The Insurrection Act
We have three very important things to talk about. The first is that about a hundred years ago, seemingly, Trump asked Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem for a report on whether or not the Insurrection Act should be invoked due to supposed threats to the country. On paper, this is largely regarding immigrants–but we are clearly in territory where labels mean very little, unless that label is "enemy." This report is coming due on the 20th, which means by now we have our answer on whether or not he does it.
The second thing sort of rolls into the first: recently, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, sent to an El Salvadoran prison on the grounds that he was a gang member and in the US illegally, should be returned to the country. The Trump administration straight up said they would not return him. This is about a clear a sign as you can get that we've departed the last vestiges of our democracy. On a hot mic, Trump, after a presser, was caught saying "homegrowns are next."
The third thing is that the libs are madder than we (I) thought. They came out in numbers, together, in opposition to Trump and Musk, and it would be foolish to ignore a million people–period, let alone as potential allies. Now, I'd love to detract from their protest for half a letter, but suffice to say if you don't get interference from the police and you hardly get any pushback from the far-right, you probably aren't seen as a threat–and that's not good. In order for protest to mean something, it has to interfere, to disrupt, to fuck up the day of the people running shit. If it doesn't do those things, it's just a parade.
The Bad Stuff
You may have seen the Medium post circulating that was one of the first outlets to draw attention to the Hegseth Insurrection Act report–it's a little bit breathless and a lot low on workable responses, but it's also probably not wrong. While the report did not recommend the invocation of the Act, that does not mean Trump won't use it tomorrow, or next year, or at the drop of a hat. It's within his purview, and honestly I find it a kind of weird consideration that he asked for the report in the first place. There's also the little fact that the Act and, for that matter, the Constitution, are meaningless today. They don't prevent or allow anything. They're guardrails when the car Trump is driving is a cannonball going a thousand miles an hour–paper hasn't and won't stop him.
The Insurrection Act, though, is a scary piece of paper. It allows Trump to use the US military on US soil. It's been invoked 30 times in US history, the latest of which being the 1992 LA Riots. There is a long and storied history of this power being used to suppress the rights of workers and minorities, and I think I would be remiss to not list a few: in 1914 and 1921, the Insurrection Act was invoked to suppress striking mine workers in Colorado and West Virginia, respectively–miners and their families were shot at with machine guns in Colorado, and bombed from airplanes in West Virginia. The Act was invoked in 1957, 1962, twice in 1963, and in 1965 to both stop integration and to support it, across the southern states. It has been both a good and bad thing, to be clear–but mostly a bad thing.
You might be wondering how Trump didn't invoke the act during the George Floyd Uprisings–and I would be wondering that, too. The simplest explanation, I think, is that he is a coward, but I genuinely don't know why he didn't then, and don't know why he asked for a report now. It's immaterial, ultimately. He most likely will, and so it behooves us to know what that means.
I think the most likely and most immediate outcome is that Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to use troops more actively at the border–which was the purview of the report–in order to expedite the removal of immigrants deemed enemies of the state and to ensure virtually no one else gets in (and to abuse those that try). He will also utilize the military as a vastly stronger version of ICE, empowering them to conduct arrests as a first step. This will then expand to limit entry to the US, which will then expand again to ensure that the state's enemies do not leave nor enter the country, so that they can be dealt with as the state pleases.
And much the same way that deportations have expanded from student visas (to honestly who knows what by the time of publication), you can expect that this treatment will expand to everyone–including natural-born citizens of the US. That's coming. There's no reason for it not to, as he's said he'd do it.
Related is the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the United States. Abrego Garcia was deported, due to an "administrative error," to El Salvador, where he was born. He was then incarcerated in CECOT, which is arguably the first layer of hell, though he was charged with no crimes. President Nayib Bukele has said he will not return Abrego Garcia despite the ruling from the Supreme Court. Whereas the Insurrection Act is yet to come, the deportation of–and refusal to return–Abrego Garcia is a real Rubicon-crosser.
This is really happening, folks. Your day to day lives may not have changed much yet (tariffs aside), but give it a few months. I think we should all be considering our timelines accelerated. They are using the thinnest of excuses to attack the most marginalized among us. If that doesn't sound like the fascist playbook, you haven't been doing your reading. There is no excusing this, or explaining it away.
The Potentially Good Stuff
You might have guessed that I was and mostly still am fully ready to ignore anything a Dem says, in perpetuity. Their work is almost entirely performative and I'm only ever more convinced that they're controlled opposition designed to keep anyone contra the GOP (and fascism) from doing something material. But we're talking about the broader American public dems, not the Dems. And as with, I believe, most Americans–most humans, really–I think there is the capacity to change, and the desire for what's best. Hell, I was liberal once.
It's been a few weeks now, since this is coming out staggered, but there was a demonstration across the country against Trump and Musk, a kind of Women's March type thing called "Hands Off!" Around a million people showed up to these protests. Now, I don't believe this march was good or effective or useful for much of anything–it's akin to a 25 hour speech followed by a vote for continuing a genocide–but it showed us that some folks do still have enough gumption to stand up and get out into the streets. That, I feel, is enough.
The thing is we've got to get them from what they see as a solution–the return of a Dem to the White House–to what actually is a solution: a government (if there must be a government) rid of corporate influence, truly beholden to the people, that rids the country of white supremacist practices and ensures we care for everyone equitably. So, we've got to radicalize the libs.
That can be done any number of ways, but delicately–we all know that no one likes to be told they're wrong, and when proven wrong they tend to dig their heels in even harder. I would suggest you do less telling and more showing; give your lib friends and family a few articles to read, a few videos. Margaret Killjoy dropped a great piece against "false nonviolence" that would be a decent place to start. Likewise, the book This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed is a great read toward the lack of efficacy in their movement as it stands today. You might think it's out of date, but Kropotkin's The Conquest of Bread spells things out so succinctly–and things have only gotten worse/better–that it still rings true. Give the gift of good radical fiction, too: The Dispossessed, The Grapes of Wrath, etc.
If we can push through the controlled opposition, if we can shake people of their habits and indoctrination, we can mobilize a massive amount of people. All it takes is 3.5% of us. All we really need is a few more million people in the streets. I think it can happen. So that's your homework for this week–start a calm, collected conversation with your liberal friends, or tell them you were thinking of them and hand them a copy of some LeGuin. Let's get these needles moving.