The Insurrection Act—and Martial Law—is Coming
The Trump Administration’s Playbook for Establishing a Dictatorship
I ended my previous piece by saying, “Today, we have a government, a President, trying to divide Americans apart and actually foment a civil war…” As of now, it seems we are closer than ever to going over the edge of the cliff and into that dark abyss.
On Monday, October 6, 2025, President Donald Trump publicly stated that he would soon invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 if federal courts, governors, and mayors continued to stymie his attempts to deploy military forces to Portland, Chicago, and other cities.
“If I had to enact it, I’d do it, if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up,” Trump said. “You look at what’s happening with Portland over the years, it’s a burning hell hole. And then you have a judge that has lost her way that tries to pretend there’s no problem.”
Trump is, of course, referring to Federal Judge Karin Immergut whom Trump actually appointed in 2019. On Saturday, October 4, 2025, Immergut issued a temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s attempts to deploy Oregon National Guard units to Portland.
Immergut’s restraining order contained an extraordinary and scathing rebuke of the Trump administration’s case:
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs.”
The federal government’s case to deploy troops to Oregon, and its assessment of any violence in Portland, “was not conceived in good faith.”
There was not “any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence [in Portland] were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole,” and that the State of Oregon provided “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days—or even weeks—leading up to the President’s directive.”
“Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”
Oregon would “suffer an injury to its sovereignty” if federal troops were deployed.
Then, the next day, Sunday, the Trump administration attempted to circumvent Immergut’s restraining order by federalizing California National Guard units and sending them to Portland. The Trump administration’s actions, Immergut stated, were a” direct contravention of the order that this court issued yesterday” and convened a special hearing that evening to pass a new restraining order barring Trump from sending any military forces—regardless of origin—to Portland.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson held an extraordinary press conference in which he asserted that Trump and “the right wing of this country wants a rematch of the Civil War. The President of the United States of America has declared war on the people of Chicago and people across America.” Johnson announced that they were passing a city ordinance to create “ICE-free zones,” essentially, city property where ICE could not enter or operate. He encouraged private businesses to also sign on to this initiative.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker also reacted to the news that Trump was federalizing 400 Texas National Guard members and, with the active assistance of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, sending them to Chicago. “We must start calling this what it is: Trump’s invasion. It started with federal agents. It will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops. I call upon Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw support for this decision and refuse to coordinate. There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation. The brave men and women who serve in our National Guard must not be used as political props. This is a moment where every American must speak up and help stop this madness.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom quickly joined the denunciations of Trump’s deployment of Texas National Guard units to Chicago. “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power by the President of the United States. America is on the brink of martial law. Do not be silent.”
These statements may appear hyperbolic to some, but President Trump’s threat to use the Insurrection Act ought to demonstrate that he is serious about enacting martial law in liberal or “blue” areas of the United States.
The Insurrection Act
The Insurrection Act, passed in 1807, is martial law. It is a way for the President of the United States to bypass another law, the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement within the country’s borders.
The Insurrection Act empowers the President to mobilize the regular military and federalize any state National Guard units to suppress rebellions, insurrections, civil unrest, or any other events that hinder the execution of the laws of the United States. Its central clause states:
“An Act authorizing the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States, in cases of insurrections
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That in all cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws, either of the United States, or of any individual state or territory, where it is lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ, for the same purposes, such part of the land or naval force of the United States, as shall be judged necessary, having first observed all the pre-requisites of the law in that respect.”
Along with the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, the Insurrection Act is arguably one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed by Congress. Not only is its language so broad as to practically invite a would-be tyrant to abuse its provisions, but it has been invoked in the past in precisely that manner.
Throughout the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, Presidents used the Act to forcibly suppress labor strikes, disputes, and protests. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, the Pullman Strike of 1894, the Colorado Labor uprising of 1914, the Battle of Blair Mountain (labor uprising in Pennsylvania) in 1921, and the suppression of a large protest in Washington DC by World War I veterans in 1932 to name just a few.
Presidents invoked the Act throughout the 1960s and 1970s to suppress race-related riots and protests against the Vietnam War.
Trump publicly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act—and to shoot protestors in the legs—during the George Floyd protests of 2020. It was only because of the resistance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, and the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, that America was spared such tragedy.
This time, there are no guardrails to contain Trump’s ambitions and edicts. He has a Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Customs and Border Director, and FBI Director who are sycophants. He has Republican governors like Greg Abbott willing to send their state National Guard units to Democratic states and municipalities. He has a Republican-dominated Congress willing to provide political cover for his authoritarian actions. Lastly, in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk, he has a base clamoring for the forceful suppression of a nebulous “radical left.”
The most crucial question, however, is whether Trump has the cooperation of the United States military.
We may have gotten a preview of the military’s reaction to Trump’s authoritarian aspirations when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called in over eight hundred top generals and admirals from all over the world for a meeting at Quantico, Virginia, on September 30, 2025.
After a clownish pep-talk about “wokeism” in the military by Hegseth, President Trump took the stage and delivered an hour-long rambling diatribe against the “radical left” and the “enemy from within.” Some key points Trump made:
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
“We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”
“Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.”
“This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won’t get out of control once you’re involved.”
During the entire time, the roomful of generals sat in stone-faced silence. Some grimaced. Some glared. One put his head in his hands. None applauded.
