The Insurrection Act
Can Trump use it to overthrow the US Constitution?
First, a completely unnecessary disclaimer (because anyone can read my profile): I Am Not A Lawyer (IANAL). So, don’t expect any of this to reflect actual legal training or experience. What I am is an old guy who’s been watching politics since the 1960’s and thinks he has a pretty decent grasp on how Americans think. Maybe. I also worked for the Feds for over 42 years, so I’ve been watching that from inside as well. I know how federal workers think.
So, I’ve seen a lot of wordage spilled recently about how Trump’s supporters (not his campaign, officially) have this ‘Project 2025’ thing going on that reflects Trump’s thinking (supposing he’s smart enough to even think) about how to remake the US Government according to the Republican Party’s (read that as “the American Fascist Party’s”) Utopian dreams.
And even reading a précis of that, it’s pretty Utopian in character. Lots of wishes and lots of wanna be’s, but much of that’s dreamland. But more on that later.
Basically, he wants to use US federal troops to enforce his wishes and his law. He wants to declare the authorization of the Insurrection Act to use federal troops at his inauguration to prevent protests and demonstrations. Further, he wants to use them for various law enforcement purposes as time goes on to enforce his authoritarian dictatorship. (Though he doesn’t use that word, necessarily). He also wants to eliminate various federal Departments, including the department of Education, Energy, etc., because of course, they interfere with his donors’ making money or propagandizing their (read: your) kids.
This Project 2025 is long, over 900 pages, I’m told. It’s also tied to the Heritage Foundation and a number of his inner circle, including some currently under indictment with him in his little conspiracy in Georgia.
Now, I’m not going to try and delve into its details. I’m not about to waste my time reading 900 pages of bullshit insurrectionist literature. I’m too damn old to waste my time with that. What I can do is try to bring some light into this and calm down some of the breathless panic going on over this.
So, let’s look at this in a somewhat more sane manner, shall we? Ignore the hype. I know it sounds bad, and frankly, anything that imagines disbanding any current federal Departments designed to protect your average American from either social, physical, or environmental dangers isn’t anything I’d see as a good thing. But that’s not my point.
My point is, how likely is any of this to come about?
To start with, let’s examine the very first thing Trump wants. Troops, federal troops, in Washington DC on Inauguration Day. So, what’s involved in getting that done?
I may not be a lawyer, but I did get ROTC training as a teen, and later, actually worked as an infantry soldier in Europe. So I do know what it takes to move and use infantry troops in whatever purpose you’ve got in mind. The very first thing is training. Are the troops you want trained to do what you have planned? Oh, wait, before that, you have to have plans to actually help them know what’s going to happen. Then, they need the equipment, then the transportation. Sounds not too difficult, does it? Not so fast, cupcake.
Start with those plans. Yes, the Pentagon probably does have plans for protecting the President and the feds in DC from “insurrection.” But first, when was the last time they got dusted off and examined for current conditions? When was the last time the commanders of the units proposed in those plans made aware of them and familiarized with their contents? Have their lower ranked unit commanders ever been familiarized with them? If not within the last three years, you’re gonna have to sit em down and do that, because none of the current commanders would have seen these plans, and if they are going to tell their troops where to go and what to do, they do need to see them!
Second — logistics. Do they have the equipment to use in that operation? Crowd control is different from defending an armed insurrection. Despite Trump’s publicity, what’s the real goal, and are those troops even trained in doing that? Are the buses or other transportation available for deployment at a moment’s notice? Will they need real ammunition? It’ll have to be distributed — in advance. Where are the barriers needed to keep crowds out of areas you don’t want them to enter? Who has control of those barriers, and how fast can you get them?
Third, the actual orders and deployment.
Until Trump is made President, he has no authority. He cannot order anyone to prepare plans, or logistics, or any of the above before 12:01 pm, January 21st, 2025. And frankly, I’d doubt that Biden would allow any contact with the Pentagon to do that prior to that day anyway.
So, actually deploying Federal troops into DC for Trump’s first day in office is impossible. That takes planning, in advance, and even emergency operations require some planning and prepositioning of assets like equipment. Plus, as I noted, your troops need some form of briefing. Like which units go where, what are they defending, etc. Even in an emergency, you cannot ignore these things or you’re gonna fail.
We haven’t even touched on whether any career Federal officers in the military would accept illegal orders to fire on civilians.
