Is Domestic Use of the Military the New Normal?

President Trump’s decision to send thousands of National Guard members and hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles may mark a turning point in civil-military relations in the United States with ramifications for years to come.

The Marines are trained to fight foreign adversaries, not rein in political demonstrators on U.S. soil. This kind of deployment is supposed to be rare. Routine use of the military is outlawed under the Posse Comitatus Act, except where explicitly authorized by law. The Posse Comitatus Act consists of one sentence: “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

A case in which Congress has authorized the use of troops in a domestic role is the Insurrection Act. The Brennan Center for Justice describes the provisions of the act as follows:

“Under this law, in response to a state government’s request, the president may deploy the military to suppress an insurrection in that state. In addition, the Insurrection Act allows the president — with or without the state government’s consent — to use the military to enforce federal law or suppress a rebellion against federal authority in a state, or to protect a group of people’s civil rights when the state government is unable or unwilling to do so.”

Do street demonstrations against the administration’s immigration policy constitute an insurrection, or are they an example of people exercising their constitutional right to petition for redress of grievances?

There is no doubt that the president has an expansive view of when and how he can try to intimidate demonstrators to the point of threatening violence, as evidenced by his threat that anyone who protests the June 14th military parade in Washington will be “met by heavy force.”

Many veterans have criticized the administration’s use of the military as a law enforcement agency, but none more clearly than Major Paul Eaton (retired), who noted that the United States didn’t see the need to stage military parades in the best because “there was no questioning the power and global reach of our military –and because our greatest strength was our democracy. Today, that democracy is under attack [and]

the reputation of the Military is being impugned and politicized.”

From one perspective, the June 14th parade is a one day spectacle that many Americans will see as a welcome thank you to military personnel who have risked their lives on missions that were defined as protecting America. There is room for disagreement about that. But there should be little or no disagreement that deploying troops against protesters sets a dangerous precedent that puts our democracy at risk.

Stephen I. Vladeck, a Georgetown University law professor, has placed the Trump administration’s use of the military in historical perspective:

“It’s not that we haven’t had presidents use the military domestically before. . . It’s that there has been such a clear factual predicate [but] [t]here’s really no history of using those authorities for what really are partisan political purposes, more than they are public safety restoration purposes.”

Long after the June 14th parade is over and forgotten, the question of the proper role of the military in a democratic society will remain. It’s time to open up that debate – in Congress, in the media, and in homes and workplaces all over America. We can’t afford to sit this one out.