President Trump recently said that “if the city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residence, then I will deploy the United States Military and quickly solve the problem for them,” implying that if governors did not act to his liking to quell the increasingly violent protests and riots that have broken out across America in response to Floyd’s killing, he would call on the military to police U.S. streets.
The first question is whether or not this would be illegal. U.S. law does contain the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the president to deploy military troops within the United States to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, and rebellion. The last invocation of the act was in May 1992 to quell the Los Angeles Riots, also over the death of an African-American man. It was also used numerous times throughout the 1960s to enforce desegregation and quell riots stemming from desegregation.
Although a section of the Insurrection Act suggests that states need to first request help, others do not require explicit permission from the state governor or legislature, most notably when “the President determines the situation in a state makes it impossible to enforce U.S. laws or when citizens’ rights are abridged.” In fact, the act has been invoked before under the protest of governors, such as when Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, invoked the act during the Civil Rights Movement to enforce desegregation. Some current state governors, like Illinois’s, have rejected Trump’s mobilization of troops.
Another question is the ethics of using American troops against American people. It would be severely frowned upon to call upon the U.S. military to stop protests initiated by the American public. For example, the Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard, Major General Thomas Carden, said that “we in America should not get used to or accept uniformed service members of any variety having to be put in a position where they are having to secure people inside the USA,” and added that it “is a sign of the times that we need to do better as a country,” when discussing the possible mobilization of U.S. Armed Forces on American soil. The Secretary of Defense has already announced that over 17,000 National Guard members in 29 states and Washington, D.C. are currently helping to keep the peace during protests.
Also, President Trump’s decision has been met with strong criticism and opposition from the Democratic Party. The fact that tear gas was used to disperse peaceful protesters outside the White House in order to allow the President to visit a nearby church was also criticized heavily, as people said that it was in violation of their First Amendment rights, which is supposed to guarantee the right to assemble peacefully and to protest the government.
However, as the protests continue to become more violent and as rioting, looting, and arson occur across many American cities, it remains to be seen whether or not a repeat of the 1992 Los Angeles riots will occur or not, and whether Trump will dare call in troops to quell the protests.
The military is for defence against a foreign aggressor or a tool for foreign policy- it is not to be used against it's own citizens. That is the function of the police. By threatening to deploy the military is Trump just trying to project power and strength? Is it really about what's good or right in the national interest or is he simply concerned with his image and popularity in the run-up to the election?