The irritation from Democrats and Republicans alike hadn’t died down after Donald Trump’s poorly received Rose Garden address on immigration before the White House was floating a new terrible idea. What do you do when the combined intellect and strategery of Jared Kushner and Stephen Miller leaves the far right calling you a squish and Democrats saying “It ain’t happening”? If you’re Donald Trump, you start floating use of the Insurrection Act to deploy the military against undocumented immigrants.
The fine folks at Fox & Friends asked White House spokesman Hogan Gidley if Trump was considering the Insurrection Act, and Gidley aggressively did not rule out that possibility, saying that Trump is “going to do everything within his authority to protect the American people” and has “lots of tools at his disposal.” Trump meanwhile, tweeted that “All people that are illegally coming into the United States now will be removed from our Country at a later date as we build up our removal forces and as the laws are changed. Please do not make yourselves too comfortable, you will be leaving soon!”
So there’s the Trump administration sidling a little closer to outright militarism and authoritarianism, as if they weren’t close enough already.