Cartoon Man

Jayapal on the Insurrection Act: I’m very worried. This guy does not seem to have any boundaries around what he’s willing to do. He’s limited only by his own morality, which is a terrifying thought. pic.twitter.com/lBWCo96j7X

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 15, 2026

 The Big Scary now is that Trump is going to invoke the Insurrection Act, and then it’s all over but the crying. Democracy done for, the republic dead and buried; martial law across the land; dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!

Yeah, right.

First, we’ve seen the Marines in action in El “A.” They stood around a building and controlled access to it. Which didn’t stop Cosplay Barbie from siccing her goons on a U.S. Senator. Remember that? The Marines also didn’t sweep the streets of protesters. The LA cops did that (though Trump still insists he did that. He also thinks the sun shines out of his ass.). The Marines stood around the building, and finally went home.

What will they do in Minneapolis? Stand between 🧊 and the people blowing whistles? Stop 🧊 from throwing flash bangs and shooting pepper bombs into cars? Stop 🧊 from chasing people into their houses and then shooting through the front door? Maybe stop 🧊 from ramming cars and using that as excuse to destroy private property and kidnap people? Maybe even keep 🧊 from generally acting with such impunity?

Where’s the downside here?

I mean, if the Marines are gonna repress the violence, where’s the violence coming from? The Marines aren’t on the 🧊 payroll. They don’t get bonuses for counting coup. They don’t answer to Stephen Millrr or Greg Bovino. If they are given a mission to suppress the violence, well… that door swings two ways. And if they are told the door swings only one way, then they are going to be doing a whole lot of nothing.

I know, I know, Trump is going to impose “martial law.” Except that’s not a concept in American law. We can’t suspend the Constitution or the 1st amendment (freedom to assemble; free speech, etc.). There are far too many stories of people on the streets lawfully, not protesting or blowing whistles, being assaulted by 🧊. 🧊 does not discriminate. Anyone not literally with them, masked up and armed for heavy combat, is against them. Noem has already said American citizens have to get used to carrying proof of citizenship with them at all times. Chris Hayes tonight said that offends our “secular religion.” Actually, it offends the 5th amendment, and the constitutional presumption of innocence. I am not presumptively present in this country without permission until proven otherwise, and even if I am, the 14th amendment guarantees me due process and equal protection of law as a person, notwithstanding my citizenship status. Our ancestors fought a civil war to establish that right, and a revolutionary war before that. If it takes another war to protect that right, so be it.

But it won’t. And that’s not a concept Trump can toss aside under the guise of the Insurrection Act. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, but legal scholars to this day consider his action unconstitutional. The very concept of martial law is an idea peculiar to Anglo-American jurisprudence, which doesn’t allow the “state of exception” known to most European governments, a consequence of the provision for a diktator in times of crisis in Roman law. The idea is literally that, in order to save the rule of law, we must suspend the rule of law. But there is no Constitutional provision to suspend the Constitution. The Constitution is either the law of the land, or it isn’t. How enforceable its provisions are (the 15th; part 3 of the 14th) is never seen as going to the question of the legitimacy of the whol (not as a matter of constitutional law and constitutional legitimacy, that is). But martial law, as popularly imagined, precisely is the suspension of the rule of law in order to save the rule of law. And there is no constitutional provision for that. 

So, yes, Trump can send in the Marines to suppress “rebellion” in Minneapolis. But I would be happy to take case to court, on the argument that the rebellion is coming from the government, and not from the people. The lawlessness is by Trump, not by the people of Minnesota. Which might well create a new exception to the use of the Act, especially since a leading DOJ Attorney is on record saying the government WILL NOT investigate, nor allow an investigation, into the shooting death of Rachel Good. 

We’re well past matters of factual interpretation and “Who shot first?,” with the Administration acting as it has in Minneapolis. You can’t give the government the benefit of the doubt when they openly quash all efforts at pursuing due process and equal protection for persons and citizens in this country, and when there is a very particular case of that action that can be placed in the court record. I can see the Sinister Six giving the government the benefit of the doubt for its treatment of foreigners (to a degree. They’ve done it already). I can’t see them acting as if the Rachel Good murder never even happened. Kavanaugh is already crawfishing on “Kavanaugh stops,” and he committed that stupid piece of dicta to print before 🧊 had killed anyone on the street.

I really think Trump is going to find his bag of trick is empty. And the worst thing we can do, is to give him power he doesn’t have by thinking he actually has it. Trump lives in a cartoon version of reality. There’s no reason the rest of us should take that as reality.