Hypothetical question: Can the US military be used against American citizens who try to start

[Poiuyt]

a new civil war?

Supposedly, there are a few nuts who really want to start a new civil war if trump isn't reinstated as president this fall. They'll probably just go around waving their guns around, but if it did get serious, what forces would be called upon to thwart any rebellion? Does the Posse Comitatus rule apply?

[marble falls]

1. Past Presidents have called out Regular Army several times. Gen MacArthur was called out ...

... by Hoover to "evict" the 'bonus Army' encampment, causing a lot of injuries and killing at least one child.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army

Bonus Army
The Bonus Army was a group of 43,000 demonstrators – made up of 17,000 U.S. World War I veterans, together with their families and affiliated groups – who gathered in Washington, D.C. in mid-1932 to demand early cash redemption of their service certificates.Wikipedia

The 1932 Bonus Army (U.S. National Park Service)
[Search domain nps.gov] https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-1932-bonus-army.htm
Then, on July 28, the Hoover administration sent in the army and police to expel the marchers from Washington. The troops were led by General Douglas MacArthur, who would later serve in World War II and in the Korean War. His troops included infantry and cavalry and numbered 800, though an additional 2,700 were kept in reserve nearby, in case ...

The Day the U.S. Army Attacked WWI Veterans & their Kids ...
[Search domain salem-news.com] salem-news.com/articles/november302011/occupy-1933.php
The Day the U.S. Army Attacked WWI Veterans & their Kids. Fifty-five veterans were injured and 135 arrested. A veteran's wife miscarried. 12-week-old Bernard Myers died in the hospital after being caught in a tear gas attack. Bonus Army marchers confront the police 28 July 1932.

[brush]

2. National Guards, state troopers and police can handle them.

During natural disasters, the military can be deployed within the US to assist with relief and recovery efforts. The only real restriction on the use of the military within the borders of the US is that they may not be used as a police force to enforce local, state, or Federal law. This is per the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

[doc03]

6. Isn't the National Guard under the state governors command?

What side would the Republican controled states take?
Ohio's governor sent the National Guard and Highway Patrol to Texas to guard their border just as a Republican stunt

[sarisataka]

8. It depends

If the governor calls up the guard it is under the governor's command. They can be sent to other States under the emergency management agreement.

If they are called up under federal authority then the president is ultimately in command and the governor is out of the loop.

Courts have ruled if there is a conflict federal supersedes the states.

[brush]

9. You raise a significant point. It raises the spectre of...

National Guard units from neighboring states squaring off against each other if a republican governor aligns his Guard with right wing militias in a revolt.

That's an extreme situation and I don't know what the remedy would be, even for the President as the regular Army is supposed to be prohibited from deploying force within the nation's borders.

I would like to think a governor would not go there and would try to put down revolts by winger militia.

[sarisataka]

3. Answering the question hypothetically with

another question

Do you want to use the military against American citizens?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. This.

[Amishman]

31. No way, for many reasons

And in this situation the reason at the top of the list is that I'd be very worried the military would join the uprising.

[Bobstandard]

4. First it's the National Guard

And it’s anybody’s guess who regional National Guard commanders would support or answer to. The formal chain of command begins with the State Governor, and only after that POTUS.

Imagine that Greg Abbot calls out the National Guard to round up Democratic State Legislators. Clearly an abuse of power. But who’s going to stop him?

Let’s say POTUS says “stand down”.

Abbot ignores him

Then what?

Meanwhile, as the triangulation goes on in the White House, the Texas Dems are locked up and democracy is seen to crumble

Expand this thought experiment and you see the problems.

More to the point of OPs question, a declaration of national emergency would give POTUS the power to call in the troops. But again, would the military obey?

Let’s say it was Trump giving the order. We sure wouldn’t want the military to obey in that case apparently it came close to that

Say it’s Biden giving the order. Again the regular Army command wouldn’t want to get involved. But would they? Would some of them? The entire Army or just the commanding general of an armored division? The entire Air Force? What about the commander of a fighter squadron?

The potential scenarios are frightening

[The Magistrate]

5. It's Not A Question Of Saying 'Stand Down', Sir

The Texas guard would be Federalized, and ordered within the Army chain of command to cease. If that order was disobeyed, officers would be relieved of command, troops would know they obeyed an illegal order if they continued in obedience to the governor. If they did continue to obey the governor's order, it would mark the beginning of a civil war. There's a lot of twaddle talked about that on the right, but no one in authority really wants it.

