National Guard status these days

A Facebook post by Elizabeth Moon (popular author). I have bolded the important paragraph.

On to less pleasant topics; if you're too stressed for this, skip along.  

Most people think of the military reorganization that followed the Vietnam conflict mostly for the end of the draft and the start of an all-volunteer military.  But at the time, the combined militaries were seriously annoyed with the National Guard setup that allowed governors a lot more control over their state guard than they have now.  The Pentagon had a point: the guard supposedly existed for two disparate purposes...to give governors an emergency force to use, a force that had military (not police) training and was independent of local governments....and to back up the U.S. military during times of war.  National Guard units used military bases for training and had access to military grade weaponry.  

However, during 'Nam, some governors refused to allow deployment of their National Guard (in whole or in part), which resulted in the need to increase the draft, conscripting more and more civilians into the military.  Those governors typically chose the National Guard air units (e.g. the Texas Air National Guard) , and equally typically these units were "reserved" for the draft-eligible sons of prominent supporters of the governor and his party.  They quickly filled up with young men of wealthy families who did not want to go to 'Nam and whose families had pull.  National Guard units withheld from national service still counted as military service, even though those in them knew they would never experience what those in the regular military and reserve military units did.  George W. Bush entered the Texas Air National Guard as the son of a Texas Congressman (his father George was then a Texas Congressman) and the young officers in T.A.N.G. back then (not now) knew they were as safe as if they'd run off to Canada.  Safer, in fact, because they could claim military service when they started running for office.

This infuriated those actually serving, including at that time senior officers who were not part of what was about to become the politicization of the military.  So their response was "Fine...take away the draft...but then take away a governor's right to sequester "his boys" from service.  Give the military the right to deploy National Guard units as needed in time of war, whether the governor likes it or not.  Why should *our* budget pay for their training and equipment if we can't use them?  Make the states pay for their own National Guards."  The states, of course, didn't want to pay individually, so the law changed.  

For years this made little difference, since piddly conflicts before Gulf I did not overstressstress the existing regular and reserve units.  But then things got nasty fast, and real wars started eating up manpower again, as real wars do.  And the National Guard began to be called on again for overseas duty, extended duty, tour after tour.  Leaving the states whose National Guard was overseas without the resources and training and manpower to handle emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, and other disasters for which National Guard assistance had always been reliable.  (The Louisiana National Guard was sent off to the war at the start of hurricane season the year of Katrina...so the National Guard deployed to New Orleans came from another state that was obviously full of white guys with both fear of and disdain for black people.)

Why this matters now: since the U. S. military is under the command of the president as Commander in Chief, and the state National Guards can be deployed by the regular military, this means that a governor who does not want his state's National Guard to be used to attack "antifa" when a riot is being driven by white supremacist/neoNazi/neoConfederates...can't legally stop a corrupt president from taking control of them and shipping them where he wants to do whatever he wants.

This president has shown he will not allow attacks on white right-wing terrorists, but only on people of color and any other who opposes him.   He calls armed white mobs "good people."  He ignores evidence of wrongdoing by white instigators and invents evidence against Democrats and "antifa."
GOP governors will mostly cooperate with enthusiasm; Dem governors may resist but the law is not on their side.  Much depends on the local commanders: are they willing to risk their careers and lives, if they believe the orders they're given are wrong?   Much depends on the training they've been given in the past 50 years, as the GOP set out to politicize the military and undercut the Constitution as they had been doing since the Southern Strategy succeeded.  

Civilians need to be aware of the history and even in a pandemic prepare for the other crises that are upon us.  So unlike others giving a warning, I say *don't* be afraid.  It's a  time for alert, thoughtful awareness.  Reaching out to those in need, helping where you can, reminding each other that cooperation is the foundation of civilization.  Build on what community is already there.  Strengthen the compassion and the cooperation in your community.  Be the glue. That's the civilian equivalent to "unit cohesion" in the military, and it's what keeps  units alive and effective when the brown stuff hits the rotating blades.

This nation is not "the economy."    It is not the malls, the parking lots, the state capitals, the churches, much as those things are useful.  This nation is the people.  WE, THE PEOPLE, as the Constitution begins.   And in a modern version of what John Hancock said as he signed the Declaration of Independence, it's about damn time we all hung together and quit fussing about who speaks better English and who's going to which place of worship and whose ancestors came here earliest and other trivia, time all of us who want this country to survive hung together, or we are very likely to see it destroyed as we hang separately.  We are the majority; we can work together.  I'm with Jim Wright: If we want a better country--if we want a healthy country--we must be better citizens.

