The Trump Administration Needs Better Opposition
Donald Trump needs better enemies. More accurately, the American people need the president and his allies to have a higher quality opposition. In office, President Trump has embraced some truly terrible—and occasionally dangerous—policies, including federalizing National Guard troops and mobilizing U.S. Marines to deal with riots that really should be left to California officials to handle or fumble as their abilities allow. But his opponents insist on embracing lunacy and ineffectiveness and making the president look reasonable by comparison, effectively giving his actions a pass.
Feckless Opponents
“Donald Trump, without consulting with California’s law enforcement leaders, commandeered 2,000 of our state’s National Guard members to deploy on our streets. Illegally, and for no reason,” complained Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the president turned local rioting into a federal issue.
Newsom expanded on his objections in a glitch-filled speech that focused more on Trump than the riots. It played into the reputation for incompetence he’s gained over years of ignoring his state’s problems, including all of the missteps that led to the recent wildfires in and around Los Angeles.
Those fires didn’t exactly cover Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in glory either, and neither has her response to the chaos. She’s alternated between supporting demonstrators protesting the federal immigration raids that sparked the riots and vowing crackdowns on violence. One minute she touts her work with “community organizations, legal advocates, and local leaders to ensure that every resident knows their rights” and the next she reminds Angelenos that downtown is under curfew.
That’s unfortunate, because the feckless California officials raise legitimate concerns about the president’s actions. There are good reasons to object to a president responding to local events with federal troops.
Valid Concerns Lost in the Chaos
“Preemptive nationwide deployment of the military is the very opposite of using the military as a ‘last resort,'” warns Elizabeth Goitein of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It is so wildly out of keeping with how the Insurrection Act and 10 U.S.C. § 12406 have been interpreted and applied that it should be entitled to no deference by the courts.”
The law that President Trump relied on—10 U.S.C. § 12406—all
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