[SheltieLover]

7. Ty for clarifying.

[PortTack]

20. Thank you so much for the in-depth explanation!!

[Kaleva]

12. Ike federalized the NG in Arkansas to circumvent that state's governor.

"On May 17, 1954, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional in the United States.[1] That ruling would focus the spotlight of national attention in the United States upon the Arkansas National Guard and the integration of Central High School. The Arkansas National Guard was drawn into the conflict when Governor Orval Faubus ordered them to "Preserve the Peace" by turning away the black students who were attempting to integrate into Little Rock's Central High School. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower reacted to this use of the Guard to foil the court-ordered integration by federalizing the entire Arkansas National Guard and using it to protect the nine black students integrating Central High School."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_integration_of_Central_High_School

[qazplm135]

10. President

Would have to declare an insurrection for federal troops to be used as police generally speaking.

[Kaleva]

11. Who is going to be fighting who?

The only person who has a very remote chance of uniting his followers into some semblance of a cohesive force would be TFG and with the large amount of evidence that shows TFG is an incompetent boob, there's virtually no chance that he'll soon become a Patton, a Hannibal, or some other military genius.

There is also the fact that there really aren't that many die-hard Maghats in the country. True, TFG got 10's of million of votes but many of those voters had also voted for Romney, McCain and Bush 41 in previous elections. TFG got many hundreds of thousands of votes from people who live within a short drive from Washington D.C. but it's estimated about 30k from all over the country showed up at the Jan 6th protest and out of those, only about 800 attacked the Capitol.

Lack of defined geographical boundaries also presents a problem. In the 2020 election in Michigan, 75% of the vote TFG guy got in that state came from voters who live in urban or mostly urban counties. At least in Michigan, and I suspect true in several other states, a majority of TFG voters would be heavily outnumbered by Biden voters.

Magahats are also hampered by their belief in fantasy. That angels were coming from Africa and Asia to ensure TFG's victory, that Repub controlled state legislatures in states Biden won would toss out election results and install TFG electors, that the release of the Kraken would overturn everything, and so on. People who are out of touch with reality simply cannot devise and execute plans that have a chance of success in the real world.

[DemocraticPatriot]

14. "that Repub controlled state legislatures in states Biden won would toss out election results and

install TFG electors"

Can you be sure that this one is actually a 'fantasy'-- when several states have already passed laws which would allow them to do that very thing in 2024??

I dread this scenario. The worst part is that parts of the Constitution would seem to allow it-- the states are allowed to choose their electors according to the laws of their own state (paraphrased).

There would be lawsuits if they do it, certainly, but with a rigged Supreme Court, I have no confidence that we could win the suits...

[sarisataka]

15. You don't need a rigged Supreme Court

The Constitution is quite clear on the subject. Yes they can.

There is no provision for a popular election of the president. The popular vote is meaningless Constitutionally.

[NutmegYankee]

21. Could we go to court to enforce the 14th amendment, section 2?

The argument can be made that a state making a law for the legislature to appoint the electors should trigger the loss of all representatives except one.

[sarisataka]

23. It would make an interesting argument

But the 14th doesn't require the voting for electors to be binding on the selection.

If the state allows an election but gives the legislature the final choice it might satisfy the letter of the Amendment. All voters would treated equally.

[Kaleva]

16. The Constitution gives state legislatures the sole authority in how electors are chosen

But state legislatures replacing Biden electors with TFG electors didn't happen in 2020 even though many Magahats bet on it.

Also, Magahats believed that when the appeals regarding the lawsuits challenging the election results reached the Supreme Court, that TFG would prevail. It didn't happen.

It's also telling that TFG couldn't get reputable law firms to fight for him and he had to depend on the likes of Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and good old Rudy.

