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insurrection act
Is Trump Putting Nation on Dangerous Path Toward a Second Civil War
What happens when we refuse to allow Trump’s lackeys to wreak revenge on his political enemies who live within our states and communities?
Dec 06, 2024
Trump may force a second civil war on America with his plan to use the military to round up at least 11 million undocumented people inside the United States — even if it means breaking up families — send them to detention camps, and then deport them.
As well as his plan to target his political enemies for prosecution — including Democrats, journalists, and other critics.
What happens when we, especially those of us in blue states and cities, resist these authoritarian moves — as we must, as we have a moral duty to?
What happens when we try to protect hardworking members of our communities who have been our neighbors and friends for years, from Trump’s federal troops?
What happens when we refuse to allow Trump’s lackeys to wreak revenge on his political enemies who live within our states and communities?
Will our resistance give Trump an excuse to use force against us?
This is not far-fetched. We need to answer these questions for ourselves. We should prepare.
A civil war is not inevitable. We must do what we can to protect those who are most vulnerable to Trump’s fascism.
Trump has said he’ll use the Insurrection Act — which grants a president the power to “take such measures as he considers necessary” to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”
He’s also said he’ll use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to end sanctuary cities. Such cities now limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Trump told Fox News’s Harris Faulkner that “we can do things in terms of moving people out.”
The Enemies Act states that “Whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government … and the President of the United States shall make public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed, as alien enemies.”
The Enemies Act was part of a group of laws enacted at the end of the 18th century — the Alien and Sedition Acts — which severely curtailed civil liberties in the young United States, including by tightening restrictions on foreign-born Americans and limiting speech critical of the government.
Would Trump essentially declare war on states and communities that oppose him?
When he was president last time, he acted as if he was president only of the people who voted for him — overwhelmingly from red states and cities — and not the president of all of America. He supported legislation that hurt voters in blue states, such as his tax law that stopped deductions of state and local taxes from federal income taxes.
Two Americas
Underlying Trump’s dangerous threats is the sobering reality that we are rapidly becoming two Americas.
One America is largely urban, college-educated, and racially and ethnically diverse. It voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris.
The other America is largely rural or exurban, without college degrees, and white. It voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
Even before Trump’s win, red zip codes were getting redder and blue zip codes, bluer. Of the nation’s total 3,143 counties, the number of super-landslide counties — where a presidential candidate won at least 80 percent of the vote — jumped from 6 percent in 2004 to 22 percent in 2020 and appears to be even higher in 2024.
Just a dozen years ago, there were Democratic senators from Iowa, North Dakota, Ohio, Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana (two!), and West Virginia.
Today, there’s close to a zero chance of a Democrat being elected to the Senate from any of these states.
Surveys show that Americans find it increasingly important to live around people who share their political values.
Animosity toward those in the opposing party is higher than at any time in living memory. Forty-two percent of registered voters believe Americans in the other party are “downright evil.”
Almost 40 percent would be upset at the prospect of their child marrying someone from the opposite party.
Even before the 2024 election, when asked if violence would be justified if the other party won the election, 13.8 percent of Democrats and 18.3 percent of Republicans responded in the affirmative.
Red states are becoming even more reactionary.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade left the issue of abortion to the states, 1 out of 3 women of childbearing age now lives in a state that makes it nearly impossible to obtain an abortion.
Even while red states are making it harder than ever to get abortions, they’re making it easier than ever to buy guns.
Red states are also banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in education. Florida’s Board of Education prohibited public colleges from using state and federal funds for DEI. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has required all state-funded colleges and universities close their DEI offices.
In Florida and Texas, teams of “election police” were created to crack down on the rare crime of voter fraud, another fallout from Trump’s big lie.
They’re banning the teaching of America’s history of racism. They’re requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and join sports teams that reflect their sex at birth.
They’re making it harder to protest.
They’re making it more difficult to qualify for unemployment benefits and other forms of public assistance.
And harder than ever to form labor unions.
They’re even passing “bounty” laws — enforced not by governments but by rewards to private citizens for filing lawsuits — on issues ranging from classroom speech to abortion to vaccination.
Blue states are becoming more progressive.
Meanwhile, several blue states, including Colorado and Vermont, are codifying a right to abortion.
Some are helping cover abortion expenses for out-of-staters.
When Idaho proposed a ban on abortion that empowers relatives to sue anyone who helps terminate a pregnancy after six weeks, nearby Oregon approved $15 million to help cover the abortion expenses of patients from other states.
Trump would like nothing better than a civil war over himself. He loves to be at the center of attention, which is often at the center of the chaos and outrage he has created.
Maryland and Washington have expanded access and legal protections to out-of-state abortion patients. California has expanded access to abortion and protected abortion providers from out-of-state legal action.
