"Let’s stop pretending that any of this is normal"

 

Donald Trump was asked about invoking the Insurrection Act: “I’d do it if it was necessary. … If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors, or mayors were holding us up. Sure, I’d do that.” 

It’s hard to mistake what’s happening here. This is a president in the process of looking for excuses and seeing how far he can go until someone—right now it’s the courts—reins him in.

The Insurrection Act is the primary vehicle for circumventing Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the use of the military on American soil to enforce laws against American citizens. That is not the role the military plays in American democracy. The Insurrection Act is reserved for extreme situations like rebellions or invasions. 

Trump is fully capable of spinning a narrative that would claim one of those preconditions, even while having no resemblance to the truth. We’re seeing that happen now, in the context of claiming various states’ National Guards must be mobilized to fight rampant crime in American cities, which is, of course, not the case.

After a loss in court in Oregon Saturday night, when District Judge Karin Immergut ruled that the administration could not federalize National Guard troops based on made-up complaints about crime (No, Virginia, Portland is not a war zone), the Trump administration flagrantly violated her order, threatening to send National Guard troops from both California and Texas into Oregon. That provoked a rare Sunday night emergency hearing. The administration threatened to send troops into Chicago, too.

Let’s just put the obvious front and center here. Local police departments are more than capable of handling local crime problems. They don’t need help in the form of military boots on the ground from the feds. State and local law enforcement benefit from the provision of federal grants that permit them to hire, train, educate, supervise, and upgrade technology and equipment. They don’t need National Guardsmen who aren’t trained in community policing and don’t know state law to be dropped in, under federal control, supposedly, to help.

Our system of federalism leaves policing crime on American streets up to the states. Sending troops into our cities is intended for true emergencies, when governors request assistance. There is no reason to believe police departments in Portland and Chicago can’t do their jobs, and every reason to believe they can. 

The question we have to ask is, why does an American president want to upset this balance, which has served for almost 250 years? There is no good answer to this question.

Then there is Chicago. While there was reporting late today that a federal judge in Chicago declined to enjoin the administration from sending Guard troops to that city this afternoon, it’s important to understand the reason. Judge April Perry did so in order to take time to obtain more information about the situation, based on Illinois and Chicago’s recently filed complaint. 

In other words, she is building a record (necessary for a decision to stand up on appeal) before ruling, likely either during or shortly after a hearing she has scheduled on Thursday. The Judge described herself as “very troubled by the lack of answers” the government provided in court on the deployment. This is hardly a win for the Trump administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Levitt helped to underscore concerns about the administration’s credibility on the necessity of federalizing the National Guard, albeit unintentionally. She called out CNN’s Kaitlan Collins for rejecting the administration’s characterization of Portland as awash in crime, saying, “I would encourage you, as a reporter, to go on the ground and to take a look for yourself ... You’re probably talking to partisan Democrat officials who are opposed to everything this president does.”

Collins responded that she was quoting Portland’s police chief when she spoke about crime in the city, and she brought the receipts, reposting her interview.

As Judge Immergut wrote in her opinion Saturday night, judges aren’t required to ignore the facts on the ground when determining whether there was a reason to federalize and deploy National Guard troops and “The President’s own statements regarding the deployment of federalized National Guardsmen further support that his determination was not ‘conceived in good faith’ or ‘in the face of the emergency and directly related to the quelling of the disorder or the prevention of its continuance.’” We are, as she wrote, “a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”

We all know what Portland and Chicago have in common with other cities Trump has threatened with military might, like Los Angeles and Memphis. It’s that they are run by Democrats. This is about control and intimidation, not about fighting crime. National Guard troops aren’t trained to do that like police are, because of the longstanding prohibition against using the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.

That didn’t stop Secretary of Defense Hegseth from calling up 400 members of the Texas National Guard on Sunday, apparently with Governor Abbott’s blessing, to be deployed “where needed, including in the cities of Portland and Chicago.”

Democrats are fighting back, and they’re doing it effectively.

In light of the California and Texas mobilizations, Oregon went back to court, with California, on Sunday, asking for an injunction to prevent those states’ National Guard troops from being sent onto Oregon streets. Judge Immergut, a former federal prosecutor, asked the DOJ lawyer, “How could bringing in federalized National Guard [from California] not be in direct contravention of the TRO [temporary restraining order] I entered yesterday?” She reiterated, “Isn’t this just circumventing my order?” The Judge granted Oregon and California’s motion to block the new call-up of Guard troops to Portland.

The Judge granted the temporary stay for 14 days and set out a road map for what comes next:

A telephone hearing on October 17, 2025, to address whether the new temporary restraining order should be extended for another 14 days.

A deadline of October 17 for filing a motion for a preliminary injunction. (Defendants’ response is due no later than October 23, 2025, and Plaintiffs’ must reply by October 27, 2025—the case is on a lightning fast schedule.)

A combined hearing on the preliminary injunction motion and a trial on the merits of plaintiffs Oregon and California’s complaint on October 29, 2025.

Trump’s people are again suggesting that he ignore judicial decisions instead of appealing ones he doesn’t like. Matt Walsh tweeted, “We have long reached the point where Trump needs to openly defy these judges. Some random federal judge has no authority to decide how and if troops are deployed. She is not the commander in chief. Ignore her and deploy them. It’s time for a showdown with these activist judges.” If you’re going to write or call your Republican elected officials, make sure you ask them where they stand on this. Last time these calls emerged, enough Republicans spoke out against them that they dissipated. We should encourage that again, before this can accelerate. Walsh has 3.9 million followers.

But based on Trump’s statements this afternoon, turning to the Insurrection Act could be his next move if he keeps losing when he tries to use Section 12406 to federalize National Guard troops. When we get to that point, Trump will undoubtedly argue, again, that the courts can’t review his decision about invoking the Insurrection Act. 

Presidents have great latitude here, under an 1827 case, Martin v. Mott, where the Supreme Court ruled that “the authority to decide whether [an exigency requiring the militia to be called out] has arisen belongs exclusively to the President, and … his decision is conclusive upon all other persons.” But there are still exceptions. 

After Martin, the Court suggested that if a president acts in bad faith, exceeds “a permitted range of honest judgment,” makes an obvious mistake, or acts in a manner that is manifestly unauthorized by law, the courts may intervene.

Additional information surfaced demonstrating how close we may be to use of the Insurrection Act. The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that there were photos of a Signal chat showing Hegseth considered sending the 82nd Airborne into Portland.

What’s the most important thing we can do right now? Let’s stop pretending that any of this is normal. I know that most of you are past that point. It’s a good moment to share your insights directly with those around you. The way a democracy survives a moment like this one, where a would-be dictator tries to control American streets with the military and militarized federal law enforcement, is by refusing to flinch in the face of the truth. This is all outrageous.

Almost two months ago, I wrote to you that Trump was trying to move the Overton Window, the range of policies considered acceptable at a given time by the public and policymakers. I wrote, “For instance, the idea of deploying the National Guard, or even the military, on American streets to control the local population is something we would have considered far outside of the Window for decades.” 

In just two short months, Trump has normalized, for a significant part of the population, the idea of doing just that. “For the casual observer of American politics, he’s creating a new normal and shifting the Overton Window to include a presidential takeover of American cities.”

So let’s not lose sight of how crazy this is or be afraid to call it out on that basis. It’s the gaslighting of America.

What stops Trump? We do. When there is pushback, TACO: Trump always chickens out. It’s time to educate the people around us about what’s going on—a surprising number of people are blissfully unaware. Trump backs down in the face of sustained opposition. Let’s give him a reason to do just that.

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We’re in this together,

Joyce Vance