Trump’s Gross Misuse of the National Guard

“Donald Trump just did what no other president has ever done in the context of urban unrest: He sent federal troops to a state without a request from the governor,” Juliette Kayyem writes.

“Trump’s decision to exercise his Title 10 authority to federalize the National Guard under his command was not based on a careful assessment of the operational needs on the streets of Los Angeles,” Kayyem continues. “The president’s assertion that a troop presence is the answer to public unrest is particularly dubious. Historically, these deployments have proved of limited value even when the president and governor agree on goals.”

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted of assaulting Rodney King, 63 people were killed amid widespread arson and looting as rioting spread through the city. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,000 people in Louisiana and left New Orleans with no functioning government and little law enforcement.

In each case, National Guard deployment was essentially a response to the incapacity of the local police force—either because the cops had become the focus of hostility or because they could not meet the demands of the crisis. And in both instances, the governor requested federal intervention.

The events of L.A. in 1992—and the explicit lessons that state, federal, and military authorities took from them—are why, until now, the task of dealing with civil unrest or natural disasters has remained largely with the National Guard acting under state jurisdiction, Kayyem writes.

“But Trump’s motive is transparent,” Kayyem continues, “and he will surely engineer an occasion to keep escalating his power plays, until they seem normal.”

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