Interesting. Are we seeing the beginning of a “palace coup” by the military?

It would be nice if the military decided to uphold their oath and throw the orange bum out of the White House, but I don't think we can count on it.

The Atlantic keeps producing thoughtful (but long) pieces that don't necessarily make me feel better.

Trump’s Words Are Not Meaningless Ramblings

Jane Chong wrote:

When the president advocates for a viewpoint or course of action, he does not do so merely as an influential public figure with millions of Twitter followers. He does it as the country’s chief executive, charged not only with ensuring that the law is followed but also with the more basic task of saying what the law is. This is the legal reality at the heart of the struggle over President Donald Trump’s recent promises to crack down on protesters in more than 30 cities nationwide who have taken to the streets to decry last week’s brutal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Presidential speech is never just speech. Because law enforcement begins with the simple act of legal interpretation, presidential speech is presidential action.

This is not how Americans usually think about what the president is doing when he speaks. Under the government’s three-branch structure, interpretation of the law is a function usually attributed to the courts. That’s because when it comes to defining the law’s parameters in the context of a specific dispute, the courts get the last word. As tensions explode across the country, however, America is getting an indelible reminder that, as the authority charged with overseeing the execution of the law, the president gets the first word.

The distinct significance of Trump’s words is likely to be more and more obscured as his administration escalates its operational response to the protests. This principle achieved surreal cinematic precision on Monday during Trump’s first public remarks on the protests from the Rose Garden. While Trump threatened to send the military into cities and states that fail to establish order, officers across the street shot tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters gathered near Lafayette Square, in an apparent effort to clear the area for the president’s photo op in front of St. John’s Church.

Yet as the escalation continues—as Customs and Border Patrol officers flood D.C., and the Pentagon prepares U.S. military troops for possible deployment to Minneapolis—Trump’s words continue to matter. These include the dozens of tweets he has issued in the past few days, promising to bring the full weight of the federal government down on protesters. Trump’s tweets are, on their face, clear interpretive acts. They are designed to affect, in real time, the definition of law and order meted out in the streets.

First, on Thursday, Trump tweeted, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The suggestion was clear: Damage to property might well be met with deadly force. He walked back the comment but then doubled down when he retweeted Sunday, “This isn’t going to stop until the good guys are willing to use overwhelming force against the bad guys.” These tweets contain what lawyers would call proportionality and necessity assessments about what kind of government response is warranted against the protesters. The notion that property crimes warrant violence against human beings is the rot at the root of much police violence: The officer who crushed George Floyd’s neck until he died did so after Floyd allegedly attempted to buy cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. But with thousands of police officers and protesters now clashing in the streets, Trump’s statements are all the more significant because the parameters of lawful use of force promulgated by the country’s 18,000-plus police departments are notoriously variable, inexact, and subjective. A 2018 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights explains that “quantifying the appropriate amount of force in a given situation can be difficult and debatable.” Trump’s statements on how protesters should be treated could be used to fill in the gap.

Second, Trump’s tweets purport to identify the culprits responsible for the violence. On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “It’s ANTIFA and the Radical Left. Don’t lay the blame on others!” He went further, assessing the motives of the alleged perpetrators and explicitly concluding that their cause—the protest of the unlawful killing of George Floyd—is a pretext: “The professionally managed so-called ‘protesters’ at the White House had little to do with the memory of George Floyd. They were just there to cause trouble.” And he explained how the pretextual protests should be handled with a retweet proclaiming that “the radical-left formally divorced itself from America last night,” labeling the protesters “domestic terrorists and enemies of the United States,” and declaring that “they should be treated as such.”

Third, the president accused another group of unlawfully aiding the protesters: He tweeted, “The Lamestream Media is doing everything within their power to foment hatred and anarchy,” describing them as “truly bad people with a sick agenda.” Trump made these pronouncements even as videos emerged of police targeting journalists and media crews covering the protests, deploying tear gas and rubber bullets. David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, condemned the “appalling” attacks and criticized Trump for contributing to “an environment ready for such abuse.”