And even if Trump manages to have someone create, in advance, some kind of declaration of emergency in accordance with the Insurrection Act, and he does stand up and declare that in his Inauguration speech, does that satisfy the exceptions in the Posse Comitatus Act? The original Insurrection Act required the President to PUBLISH his declaration first. Is that still required? IANAL, so I cannot say. But even if it doesn’t, and he orders the Chairman of the Joint chiefs to bring troops to DC, noon is too late. Even in the case of an emergency, they couldn’t comply within three hours or so, and that just doesn't cut it. It would look terrible, and he can’t stand looking unprepared or weak.
How about the DC National Guard? They’re closer, right?
Yes, but the NG has a problem the Federal troops don’t have. Their troops aren’t sitting in a handy barracks waiting for someone to tell them where to go. It’s comprised of civilians, and those folks aren’t sitting at home waiting for Trump to call. They're working, and many of them might be working outside of DC. That metro area is big and wide, and the traffic is, believe me (I used to live in that area) horrible at the best of times. On Inauguration Day? Forget it. They’d be hours just getting their folks together, much less issuing equipment, etc. Of course, they’d have good plans and training, but you’ve gotta get your people together and dressed for the occasion! (And, to be sure, that day is NOT a Federal holiday — certainly not one as far as the general population is concerned, and most people will be at work! But the Feds in DC will probably get the day off, but not elsewhere in the country.)
And Trump won’t have the authority to order anyone to prepare beforehand.
Trust me, folks, we’ve only touched on the very first DAY of Trump’s proposed Administration, much less anything else he’s got in mind.
And frankly, how likely is that? Him getting elected, I mean. Not to mention anything else in that “project.”
In 2016, when he got elected, he still lost the popular vote. Clinton still got more Americans to vote for her. Yes, the Electoral College meant that the distribution sucked for her, but still, numbers matter. Remember, since George Bush II, no Republican President has obtained a win through the popular vote. They’ve all won based on the EC.
In 2020, he lost even more votes, AND lost the EC. In 2022, in spite of the GOP winning the House (barely, by the skin of their teeth), they got their asses handed to them, and don’t even count any of the special elections since Dobbs, where they’ve really gotten hammered. Even in deep red states.
Look at his rallies. Very poorly attended. Or his appearances at his arraignments. Only in New York did he have any protesters show up, and half of those weren’t there to support him!
Even in the Republican caucus in the House has he any tangible support, and that’s in part due to threats against the moderates. And even with that, they barely managed to elect a Speaker! The House is in constant chaos and hasn’t managed to pass any legislation that has a chance of a snowflake in hell of passing the Senate, where Republicans DO cooperate with the Democrats.
So, in short, not only has Trump no chance in the real world — the one you and I live in — to get elected President, he has even less of a chance to gain control of Congress sufficient enough to manage to pass any of the legislation he’d need to meet any of the goals of that idiotic “Project 2025.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t mean the Republican Party and the fascists now in control of it are gonna give up. If Trump fails and goes to prison, they’ll keep on keeping on, because in their tiny little minds, they have to. So you and I are going to have to buckle down and keep on voting Democratic until we can manage to fix as many of the things that have allowed these idiots to gain the foothold they’ve got now.
Does that mean a Progressive Utopia? Sadly, no. The Democrats only look like a solid block now because they have to. In normal times, they’re anything but, so any advances are going to be hard fought, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work with moderate Centrists to sideline the fascists. That, my friends, is a requirement.
So now, instead of sitting around wailing and gnashing our teeth over Project 2025 and how terrible Trump is wanting to be, let’s stop being dramatic and start planning how to not only win this election, but how to blow the Republican Party into history. Look at what’s real and not what the fascists want you to look at and panic over.
You do know that’s why this plan is public, right? It’s not there because it’s real, it’s there as a distraction to take your mind off of what you should be doing — working to win in 2024. Working to blow the GOP out of the water and out of our lives.
Issues, people. Talk issues! Let people know the Democrats care about them, regardless of their political persuasion, or their place in life. Tell them how we can make life better not how we’re gonna tear the country apart. How we can do that as a people, together. Not angry and separated.
You don’t win tearing the other side down. You win it by encouraging people to think better, to be optimistic. The Republicans and Trump have done a stellar job in showing the American people how poorly they’re going to behave. What they’ve never done is tell them how they’re going to make life better.
Together, we can.