Afterward, some of the brass responded to reporters anonymously or through retired colleagues. Retired Army General Paul D. Eaton called the idea of using American cities as military “training grounds” an “outrage” and “highly inappropriate.” Retired General Barry McCaffrey on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program said, “I’ve been doing this a long time. That presentation at Quantico from the President and Secretary of Defense was one of the most bizarre, unsettling events I’ve ever encountered. The president sounded incoherent, exhausted, rabidly partisan, at times stupid, meandering, and couldn’t hold a thought together.” On CNN with Erin Burnett, an exasperated General Randy Manner stated, “The President talked about the enemy within. The enemy within is not the military. The enemy within is not the American people. I’ll leave it up to the viewers to decide where the enemy within is…”
Controlling the Ballot Boxes
Aside from Trump’s personal animus towards parts of the country that did not vote for him, the introduction of the Insurrection Act and martial law into “liberal” areas is about maintaining power at all costs. It is about surrounding, controlling, and perhaps seizing the ballot boxes of “blue” cities and states to affect the results of future Congressional and Presidential elections.
Illinois’ Democratic Governor JB Pritzker made this point on MSNBC the other day. “They think they can get people used to the idea [of military occupation of Chicago]. Next year I fear that they will deploy these folks eventually to polling places, and say they’re protecting the vote.’ Donald Trump knows that without shenanigans, without these breaches of the Constitution, that he’s going to lose the Congress. And if he looses he’s going to immediately, in the aftermath of the election, to do what he said he might do in 2020, which is use the military to confiscate the ballot boxes and count the votes claiming that there is fraud,” said Pritzker.
Pritzker was referring to the previous Trump administration, when, in the days following a real insurrection at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2020, journalists widely reported that Trump seriously contemplated using the Insurrection Act to seize state ballot boxes, allowing the United States military to oversee a recount of the ballots. Fortunately, it did not come to that then.
This time around, however, it appears the Trump administration is preparing to go forward with its previous plan.”Remember, he’s called up all fifty states’ election data to the Department of Justice because they want to review all fifty states for [election] fraud,” Pritzker continued. “They won’t tell you exactly what they are going to do, but I fear these [recent actions by Trump] are all connected. “
Pritzker was discussing recent moves by the Trump administration to demand detailed voter registration lists from all fifty states. So far, only a small handful of Republican-dominated states have complied. The DOJ is now suing California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania for their voting rolls, which include highly personal data such as social security numbers, names, addresses, and other identifying information for each voter.
Lastly, it is worth noting that Trump publicly threatened to intervene in, or punish ex post facto, New Yorkers if they elect New York State Representative Zohran Mamdani as their mayor on November 4, 2025.
The Reckoning
A key reason the Trump administration may not voluntarily surrender power after any elections is encapsulated in one word: accountability.
The great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, once wrote, “Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.” Throughout history, political regimes that commit great crimes against their own people never surrender power voluntarily. The regime correctly realizes that the minute they step down, they will be held accountable for their crimes by the political opposition and the people. The greater the crimes committed, the more unwilling the regime will be to abdicate peacefully.
The further the Trump administration goes in upending the nation’s constitutional order, the further it attacks American citizens, the more it imprisons, the more it represses, the more paranoid it will become in maintaining its grip on power. Consequently, they will be driven to repress harder, committing increasingly greater crimes to maintain control.
The invocation of the Insurrection Act and martial law, in some regions of the country, will be the key indicator that the Trump administration does not plan on leaving office willingly.
The Plan
In summary, the Trump battle plan for dictatorship is:
Manufacture a crisis in liberal cities and states. Use ICE and Border Protection officers to stir up street violence.
Send in National Guard units to “restore order,” inevitably leading to more riots and disorder.
Invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law in those areas.
Militarily occupy “blue” cities and states.
Seize control of state ballot boxes in the name of “safeguarding the vote.”
Manipulate the election results.
Remain in power indefinitely.
What the Trump administration is attempting with this strategy is essentially a top-down coup d’état whereby they can overthrow the American constitutional republic from the safety of the Oval Office instead of inciting mobs of their followers to attack the Capitol building.
It’s the same strategy Hitler and his National Socialists used to overthrow Germany’s constitutional Weimar Republic and seize absolute power. Hitler learned that trying to lead a revolution from below—such as when he attempted his famous Beer Hall Putsch in November of 1923—was destined to end in either death or imprisonment. After he was released from prison the following year, Hitler set out to overthrow the Weimar government from above, through a coup d’état. This strategy eventually succeeded through democratic and electoral means.
The coup was achieved in 1933 when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by a dying President Paul von Hindenburg. After the Reichstag (Germany’s Capitol Hill) in Berlin caught fire and burned to the ground, Hitler blamed the communists and Jews, and the parliament (by then dominated by elected Nazi parliamentarians) passed the Enabling Act, granting Hitler dictatorial powers over the state. The Nazi coup d’état was complete.
What followed was one of the darkest and bloodiest chapters in human history.
The coming of the Insurrection Act and martial law is not a question of “if” now. It is a question of when.
NBC News recently reported that cabinet officials in the White House, led by advisor Stephen Miller, were aggressively pushing for an eventual invocation of the Act by the President: “A decision isn’t expected to be imminent, one source said, but debate inside the administration has shifted recently, from whether it makes sense to invoke the Act to more deeply exploring how and when it might be invoked...The person close to the White House described the process as working its way up ‘an escalatory ladder’...Administration officials have drafted legal defenses and various options for invoking the Act, two of the people said.”
The clock is ticking.