What Will The Consequences Be?

     The deliberately fomented rioting, looting, and destruction of the past week have transformed several American cities into war zones: places where you don’t belong if you’re not willing to be taken for a combatant. While the “rationale” is “police racism,” supposedly exemplified by the still-contested death of George Floyd and the fully justified shooting of Rayshard Brooks, the real motivation is to render the country, or a large part thereof, ungovernable. The Left intends thus to effect a transition of federal power from Right to Left.

     There are two conceivable federal responses to this insurrection:

1. To declare that the responsibility for restoring order rests on the afflicted cities and states;
2. To intervene with military force, in effect imposing martial law on those cities and states.

     If there’s a third approach that differs significantly from those two, I can’t think what it might be.

     Unfortunately, federal law presents an ambiguous argument. The first responsibility, according to the Insurrection Act of 1807 as amended in 2007, lies with the state governments. The president is authorized to use federal forces only if “domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.”

     The argument turns on the meaning of the word incapable. In those cities worst afflicted by rioting and looting, the state governments have largely declined to act. But incapable does not mean unwilling. State garrisons of the National Guard might well be adequate to the task, were they permitted to undertake it. We can’t know in advance of the attempt.

     It seems from this that the president lacks a legal basis for using the U.S. Army. In effect, the unwillingness of the state governments to act has denied him the legal rationale he would need. However, there’s a fly in the ointment the size of a B-52: the possibility of a Presidential Finding that by tolerating the rioting without responding to it, the relevant state governments have aligned themselves with the rioters and are therefore in a state of insurrection.

     And the legal tangle doesn’t end there. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution puts the authority for suppressing an insurrection in the hands of Congress. While the Insurrection Act seems to be Congress’s full and appropriate contribution to the matter, persons adverse to the use of federal force against the rioters and complaisant state governments could still argue that funding for such an operation requires explicit Congressional appropriation.

     A fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into, eh, Ollie?

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     As the calendar advances toward November 3, the political consequences of the riots and the possible responses to them are likely to overshadow the practical consequences to the rioters, their organizers, and the cities and states that continue to tolerate them.

     It seems indisputable that the organizers of these riots have as their object the removal of President Donald Trump from the Oval Office. Indeed, a founder of “Black Lives Matter” has said so openly. That makes the political reaction to the riots among ordinary Americans a critical consideration.

     Tucker Carlson, with whom I (and a great many other viewers) usually agree, seems to be demanding a forcible federal response:

     He’s likely to get a lot of concurrences for that view, especially from decent Americans in or near the affected cities. However, Kurt Schlichter has an argument for not deploying federal forces:

     There are two types of operations relevant here – kinetic and information. A kinetic operation is actual warfare. It’s violence designed to defeat the enemy and cause his surrender by either physically destroying him or occupying his territory and compelling surrender. An information operation is designed to affect the perceptions, and thereby the actions, of the target. Kinetic ops tend to do something to the enemy; an info op tends to get the target to do something to himself.

     Elections are usually information operations. They attempt to build a narrative and play on perceptions and cause the target to take the action that will lead to victory. That is, get the target (the electorate) vote for the candidate the info operator wants elected.

     Okay, so what is the 2020 elections, with the rioting, vandalism, violence and occupations?

     This still an information operation, not a kinetic one.

     They want to convince us we are powerless, that everyone else supports their commie agenda, that we cannot win. Their tactics are designed to create that impression and crush our morale. These include the 24/7 media hype, the outright media lies, the movie stars with their dumb PSAs, the staged statue attacks, the corporate solidarity proclamations, the social media cancellations, and the craven kneeling by people who are supposed to stand up for us. But another tactic, familiar to any student of insurgencies, is to provoke an overreaction by those in power in order to undermine its moral authority. They want is to make us (including the president) think this is a kinetic operation, and get our side to make fundamental strategic errors by failing to recognize the true nature of the threat. They hope that such a mismatch between perception and reality will then lead to gravely damaging blunders. One of those would be Trump succumbing to his legit frustration and sending in a bunch of federal troops to crack skulls in Seattle.

     Which argument – the demand for bold leadership and swift suppressive federal action, or the counterpoised demand to let the riots hang the Left electorally – is likely to prevail in the president’s mind? Trump is a supremely practical man. He’s guided by his convictions about what will work. If Carlson is correct, only a swift federal response will guarantee Trump’s continued occupation of the White House. If Schlichter is correct, that would be the mistake that would make Trump a one-term president.

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     My viscera speak as does Carlson. My reasoning powers speak as does Schlichter. I suppose it’s a good thing that I’m not president at the moment.

     If President Trump can face the relevant state governments with the prospect of consequences unacceptable to them should they continue to refrain from acting against the rioters, he might achieve both the objectives in view: the quelling of the disturbances and his re-election (hopefully with a cooperative Congress) in November. Let’s not kid ourselves; Trump’s re-election is vital to the restoration of economy, the securing of the borders, the reformation of important federal institutions, and something approaching sane federal governance. A Biden Administration would be a witch’s brew of corruption, Constitutional violations, arrogations of authorities never granted, and general chaos as those behind him rise to the levers of power and act to implement the far-left agenda that has captured the Democrat Party.

     And all a voluble novelist / commentator from Long Island can do is wait and see.