This is headed down a darker path.
The military crackdown in California is a "manufactured crisis" -- and the end is more menacing than you think.
Bottom Line Up Front:
Trump just confirmed he might invoke the Insurrection Act. But that won’t be the end of it. He wants to go much further than people imagine.
WHAT HAPPENED
Today President Trump confirmed what many of us feared. When asked whether he would invoke the Insurrection Act to give the military sweeping domestic police powers, he replied: “If necessary, I would certainly invoke it.”
This comes on the heels of his deployment of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles, where protests erupted following federal ICE raids. Protesters took to the streets, and within hours, the White House had declared the unrest a national security threat.
I want to be very clear about what comes next. Trump and his lieutenants are laying the groundwork for invoking emergency powers in more dramatic fashion. In my view, it’s all but guaranteed to happen at this point, unless there is major pushback within the Republican Party.
WHAT IT MEANS
The President is counting on violent imagery. Burning private property and attacking law enforcement is reprehensible, even thought it’s only a small minority of the protestors. Nevertheless — it’s exactly what the White House was hoping for when they targeted California with immigration raids.
This is a manufactured crisis, designed to give Trump the justification to invoke extraordinary powers, starting with the Insurrection Act and escalating from there.
Here’s what I think could to happen next:
Protests will spread. As Trump’s immigration crackdown continues, more cities will erupt in response to mass raids and detentions, especially if he begins targeting legal immigrants or sanctuary cities.
Some of those protests will turn violent. Not because the bulk of the protestors are extremists. But because chaos always invites a fringe. Trump knows this. He’s hoping for it, in fact. And he’ll seize on any moment of violence to escalate.
He will expand military deployments. Using the Insurrection Act as a pretext, Trump will send troops to more cities. He may call it “restoring order,” but the real goal is dominance and deterrence.
He’ll declare a broader domestic threat. Whether it’s “Antifa,” “open borders radicals,” or another phantom menace, Trump will label protestors as “domestic terrorists” to justify using counterterrorism tools on American soil.
Then comes the next phase: surveillance, prosecution, and suppression. Using the legal authorities and spy powers granted after 9/11 — enhanced FISA surveillance, terrorist watchlists, financial blacklists, and beyond — the Trump administration could begin applying national security and counterterrorism tools against political opponents.
I talked about this yesterday on the DSR Words Matter podcast.
In any other time period, I would read the above and think it sounds like breathless panic. But this forecast is drawn from how I heard Donald Trump and his allies talk about treating opponents. He used alarming terminology, privately expressing a desire to handle migrants like “unlawful enemy combatants” — the same legal designation America used in the fight against Osama bin Laden and his militants.
One former intelligence official told me flatly:
“They are going to send more appointees into the IC [intelligence community], pulling FISAs and other things to support political aims and engage in political retribution.”
In other words: spy powers turned inward on Americans.
WHAT’S NEXT
If Trump doubles down on weaponizing the military, you can rest assured that other national security agencies will come next. He will direct them to support the Pentagon’s domestic efforts. The scariest part is that the White House will work to make all of this appear “legal.”
The same authorities designed to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda — surveillance powers, detention authorities, financial targeting — could hypothetically be re-deployed against journalists, dissidents, and political critics, under the guise of homeland security.
If you think that’s far-fetched, ask yourself: would Trump hesitate to label a dissenter as a “threat to national security”? Would he hesitate to use DHS or the FBI to monitor, intimidate, or threaten to arrest people who speak out?
Don’t think he wouldn’t. He already has. As you know, the President personally accused me of “treason” two months ago and ordered DHS to investigate me for speaking out. He’s laid the groundwork to do this to hundreds or thousands of others.
What’s at stake now is bigger than the military. It’s about whether we allow the post-9/11 security state to be hijacked for political repression.
Forward this note to others and post on social media. I’m going to be tracking all of this very closely — and sharing my blunt assessments as the crisis unfolds.
Difficult to “like” this but the writing is on the wall for all to see.
I believe you, Miles, and Olivia, and Lev, and Lincoln Everything - you guys have lived this and know your enemy. We would be fools not to follow and trust you. Kudos and courage.