The Usurpation Proclamation

I still haven’t gotten fully used to woke Brill Kristol:

On Saturday evening, June 7, 2025, the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, issued a presidential memorandum addressed to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, and the secretary of homeland security. One might call it the Usurpation Proclamation. And while this weekend’s mobilization of two thousand National Guard troops in Los Angeles has alarmed many observers, I suspect we aren’t alarmed enough by this presidential order, which has implications far beyond this one action in one place.

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And the president, in his proclamation, goes further than the deployment of the National Guard: “The Secretary of Defense may employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.”

Note that neither Los Angeles nor the state of California is mentioned in the memorandum. Trump’s mobilization order is in no way limited as to time or place. It is an open-ended authorization for the secretary of defense to mobilize as many troops as he wishes for as long as he wishes, and to deploy them anywhere he wishes within the United States. And these military personnel can be deployed not just where protests have occurred, but anywhere protests “are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.”

The memorandum’s final paragraph states that, “To carry out this mission, the deployed military personnel may perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” and ensures that the secretary of defense consults with the attorney general and the secretary of homeland security “prior to withdrawing any personnel from any location to which they are sent.”

Again: “Any personnel,” “any location,” and for any length of time.

Trump understands the breadth of his order. When asked by a reporter yesterday if he planned to send troops to Los Angeles, he answered: “We’re gonna have troops everywhere.”

Everywhere.

Trump and his apparatchiks may only lead us gradually down the slippery slope on which they have launched us. The normalization of the routine and open-ended deployment of the military at home requires that the public become accustomed to this departure from historic practice. But the departure has been announced. The Rubicon has been crossed.

Trump’s project may not go smoothly. There could be some pushback from the courts. But if the courts object to Trump’s use of 10 U.S.C. 12406 to end-run the Posse Comitatus Act—the 1878 law that limits the use of the military in civilian law enforcement—Trump has the even broader Insurrection Act of 1807 in reserve, ready to be invoked.

The institution that really could constrain the president is Congress, which could act legislatively and through appropriations to clarify limitations on the use of the military. But Congress is controlled by the Republican party. Let’s see how many Republican members of Congress are interested in such legislation. For now, at least, they’re more likely to cheer Trump on.

I wish the typical mainstream reporter or pundit was capable of being remotely as clear-eyed about the nature of the administration as this, but I will take it from wherever I can get it.