By Douglas V. Gibbs
President Trump is not sending the military into cities. On the rare occasions when the military has been present, it was to support the National Guard in exceptional circumstances. That distinction matters a lot. And it’s one that too many Republicans, let alone the media, fail to make.
At a recent Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi, a student asked Vice President J.D. Vance about the use of the military in Washington, D.C., and other cities. The question revealed a common misconception; one that needs to be corrected with constitutional clarity. The military is not being deployed in our cities. The National Guard is. And under the law, the National Guard is not the military. It is the militia. Citizen soldiers. Not standing armies. The opposition to President Trump keeps using the word military like they use the word democracy. We were not designed to be a democracy, we are a federal republic, and Trump is not using the military, he’s deploying the militia. The two are not synonymous with each other. Military versus militia is not just semantics. The distinction has legal consequences. It’s the law. It’s the Constitution. And President Trump is following it to the letter.
Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives Congress the authority “to provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” Despite the political progressive liberal left’s desire to broadly interpret everything in the Constitution, the reality is that the clause is not vague. It’s not up for interpretation. The constitutional language provides a clear constitutional mandate.
Once the militia is called into federal service, Article II makes the President the Commander in Chief of that force.
So when the National Guard is deployed to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in enforcing immigration law, that’s not martial law. That’s not tyranny. That’s Congress’s enumerated power to “execute the Laws of the Union.” When the Guard is used to quell violent uprisings like the Antifa-led chaos in Portland, where the stated goal by Antifa is to be ungovernable and to overthrow the U.S. government, it is the constitutional duty of the President of the United States to deploy the militia to “suppress Insurrections.” And when the southern border is overrun by millions of foreign nationals, some of whom are Chinese operatives, jihadist infiltrators, or gang members dispatched by hostile regimes like Venezuela’s, that’s not just illegal immigration. That’s an invasion. And the Constitution doesn’t just allow the federal government to repel invasions, it requires it.
The Democrats prefer muddled language because then they can interpret it to mean anything they wish. And too many Republicans have allowed the left to frame the narrative. They hear “troops in the streets” and recoil, failing to distinguish between a standing army and a constitutional militia. But the Founders made that distinction for a reason. They feared a permanent military force used against the people, but they trusted the militia, made up of the people, to defend the republic.
That’s why the Militia Act of 1903 (and its subsequent amendments) codifies the National Guard as the organized militia. It is not the regular military. It is not the Department of War. It is a constitutional tool for domestic defense, law enforcement support, and emergency response.
So, let’s stop letting the media blur the lines. Let’s stop allowing the radical left to paint every lawful action as authoritarianism. And let’s stop being afraid to speak with constitutional confidence.
The more we know about the Constitution, the more we have Constitutional Courage. We need to understand what the original intent is, and then apply it to today’s politics. And if you understand original intent, you will come to what might be a surprising conclusion – Donald Trump is the most constitutional President of the United States in our lifetime.
President Trump is not using the military to occupy cities. He is using the militia to uphold the law, suppress insurrection, and repel invasion as the Constitution prescribes. That’s not tyranny. That’s fidelity to the Founding. It’s time Republicans remembered that. It’s time We the People recognized that. And it’s time we used that argument against the opposition.
— Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