After the governor of Texas ordered state agencies to investigate parents for child abuse if they provide certain medical treatments to their transgender children, California enacted a law making the state a refuge for transgender youths and their families.
California already bars anyone on a state payroll (including yours truly, who teaches at Berkeley) from getting reimbursed for travel to states that discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.
Where will all this end?
Trump would like nothing better than a civil war over himself. He loves to be at the center of attention, which is often at the center of the chaos and outrage he has created.
Short of a civil war, the gap between red and blue America might continue to widen — roughly analogous to unhappily married people who don’t want to go through the trauma of a formal divorce and simply drift apart.
But a civil war is not inevitable. We must do what we can to protect those who are most vulnerable to Trump’s fascism. But this doesn’t mean allowing him to goad us into civil war.
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Trump Slammed Over Plans for National Emergency and Mass Deportations
"Mass deportations aren't just inhumane," one congresswoman said. "Trump has a recipe for economic disaster. Farmers, workers, and consumers... all pay the price."
Nov 18, 2024
Migrant rights advocates on Monday sharply criticized U.S. President-elect Donald Trump after he confirmed plans to declare a national emergency and use the military to pursue his long-promised mass deportations, despite legal and logistical barriers.
Shortly after Trump's electoral victory earlier this month, Tom Fitton, president of the right-wing group Judicial Watch, welcomed reports that the incoming administration is "prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program."
Fitton's post was on Trump's platform, Truth Social. The president-elect responded early Monday, simply saying, "TRUE!!!"
While Trump didn't provide additional details on Monday, fearmongering about immigrants has been a priority for the president-elect since he entered politics during the 2016 cycle and recent reporting has previewed what could come when he returns to the White House after campaigning on a pledge to "launch the largest deportation program in American history."
In the latest elections, Republicans retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and reclaimed a Senate majority, but Democrat Yassamin Ansari had a decisive win in Arizona's 3rd Congressional District. She said Monday that "Trump's plan to use the military to aid mass deportation is abhorrent and hateful, and will directly impact many of my constituents in AZ-03. Using the world's strongest military to target the most vulnerable community is not leadership, it's abuse of power."
Vanessa Cárdenas, senior director of communication for America's Voice, similarly said in a statement that "Trump continues promoting anti-immigration hate and is using it as an excuse to appropriate the military for domestic law enforcement and circumvent normal checks and balances on presidential power."
Cárdenas continued:
Trump and allies are attempting to justify their potential use of the military to conduct indiscriminate mass raids and roundups by wrapping it in the language of 'invasion' and the false notion that America is under assault, and it must be repelled by force. Yet just because Trump and allies have spent recent years normalizing this idea and making this assertion doesn't make it any less radical. Let's be clear, this is the adoption of a white nationalist conspiracy theory, already linked to multiple deadly acts of gun violence against civilians, which is driving federal policy and Republican agendas.
Despite the martial language and emphasis on the border and recent arrivals, make no mistake that the Trump team is planning to target long-settled immigrants and mixed-status families as part of their mass deportations. Having legal status and even citizenship is not necessarily a shield of protection. Their pledges to end immigration enforcement priorities, while making as many people as possible deportable, is a disturbing tell that their definition of 'criminal' will look fundamentally different from most Americans' conceptions. Perhaps most disturbingly, the resulting fear and cruelty that will be on display is likely a feature and not a bug to those in charge.
Pointing to Trump's previous term, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Monday that "my lesson from the first time around is that we absolutely cannot take things that the Trumpworld people say as gospel, given their total lack of specifics and total willingness to make grandiose pronouncements that are aimed at triggering the libs and making headlines."
"The National Emergencies Act is a specific law which unlocks specific authorities to do specific things—a president doesn't declare a national emergency and then become king. And 'use the military for deportations' isn't one of those specific things," he highlighted, citing the Brennan Center for Justice guide on emergency powers.
Reichlin-Melnick acknowledged that "last time, Trump invoked a specific emergency authority to unlock military construction funding—and direct more troops to do logistical support at the border" with Mexico.
The New York Timesreported Monday that during the Republican primary campaign, "Mr. Trump's top immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller, said that military funds would be used to build 'vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers' for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries."
Miller—architect of the forced family separation program from Trump's first term—is set to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy in the next administration. The president-elect has also named other immigration hard-liners for key posts: Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as "border czar" and GOP South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for homeland security secretary.
"Mr. Miller has also talked about invoking a public health emergency power to curtail hearing asylum claims," according to the Times. Trump's team also plans to "expand a form of due-process-free expulsions known as expedited removal" and "stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents."
Additionally, the newspaper noted, Trump intends to bolster the ICE ranks "with law enforcement officials who would be temporarily reassigned from other agencies, and with state National Guardsmen and federal troops activated to enforce the law on domestic soil under the Insurrection Act."
Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, explained in 2022 that "although it is often referred to as the 'Insurrection Act of 1807,' the law is actually an amalgamation of different statutes enacted by Congress between 1792 and 1871" to enable "the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations."
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday expressed concern about Trump's potential use of another law enacted in 1978.
"Donald Trump plans to declare a national emergency and utilize the Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportations," Omar, a war refugee, said on social media. "This xenophobia and cruelty shouldn't be allowed in America. We are going to fight it every step of the way."
As Nunn's Brennan Center colleague Katherine Yon Ebright detailed last month, the law "allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation," and although "enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be—and has been—wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States."
While Trump and his allies have prepared to use any powers they can to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, rights advocates and reporters have warned of the consequences of their plans for not only those people, but also 20 million mixed-status families and citizens who would suffer from the economic consequences.
As Mother Jones' Isabela Dias recently laid out, mass deportations would have major negative impacts on care, food, and infrastructure while enriching charter flight operators, consulting firms, private prison companies, and surveillance contractors.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) issued a warning after Trump's Monday post, declaring that "this will hurt all of us."
Spotlighting a Monday report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) similarly stressed that "mass deportations aren't just inhumane—they'd devastate America's agricultural industry. Combined with his tariffs, Trump has a recipe for economic disaster. Farmers, workers, and consumers... all pay the price."
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Leaked Videos Reveal Project 2025 Architect's Plan for Far-Right 'Shadow' Government
Russell Vought, who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term, said he wants to inflict "trauma" on career civil servants and bulldoze opponents of the Republican nominee.
Oct 28, 2024
A former high-level Trump administration official who played a key role in crafting the far-right Project 2025 agenda said in closed-door speeches revealed Monday that he wants to traumatize career civil servants and lay the groundwork for Republican nominee Donald Trump to seize total, unfettered control of the federal government should he win the November 5 election.
In partnership with the watchdog organization Documented, ProPublica on Monday published several videos of two private speeches that Russell Vought—who served as director of the Office of Management and Budget during Trump's first term—delivered in 2023 and 2024.
During the previously unreported speeches, ProPublica and Documented observed, Vought "detailed plans to deploy the military in response to domestic unrest" and "defund the Environmental Protection Agency."
"The two speeches delivered by Vought, taken together, offer an unvarnished look at the animating ideology and political worldview of a key figure in the MAGA movement," the new reporting notes. "Echoing Trump's rhetoric, Vought implicitly endorsed the false claim of a stolen 2020 election and likened the media's debunkings of that claim to Chinese Communist propaganda."
Vought also laid out in unsettling terms his intention to leave federal employees "traumatically affected" as part of a sweeping effort to purge the government of scientists and other civil servants deemed disloyal to Trump.
"When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains," Vought said in a clip obtained by ProPublica and Documented. "We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so."
While Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, claiming he knows nothing about it and has "no idea who is behind it," at least 140 members of his first administration—including Vought—were involved in assembling the sprawling far-right agenda, which outlines plans to gut climate regulations, further roll back abortion access, slash summer food assistance programs for children, and cut taxes for the wealthy.
Vought, who heads the Center for Renewing America think tank, has dismissed Trump's effort to disavow Project 2025, telling an undercover journalist earlier this year that the Republican nominee is "very supportive of what we do."
In the 2024 speech obtained by ProPublica and Documented, Vought said that he and other Project 2025 leaders have assembled "detailed agency plans" and are "writing the actual executive orders" for Trump to sign if he defeats Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the November 5 election.
"We are writing the actual regulations now," said Vought, "and we are sorting out the legal authorities for all of what President Trump is running on."
Specifically, ProPublica and Documented reported, Vought "laid out how his think tank is crafting the legal rationale for invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that gives the president broad power to use the military for domestic law enforcement."
Lamenting that Trump was talked out of invoking the Insurrection Act to crush mass racial justice demonstrations sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, Vought said during the 2023 speech obtained by ProPublica and Documented that his preparations for a possible second Trump administration have included constructing a "shadow" Office of Legal Counsel, the body that advises presidents on their powers.
Vought, according to ProPublica and Documented, "made clear he wants the office to help Trump steamroll the kind of internal opposition he faced in his first term."
Jesse Eisinger, a senior editor at ProPublica, described Vought's assessment of the current state of the U.S. as "apocalyptic stuff," pointing to his stated view that the country is "in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover... in which our adversaries already hold the weapons of the government apparatus, and they have aimed it at us."
Vought—who has previously said he hopes to "rehabilitate Christian nationalism"—cast Trump as a kind of savior in one of the newly revealed speeches, calling him "a man who is so uniquely positioned to serve this role."
"He has seen what it has done to him, and he has seen what they are trying to do to the country," Vought added. "That is nothing more than a gift of God."
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