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He has little popularity outside of his MAGA base, and even some of that could be slipping. But he has the vast majority of the country’s appeal judges in his pocket. He has a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. He has ousted or forced to retire many career professionals in the Department of Justice, leaving sycophants able to weaponise it against his perceived foes for revenge or political gain. He has tame federal law enforcement in the FBI, Homeland Security, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the latter already proving to be every bit as nasty as Nazi Germany's Gestapo in the run-up to WW2. And he is the Commander-in-Chief of the American armed forces, which has demonstrated it will do exactly what he tells it to do.
All that’s left in his way is the Constitution of the United States. Trump has already shown that he has little, if any, regard for that document. But it’s a barrier to cementing the stranglehold he has seized on the country he swore an oath to serve, instead using the position to serve himself, his family, and his cronies in political crime. Even eroded by his dubious actions not being pulled back, thanks to a Republican majority in Congress that has wilfully failed in its duties, the Constitution bars him from two important ambitions: being president for a third term, and being able to deploy the US armed forces against US citizens in their homeland.
It’s conceivable — and we can be sure Trump has thought about it — that if he can manage to stir a serious civil insurrection, or even the appearance of one, he could declare a national state of emergency and effectively suspend the Constitution and its associated Bill of Rights, thus freeing him to govern as if in a state of war.
Upon declaring a national emergency in the United States, more than 130 special powers are immediately activated — such as the authority to shut down communications facilities or draw down equipment from national defence stockpiles — enabling a president to intervene in ways unavailable outside an emergency declaration. This president has already illegally deployed the National Guard in several states to patrol Democrat-led cities where he has claimed there are criminal emergencies outside the control of local law enforcement. If Trump has an apparent basis to invoke the Insurrection Act, which authorises the president to use military forces domestically in the event of an insurrection or rebellion, he can deploy troops to make arrests and conduct searches amongst the civilian population. The rule of habeas corpus can be suspended, allowing the detention without trial of anyone deemed to pose a threat to the country.
I don’t hear anyone scoffing at the idea that he would do this. Without even invoking the Insurrection Act, he has ICE officers already doing that kind of work. People-snatching, hiding detainees in out-of-state incarceration centres, injuring and killing those who try to protect themselves or others, or who are documenting such abuses, are only a taste of what this president is aiming for. All he needs is a big enough excuse, and America then becomes Iran.
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