Trump may have lost immigration cases in court, but now he's about to get his biggest win: martial law. By Hal M. Brown
You seen enough vomit inducing images of Trump as a warrior (like the one above of him on a Trump tank which you can get on a flag for $10.99 from eBay.. This is how Trump wants to see himself. It is also how people like Pete Hegseth and Tom Homan want to see themselves. Perhaps Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem also want to see themselves this way too. I’m reminded of the self-help sayings that you can “be all that you want to be.”
Some people want to achieve great things in science, business, enterainment, sports, or public survice. Others want to want to have power which enables them to aggressively dominate others. Some of them are attracted to using their power based on being able to intimidate with the threat of, or the use of, violence.
Now we get to the news of the day and the news that can change our country for the foreseeable future.
This morning any other news pales in comparison to the story about Trump’s response to the reactions of people taking to the streets in Los Angeles to the ICE raids. The words used to describe what people are doing depends on how one wants to frame this. This is HUFFPOST this morning:
This is MSNBC:
This is what people in India are reading:
India, which is now armed to the teeth, it is worth noting is the country that gave the world Mahatma Ghandi.
Anything I can write about how outrageous and terrifying this is is being written and talked about by others with a vastly bigger audience. Any words I can use are being used by others.
It is a no-brainer that Calforinia has enough law enforcement personnel to deal with this by bringing in officers from other jurisdictions besides the LA area.
What is obvious is that Trump relishes doing this himself.
There was what in retrospect can be called a minor brouhaha over Trump’s planning a humongous military parade to ostensibly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Army which will be held on his own birthday.
Conveniently for him, there will be a mini-army of miltary hardware in Washington that his top warrior Pete Hegseth can use to squelch any protests. He is itching to mobilize the Marines from Camp Pendleton, one of the largest Marine bases in the country, and I can see him going there to take command personally.
Click above to enlarge photo.
Anticipating what will happen over the next days the famous photo of the man called “Tank Man comes to mind:
So does the equally famous photo in the upper left below, along with the other Kent State Massacre photos shown:
In order to be the dictator he wants to be Trump needs to use the military domestically. In order to do this legally he has to declare martial law. Whether he does this formally today in a few days or weeks, he has already effectively done this.
Can Trump actually do this legally has been debated. For example in this article: Martial Law in the United States: Its Meaning, Its History, and Why the President Can’t Declare It.
… and in this article: “The President’s Power to Call Out the National Guard Is Not a Blank Check.”
Such questions may be irrelevant because, after all, this is Donald Trump and we know what he thinks about the pesky laws which tell him he isn’t allowed to do what he wants to do.
Recommended reading: Wag the Dog, by Steve Schmidt.
Excerpt:
What the American people are witnessing is Trump and Stephen Miller’s rolling Reichstag fire. We are witnesses to a monstrous lie being used as a pretext to assert power. What we are seeing is what former Defense Secretary Mark Esper stopped cold in 2020 when Trump suggested shooting protesters amid the civil unrest that took place after George Floyd's murder.
Addendum: Few of you ever look at X. If you do and search for “martial law” right now the following, in order, are the first tweets that appear. Clicking will just enlarge them not go to X. Note right now my tweet is on the top.
Update (9:30 Pacific time): I don’t know how bad an event has to be for both the NYT and WaPo websites to take the right column off. At least the Post has large font in their main headline.
Other readers and I don’t know what you think about this unless you leave a comment.
Recent (click to enlarge)
I've been thinking and saying this for months. A declaration of martial law will be the ruse to call off the midterm elections and end the chance of impeachment and conviction. Unless the Supreme Court (and the military) do something drastic quickly, we're history. I predict he'll see next Saturday's parade as his big, beautiful chance to declare martial law.` God save the Republic.
What's next? Live rounds against protesters? When are the troops going to stand up and reject unconstitutional orders? Will they? This is worse than the 1960s by far.