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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   35104 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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Signs point to Donald Trump soon invoking the Insurrection Act (paywalled, but you can get around it with Reader View):

The clock is ticking down on a crucial but little-noticed part of President Donald Trump’s first round of executive orders — the one tasking the secretaries of the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to submit a joint report, within 90 days, recommending “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.”

Many of us are now holding our collective breath, knowing that the report and what it contains could put us on the slippery slope toward unchecked presidential power under a man with an affinity for ironfisted dictators.

Adding to the suspense was the recent “Friday Night Massacre” at the Pentagon — the firing of the nation’s top uniformed officer and removing other perceived guardrails (i.e., the top uniformed lawyers at the Army, Navy and Air Force) standing between the president and his long-stated intention to declare martial law upon returning to power.

And here's the linked EO they're referencing:

(a) Within 30 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the President, through the Homeland Security Advisor, a report outlining all actions taken to fulfill the requirements and objectives of this proclamation; and

(b) Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 essentially allows the President to declare martial law by deploying the military to "suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or rebellion".

I still don't think that Trump is going to make a serious attempt at establishing permanent one-party rule. What would be the play, exactly? Declare permanent martial law and then cancel elections in four years? I don't think there's much appetite for that, either with him or with the members of his inner circle. But then again, I also never predicted that he would cut off military aid to Ukraine either, so my predictions have already been wrong once!

It seems like we've had a slight uptick in leftist (or at least anti-Trump) posters lately so I'd be particularly interested in hearing their thoughts.

99% certain invoking the Insurrection Act with respect to the southern border is purely to get around weird, nonsensical laws that forbid our armed forces from actually protecting the border. Because due to the clown world we all live in, the one thing our armed forces is not allowed to do is defend it's country's borders. It can only destroy things overseas in pointless adventurism. Even these last 2 months, they've had to pussy foot around the issue, having the armed forces only provide logistical support to border patrol. But due to labyrinthine tangles of court precedent, bad (imho) law, and other objectively insane nonsense no other country would ever conceive of tolerating, unless they invoke the insurrection act, the armed forces are not allowed to protect our border.

The structuring of the EO, having these deadlines and having these reports is probably nothing but bureaucratic legal necessity to minimize the chances that some random Hawaiian judge with pull an Uno Reverse, and then the Supreme Court will agree with them on purely procedural grounds.

I'll eat crow (and probably cheer from the roof tops, I can't lie) if Trump uses this as an excuse to start a 1000 Year Trumpenreich. But I'm 99% certain it's just to get around the objectively terrible legal environment for having our army actually defend our country. Because we are apparently insane as a nation.

At this point, sending troops to the Mexican border is kayfabe. The Biden-era problem wasn't that the government wasn't catching illegal immigrants - it was catching them and releasing them because the process for working out what to do with them was slashdotted. If you credibly threaten to speedy-deport the latest wave of border-jumpers, or to throw them in the oubliette while the immigration judges work through the backlog, then they stop coming. Have stopped coming, even.

I mean, that being the case, the report from Homeland Security might come back "Nah, we good" and no insurrection act gets invoked and no troops get deployed.

Unlikely. Trump loves the kayfabe.

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