From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Donald Trump Is Trying to Start a Race War
Date June 3, 2020 12:30 AM
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[And with the Insurrection Act, he has the statutory authority to
do so] [[link removed]]

DONALD TRUMP IS TRYING TO START A RACE WAR  
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David S. Cohen
June 2, 2020
Rolling Stone
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_ And with the Insurrection Act, he has the statutory authority to do
so _

President Donald Trump holds a Bible as he visits outside St. John's
Church across Lafayette Park from the White House Monday, June 1,
2020, in Washington DC., AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

 

President Trump has not hidden who he is. He started his presidential
campaign, after slowly descending his gilded escalator, with a
no-holds barred racist attack on Mexicans
[[link removed]].
Then, he began his time as president by banning Muslims from entering
the country [[link removed]]. Later
that summer, he called white supremacists who terrorized blacks and
Jews in Charlottesville, Virginia, “very fine people
[[link removed]].”
And now, his seemingly only policy solution to coronavirus has been to
label it the “Chinese virus
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and hope the racism would scare it away.

Racism courses through Donald Trump’s blood
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and is one of the foundational principles of his presidency. Which is
why, when faced with one of the greatest uprisings against police
brutality this nation has seen, a movement led by black people around
the country and joined by all other people of color and white people
as well, his only policy solution is to start a race war
[[link removed]]. And
unfortunately, American law gives him the authority to do so.

You’d have to be living under a rock to not know what’s going on
right now, so just a short recap here. Last Monday, Minneapolis police
murdered George Floyd
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an unarmed black man who had been accused of using a counterfeit $20
bill in a convenience store. In the days that followed, protests grew
and spread
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starting in Minneapolis and now taking place in seemingly every city
in the country on a daily basis. The protests have been loud, angry,
and forceful, demanding justice for Floyd, Breonna Taylor
[[link removed]] (killed
in Louisville, Kentucky, earlier in May), and all other unarmed black
people who have been murdered by police and other white vigilantes
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(such as Ahmaud Arbery
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and Trayvon Martin
[[link removed]]).
As has been well-documented, police around the country have engaged in
violent attacks
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against protesters, journalists, and citizen watchdogs.

Enter Trump. After initially being taken to the White House bunker
Friday night
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when protests raged in Washington, D.C., and then turning off the
White House lights
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on Sunday night in some weird attempt to hide the building, President
Trump tried to project a different image on Monday evening. Right
before curfew fell on the city, the president announced:
[[link removed]] “I
will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem
for them.” His goal
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is to use federal resources, including the military, “to stop the
rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect
the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment
rights.” For D.C., he said that “I am dispatching thousands and
thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law
enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism,
assaults, and the wanton destruction of property.”

Action soon followed. Federal police used tear gas
[[link removed]] to
clear a path for the president to walk to a nearby church and pose
with a bible, a photo op that “outraged” the Episcopal bishop of
D.C
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Then, later Monday night, military helicopters executed an aggressive
low-level flyover
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in D.C. to scare away protesters.

As of press time, the president has not called the military to the
states or cities beyond D.C. to respond to the unrest. However, thanks
to a series of laws Congress has enacted, re-enacted, and amended over
the past two centuries, he does have the legal authority to do so. The
Posse Comitatus Act [[link removed]]
sets the baseline that the president cannot use the American military
for domestic actions. However, it specifically allows him to do so if
authorized by statute.

The Insurrection Act
[[link removed]]
is that authorization. And it is broad and vague: “Whenever the
president considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or
assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States,
make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any
state by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into
federal service such of the militia of any state, and use such of the
armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to
suppress the rebellion.” There is a similar provision for when
“insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or
conspiracy … hinders the execution of the laws of the state.”

In other words, when Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy
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thought that the governors of Arkansas and Mississippi were not doing
enough to protect black students desegregating Little Rock Central
High School and the University of Mississippi, the Insurrection Act
gave them the authority to use the military to enforce desegregation.
As these examples indicate, domestic use of the military can be used
for good.

But, it is highly controversial and has grown incredibly rare
[[link removed]].
The last time the military has been used for domestic purposes was in
1992, when President H.W. Bush called on the military to help control
the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Since then, President G.W. Bush
considered using the military after Hurricane Katrina to restore order
in New Orleans in 2005, but he decided against it because of how
politically dicey it would be. Using the military on American soil
against Americans is a line that many people consider uncrossable.

And maybe that will ultimately stop Trump from doing so as well. But,
if he wants to, it’s clear that he has the authority to do so
[[link removed]]. His
use of military helicopters over D.C. last night doesn’t bode well
in this regard. (Using the military in D.C. is different because it is
a federal territory in which the president can use the military as
part of emergency powers
[[link removed]].)

Neither does Trump’s undeniable racism. He is down in every national
poll
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against Joe Biden. He has pretty much given up
[[link removed]] on trying
to quell the coronavirus from killing Americans at rates no other
country is seeing [[link removed]]. And
now, the people of the country, particularly black people, are
demanding racial justice.

In other words, Trump’s political back is against the wall, and he
is doing the only thing he really knows how to do — project the
image of a tough white guy and hope that racial division will, once
again, win the election for him in November. It’s just that this
time, rather than doing it with promises of a wall or a travel ban,
he’s doing it with the military and promises of a racial war. And
unfortunately, Congress long ago ceded this authority to the
president.

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