[DemocraticPatriot]

30. In 2020, most (or maybe all) state laws dictated that their elector votes

would be awarded to the winner of the popular votes in their state--- so if the states had tried to send alternate electors to those selected by the popular vote, they would have been violating their own state laws-- and thus it could have been overturned in court.
I agree that it was less likely that they would have tried to do that, in 2020... but it seems less of "a fantasy" now, because---

Now, some states are moving to change their laws so that their legislature CAN select their own slate of electors for whatever candidate they favor, IN SPITE of whatever the popular vote may have been in their state. So far, Georgia and Arizona have actually passed these laws, if I understand correctly. I know for sure that Georgia has done it, and read that Arizona did the same thing.

Don't you get it? The far-right GQP state legislatures are now "rigging the rules" so that the TFG fantasies could come true-- next time-- despite however the people may have voted...

It is sadly un-American, but even more sadly LEGAL, under our Constitution as it was written.

Clearly we left some holes in the document that should have been corrected, before the country became so polarized politically.

I think 40 years ago, the Republican party might have been more agreeable to eliminating the electoral college and relying on the popular vote-- back when they did much better at winning the popular vote....

[Kaleva]

32. What state leglislature's have passed laws giving them the authority the Constitution granted them?

[WarGamer]

17. Why would the US Military be activated for a few dozens losers with flags and bear spray?

Police can take out the trash.

The only way we EVER see another REAL Civil War is IF...

You see a split in the US Military itself.

For example, if the 101st Airborne, 82nd Airborne, 1st Cav and 1st Armored Division break away from Pentagon control to back a rebellion...

(which will NEVER happen)

[jmowreader]

18. A new civil war would fall into the insurrection category

The active military could be called out in cases of insurrection, but they wouldn’t be called out long: if the active military brought in a squadron of A-10 Warthogs loaded with snake and nape (Mk. 82 bombs with retarder kits, and unfinned napalm canisters) and made one pass over these idiots, they’d go home.

[Sgent]

19. From a legal perspective yes

Ike and JFK both used regular army troops to enforce school desegregation. The Posse Comitatus Act law specifically allows the President to deploy troops due to civil unrest, riot, etc.

Politically its a different question.

[Kaleva]

24. Ike federalized the Arkansas National Guard

"On May 17, 1954, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional in the United States.[1] That ruling would focus the spotlight of national attention in the United States upon the Arkansas National Guard and the integration of Central High School. The Arkansas National Guard was drawn into the conflict when Governor Orval Faubus ordered them to "Preserve the Peace" by turning away the black students who were attempting to integrate into Little Rock's Central High School. United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower reacted to this use of the Guard to foil the court-ordered integration by federalizing the entire Arkansas National Guard and using it to protect the nine black students integrating Central High School."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkansas_National_Guard_and_the_integration_of_Central_High_School

[Sgent]

26. He also deployed

the 101st Airborne according to that article (see Student protection). I know Kennedy called up either the 101st or 82nd for the integration of Ole Miss.

[Blue_true]

28. They used the National Guard.

Technically the NG is not standing military. They had to use the NG because state police under the recalcitrant governors were on the governors’ side and would not uphold the law.

[Sgent]

29. The sources I located say differently

The 101st Airborne is not a NG unit, nor is the 2nd Infantry Battalion out of Fort Benning, GA.

Without digging to much:

https://50years.olemiss.edu/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Billingslea (The CO of the troops and National Guard).

[KentuckyWoman]

25. We won't know unless it happens.

Who is waving guns and where are they? Who is running the military? Who will or will not follow the order?

There are a lot of moving parts in a situation. Until it happens we won't know.

We do know people working for the US government were willing to tear gas peaceful protesters so the President could have a photo op. We know they are willing to hold children in cages at the border.
We know they were willing to shoot flash bangs in the direction of pregnant women.

I will grant you the US Park Police or Department of Homeland Security is not the same as US Military. National Guard troops would most likely be the ones deployed first and the ones I know would not want to be in any situation where they are called up on shoot and kill American Citizens for any reason.

The rule of law might come in to play after the fact, but in the heat of the situation, we don't know what will happen.

[Blue_true]

27. I believe the short answer is no.

The FBI and internal police agencies would try to deal with the problem first.

[roamer65]

33. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 does present problems.

But that would probably be bypassed by federalization of National Guard units.

[sarisataka]

35. Pulling the Guard to Federal status

Would also put them under Posse Comitatus. They are active Army units at that point.

[roamer65]

34. I doubt they would actually rise up.

Probably would start as terroristic, asymmetrical, cowardly acts.