Of all the threats that President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, none may be more deadly than his repeated threats to invoke the Insurrection Act.  

This is an 1807 law that empowers the President to deploy the Armed Forces to individual states in specific circumstances, such as the suppression of civil disorder, insurrection, and armed rebellion against the federal government.

What is arousing Trump’s fury is the civil unrest he’s ignited in Minneapolis, Minnesota—especially following the January 7 shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer and poet, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross.

Renee Good

He’s ordered the Justice Department to criminally investigate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly conspiring to impede federal immigration agents.

Their “crime”: Daring to criticize the aggressive behavior of thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents deployed in Minnesota.

Walz said in a statement: “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic. The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her.”

“This is an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement, and our residents against the chaos and danger this Administration has brought to our streets,” Frey said in a statement to CBS News.

“I will not be intimidated. My focus will remain where it’s always been: keeping our city safe.”

Jacob Frey

Czbik, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Attorney Ty Cobb—who served as a White House lawyer in the first Trump Administration but is now a scathing critic of the president—warns that the tensions in Minneapolis could go from bad to worse if Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.

“During the first Trump administration, there were guardrails back then. There were people who could say ‘no’ to the president. And now, he’s surrounded by sycophants and enablers and people who don’t say no.

“I mean, it’s just stunning the number of people that have signed on for what’s going on in Minnesota and what’s going on in Greenland—you know, things that would have never been tolerated in the first 250 years of our democracy.

Ty Cobb 

John Mathew Smith & http://www.celebrity-photos.com from Laurel Maryland, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

“But I do think he wants—desperately wants—to invoke the Insurrection Act….I think martial law is definitely in the cards. And it’s a way that he’ll be able to control the elections.” 

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Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?” 

William L. Shirer, author of the monumental The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, apportioned German guilt as follows: 

“The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 percent of the vote. But the 63 percent of [Germans] who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out.”

Competent future historians may reach the same conclusion about American voters in 2024. 

• Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
• Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
• Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
• Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.
• Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
• Police officers: The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Fraternal Order of Police issued a joint statement condemning clemency for criminals who assault law enforcement officers—but did not explicitly indict the January 6 actions. The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Donald Trump in 2024. 
• History illiterate voters: Who were eager to scrap alliances—such as NATO—that had checked Soviet aggression since the end of World War II.
• Nihilists:  With nothing positive to contribute, their attitude was to destroy American institutions that had created prosperity and security for decades.
• Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
• Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Joe Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
• Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them. 
• The Biden administration: Which  refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
• Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
• American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.

In short: Those opposed to Donald Trump’s evil were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.