Boots on the Ground in D.C.
- Posse Comitatus Act Violation: Trump’s deployment of troops in D.C. will violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
- Trump’s Motivations: Trump’s actions are driven by political desperation, including concerns about the Epstein scandal and economic mismanagement.
- Historical Context: Trump’s use of “law and order” rhetoric and tactics echoes past Republican administrations, highlighting the enduring nature of these strategies.
- Author’s Opinion on Trump Supporters: They are easily swayed and prioritize entertainment over civil liberties.
- Author’s View on the Current State of America: The ideals of the US are fading due to the erosion of civil liberties.
Photo credit above: Battle of New Orleans, January 1815, National Archives
It’s a written law that keeps boots off the ground in the US. It’s called the Posse Comitatus Act. The act or law is a post-Civil War act which prevents the president from using troops or boots on the ground, so to speak, on domestic streets. For law enforcement in the US, we have police at different levels of local control from state police or troopers, to beat police, and sheriffs. Those three categories of police are tasked with keeping domestic order, and they do. So, why is Trump, after using troops against anti-ICE raids in Los Angeles, using troops on the ground in D.C.?
Besides being a far-right bag of wind and common thug who can’t get countries like Russia, Ukraine, and Israel to behave within the world order enforced by the US with around 750 military bases, Trump has some very significant problems. Jeffrey Epstein’s ghost is among them. With Ghislaine Maxwell in a minimum-security prison on a sex trafficking conviction, who knows what Trump’s next move with her will be? Hopefully he doesn’t place her in work release program in a daycare center? Nothing is too good for those who Trump can buy! Trump hung out with Epstein for quite a while. Many politicians did, including Democrats, but the latter doesn’t explain why Trump wants to turn the US into a massive military operation. Trump also has problems with inflation and tariffs because he doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing with the economy. Today, high tariffs; tomorrow, lower ones. Trump has no sense or idea of how to govern the US, so he turns to the old and tried law and order game that mostly Republicans have used for decades now. It once was Nixon’s law and order and Reagan’s drug wars and always racism and mass incarceration, for which the Democrats were also on board.
It was Lincoln who talked about fooling some of the people some of the time, and the Make America Great Again crowd wants bread and circuses from Trump, but instead they’re getting troops on US streets. Never a group to care much about civil liberties and issues like Posse Comitatus, they’ll settle for circuses for a while, and the rest of us will see any ideals of what the US once was about fade into oblivion.