Fourth, Trump has tweeted ultimatums to cities and states, urging mayors and governors to “get tough” and “do more to restore order,” calling out Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for allegedly falling down on the job, and threatening to send the U.S. military to “step in and do what has to be done.” His statements culminated in a phone call on Monday with state governors during which he berated them for being “weak,” encouraged the deployment of more aggressive tactics, and repeatedly demanded arrests and prosecutions.

The natural inclination is to draw a distinction between the president’s speech and the president’s actions—to separate the chaff from the wheat, the empty pronouncement from the concrete government response. For instance, when President Trump tweeted Sunday that “the United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” journalists and legal experts moved to clarify why he lacks the legal capacity to do that. As Maggie Haberman and Charlie Savage have explained in The New York Times, “antifa” is not an organization but a loosely defined left-wing movement. And the U.S. has no domestic terrorism law to speak of; only foreign entities can be deemed terrorist organizations under existing federal law.

That the president is wrong about the law, however, doesn’t render his speech empty of legal import. Haberman and Savage’s analysis concludes it is “not clear that Mr. Trump’s declaration would have any real meaning beyond his characteristic attempts to stir a culture-war controversy, attract attention and please his conservative base.” But Trump’s tweets are imbued with “real meaning” by virtue of his office and how people in positions of legal authority understand that office.

This is obvious enough from the standpoint of formal government machinery. A flank of political appointees at the helm of federal government agencies stands ready to address the intent behind the president’s stated goals. Attorney General William P. Barr, for instance, followed up Trump’s “antifa” tweet by issuing a written statement calling out protester violence as the work of domestic terrorists and declaring that the FBI would partner with state and local police to identify them.

As commander in chief of the country’s armed forces, too, the president has the firepower to back up his opinions on civil unrest and has proved willing to use it. Last Thursday, when Trump began urging states to activate the National Guard, he was arguably engaging in a persuasive exercise that drew on state governors’ authority to call on their respective Guard forces, as well as his own authority to pay for their deployment, under Title 32. But when he threatened to send in the troops himself, he was pressuring state governors to bring about his desired result by explicitly referencing his power to place the National Guard under federal control through Title 10.

All of this is important, but so is the fact that, machinery aside, many of Trump’s statements are self-executing. Therein lies their power. Never mind what the courts say tomorrow; he speaks the law as it is understood and applied today. These statements might not be issued as part of an intelligible government policy, yet they are units of action with real consequences for how, among other things, uniformed officers decide to comport themselves amid the crowds. No, the specificity of the terminology and data used to analyze the effects of the Trump administration’s affirmative-policy moves—for example, its termination of Obama-era civil-rights investigations and its withdrawal of federal oversight from police departments in places including Ferguson and Baltimore—can’t be replicated in discussions about the propriety of Trump’s tweets. But when it comes to executive authority, vagueness doesn’t equal impotence. On the contrary, the nation is witnessing, firsthand, the immense might the president wields by way of his most ill-defined, hard-to-measure power: presidential speech.

Trump is not a theoretician.

Trump is not a constitutional scholar.

Trump is not a deep thinker, or a person who worries about consequences. He's a narcissistic 5-year-old in an adult body, who has allowed some very radical fringe policy wonks from the American Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society to tell him what to do. He trusts the very worst advice he's getting, from unelected unconstitutional immoral and authoritarian "scholars" in much the same way the Imams pull the real strings in Iran's government.

I've said before the Federalist Society has been sleeping with the devil to try to reverse the liberalization of American society. They've supported dumber and dumber candidates in their attempt to find someone who will follow their agenda without question: first Reagan, then W., then Trump. At first Trump and McConnell were the perfect partners, because they didn't care how terrible the results were.

Did you hear about McConnell putting forward a 38-year-old "totally unqualified" person from his staff for a lifetime federal judgeship, based solely on the Federalist Society control over this guy? Our courts will be fucked for a generation. Bye bye Roe v. Wade. Bye bye voting rights. Bye bye social security. Bye bye healthcare. Bye bye progressive taxation. We'll have fifty years of 1950s court decisions (or even pre-Civil War) regardless of who wins the White House and Senate in November.

But I fear Trump is falling out of favor with his masters. He's going "off the reservation" with all his adolescent dictatorial fantasies, with his petulant swipes at everyone who challenges him, with his unbelievable turnover in his administration.

He might not get re-elected.

And his replacement might be motivated to try to undo some of the damage the Federalists have wrought. Some, like judgeships, will be harder to undo than others, but the way things are going, I'm seeing a BIG wave of progressivism building.

King Kong may have screwed the pooch.