Trump's power to declare a national emergency and martial law

[Cyrano]

over coronavirus would put America in deadly danger. According to buzzflash:

How far could the president go in using the military within U.S. borders? ... “The Alarming Scope of the President's Emergency Powers: From seizing control of the internet to declaring martial law, President Trump may legally do all kinds of extraordinary things”:

This legal regime for emergencies—ambiguous constitutional limits combined with a rich well of statutory emergency powers—would seem to provide the ingredients for a dangerous encroachment on American civil liberties.

-snip-

There is no likelihood, given the lockstep GOP Senate acquittal of Trump on impeachment, that Congress could rein in Trump should he declare a state of emergency as the pent up Coronavirus explodes across the US once large scale testing begins. Hospitals, in the worst case scenario, may be, as noted above, beyond capacity. A significant percentage of the population will be stricken because of the infection multiplier ratio. The US — and world — economy and people’s livelihood will be in a shambles.

-snip-

What better excuse for Trump to implement a state of emergency. Given that the entire nation of Italy is now on a quarantined lock-down, would it be inconceivable that Trump would institute martial law and assert federal control over Coronavirus hot spots, which may become the entire nation?

And, finally, is it entirely far-fetched that he would delay or cancel the 2020 elections? Who is going to stop him? Can we rely on the Supreme Court with its 5-4 partisan majority? Remember, Republicans play for keeps, and they view Trump as a strong man who can lead them into one-party rule, heralding the end of democracy as we know it.

The resistance to Trump has become numbed and fatigued by his ruthlessness, lies and seizure of powers under the concept of “unitary executive authority,” which Bill Barr fully supports. Would the 5-4 GOP SCOTUS majority punt, as it has been doing, to Congress, where Mitch McConnell would get his caucus to back the final stage of a Trump/Republican coup?

Yes, it may appear hyperbolic and a fringe conspiracy theory. However, why would Trump work so hard to keep the virus expanding while he “fiddles,” unless he was going to utilize the inevitable overwhelming pandemic to his advantage.

And what would be more opportunistic than to emulate his mentor, Vladimir Putin, in seizing power without an end in sight?

Implausible. Maybe, but then again, as the Atlantic notes, this is Donald Trump — an unstable non-genius of evil intent — whom we are talking about, and he knows no boundaries and could care less about the health (and national security) of the nation. Furthermore, Trump is a man who has tweeted he is king of America, has claimed he is “owed” a second term because of his “persecution” by the Democrats, and recently tweeted an animation showing him winning elections in 2020, 2024 and 2028.

https://buzzflash.com/articles/p5ev8xxllv10o5qgedlf2boozsnzi3

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Discussing this on other threads

and predicting it for over a year.

Trump will NOT give up power peacefully.

[C_U_L8R]

2. Only acceptable if he resigns.

Form a bipartisan co-presidency until the crisis is over.

[Cyrano]

5. Who's going to make him do that?

The Orange Beast is the only one who can declare martial law. And once he's done that, there's literally nothing to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do.

The only (minor) hope is that the Joint Chiefs in the Pentagon will see what he's up to and order all troops to stand down. And that would amount to a coup-d'etat. What then?

[C_U_L8R]

6. Minds might change

When Republicans start dying.

As we all know, they don’t do squat until it affects them personally.

[Newest Reality]

3. K&R!!!!

[procon]

4. Worse, everyone knows he will do something terrible.

He frequently brags that he has the power to do anything he wants. Remember when he wistfully pondered why he couldn't drop a nuclear bomb since the has a big stockpile just sitting around doing nothing?

Sure, he'd shutdown the internet in a heartbeat if he could find away that he was the only person in the country who could still send out tweets. Wouldn't that muzzle all his critics and silence the scientists bearing bad news.

Trump would love to see the whole country under Martial Law, or maybe he'd just target blue states, sanctuary cities, or the Mayors and Governors who have criticized him.

Trump is a psychopath and he will always make the worst, most god awful, terrible decisions imaginable.

[Volaris]

7. Yep yep. THANKS, Patriot Act!

Congress passed it cause Republicans are fuckin worthless, willing and LAZY tools.

We let Obama NOT un-pass it, because it was Obama and he was (mostly) trustworthy with that Power.

NOW can do something about this Constitutional Blight, before we're JUST left with the Blight and nothing Constitutional??