morality for society, it's not that surprising to see them to stop playing the a game they don't like and which they don't win.
The thing, however, is that they don't realize they are playing with fire by doing that: If they decide to pursue politics by the fist, they shouldn't expect the rest of society to cave in to something that looks a lot like an imposition. I would seriously advice them to stop doing that, because their chances of winning are about zero: They have neither the arms (they don't like the cops and the cops don't like them, they don't like the military and the military doesn't like them and they don't even like guns themselves) nor the popular support to win this fight. Even if Trump (hopefully) loses, Biden is unlikely to give in to everything either because he will address issues like police brutality, healthcare, poverty and the environment in the way his constituency, the moderate wing of the Party, wants, not in the way Bernie bros want since the winner of the Democratic primary was Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders. And they will have to accept they cannot impose themselves on everyone else without facing pushback (Trump's election was itself a warning), something they seem to be unable to do which will lead to harsher pushback. Until now they've been regarded as an annoyance but given the lawlessness going on right now they may end up being regarded as something worse, in the same way anarchists came to be regarded 100 years ago and which ended badly for them.