from the abuse-of-power dept
This weekend, Donald Trump pulled off something that’s happened exactly once before in US history: federalizing a state’s National Guard over the state governor’s objections without invoking the Insurrection Act. And he did it to deal with what the LAPD itself described as peaceful protests that were “under control.”
The constitutional implications here are important. Trump bypassed California Governor Gavin Newsom entirely, ordering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to directly command 2,000—then another 2,000—California National Guard members under 10 USC 12406, a statute that explicitly requires such orders to go “through the governors of the States.”
This isn’t just another Trump tantrum. It’s a fundamental violation of the constitutional balance between federal and state authority that the Founders specifically designed to prevent military rule. In the last few months we’ve seen so many attacks on the basic Constitutional underpinnings of America that it’s easy to brush this off as just another one. But this attack on the American way is the most serious one yet.
It’s fundamentally removing some of the most basic freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and making the US into a full-on authoritarian police state.
On Monday, Gavin Newsom officially sued Donald Trump and the US government over the National Guard deployment, likely the first of multiple attempts to fight this egregiously unnecessary authoritarian attack on the people of California:
The Governor of the State of California and the State of California bring this action to protect the State against the illegal actions of the President, Secretary of Defense, and Department of Defense to deploy members of the California National Guard, without lawful authority, and in violation of the Constitution.
One of the cornerstones of our Nation and our democracy is that our people are governed by civil, not military, rule. The Founders enshrined these principles in our Constitution— that a government should be accountable to its people, guided by the rule of law, and one of civil authority, not military rule.
President Trump has repeatedly invoked emergency powers to exceed the bounds of lawful executive authority. On Saturday, June 7, he used a protest that local authorities had under control to make another unprecedented power grab, this time at the cost of the sovereignty of the State of California and in disregard of the authority and role of the Governor as commander-in-chief of the State’s National Guard.
The lawsuit gets to the heart of what makes this so dangerous: Trump manufacturing a crisis to justify expanding executive power. The protests in Los Angeles were, by all accounts—including from the LAPD—under control. The few incidents that did occur (some Waymo cars getting tagged and burned, apparently in response to ICE agents arriving in Waymos) hardly constitute the kind of emergency that would justify federal military intervention.
The complaint also details how the mechanism Trump used for this, 10 USC 12406, is entirely inappropriate for this situation:
The vehicle the President has sought to invoke for this unprecedented usurpation of state authority and resources is a statute, 10 U.S.C. § 12406, that has been invoked on its own only once before and for highly unusual circumstances not presented here. Invoking this statute, the President issued a Memorandum on June 7, 2025 (Trump Memo), “call[ing] into Federal service members and units of the National Guard.” Secretary of Defense Hegseth, in turn, issued a Memorandum (DOD Order) that same day to the Adjutant General of California, ordering 2,000 California National Guard members into federal service. And on June 9, 2025, Secretary Hegseth issued another Memorandum (June 9 DOD Order) ordering an additional 2,000 California National Guard members into federal service.
These orders were issued despite the text of section 12406, which, among other things, requires that when the President calls members of a State National Guard into federal service pursuant to that statute, those orders “shall be issued through the governors of the States.” 10 U.S.C. § 12406. Instead, Secretary Hegseth unlawfully bypassed the Governor of California, issuing an order that by statute must go through him.
This isn’t some arcane procedural rule Trump’s team missed. The requirement that federal activation orders go through governors exists precisely to prevent exactly this kind of federal overreach:
The Constitution reserves to the States power over their respective state militias— now the National Guard— unless the State requests or consents to federal control. Only under the most exigent of circumstances can the President, over the objections of a State, call the National Guard into federal service. The balance the Framers struck between the State’s power to control its own militia and the very narrow circumstances in which the federal government may take command and control of the militia serves as a vital check against federal overreach. Section 12406 does not provide the authority Defendants have claimed and cannot be the vehicle for their actions.
The Constitution grants the States—not the federal Executive—the authority to conduct ordinary law enforcement activities and to determine how their own state laws should be enforced.
Reflecting the Founders’ distrust of military rule, the U.S. Constitution and the laws of our Nation strictly limit the domestic use of the military, including the federalized National Guard. The Posse Comitatus Act codifies these strict rules, prohibiting the military from engaging in civil law enforcement unless explicitly authorized by law. The authority to use the military domestically for civil law enforcement is reserved for dire, narrow circumstances, none of which is present here. Defendants have overstepped the bounds of law and are intent on going as far as they can to use the military in unprecedented, unlawful ways
What we’re seeing here is the classic authoritarian escalation pattern: manufacture a crisis, claim existing authorities are insufficient, then grab unprecedented power to “solve” the manufactured problem. Stephen Miller, who’s been openly fantasizing about using military force against domestic protests, has found his test case—and the fact that it’s so obviously a manufactured crisis shows just how desperate they are to normalize military intervention in civilian law enforcement.
Multiple videos show people dancing in the streets, rather than anything resembling a “riot.” This is what Trump claims requires 4,000 National Guard troops:
Or this:
This isn’t a riot. It’s certainly not an insurrection. It’s a protest in the grand tradition of American protests: calling out authoritarian abuse of power and showing solidarity those victimized by it. It’s American as apple pie.
The whole goal here is normalizing military intervention in civilian law enforcement while establishing precedent for bypassing state authority entirely. If Trump can federalize California’s National Guard over peaceful protests that local authorities had under control, what else will he demand the military do for him?
The most damning part of all this? For years, we’ve heard MAGA world shriek about hypothetical martial law and federal tyranny. Now, faced with actual federal seizure of state military assets over manufactured emergencies, they’re cheering it on. Turns out their “principled” opposition to government overreach only applied when it wasn’t their guy doing the overreaching.
And yes, MAGA Trump fans will still try to justify this, posting pictures of a couple of Waymos on fire, screaming about how LA is violent (it’s not) and needs “order” restored (again, even the cops say that’s nonsense). They all know that’s bullshit. Yes, your dumb uncle with a brain pickled by Fox News propaganda may believe some of it, but everyone who matters knows that this is all for show.
California’s lawsuit represents more than just pushback against Trump’s latest power grab. It’s a test of whether our constitutional system still has any teeth left when it comes to checking such extreme executive overreach. If Trump can get away with this—federalizing state National Guard units over the objections of governors for non-emergencies—then the balance of power between federal and state authority that’s existed since the founding is effectively dead.
As is the entirety of the American experiment.
That should terrify anyone who gives a damn about constitutional government and the concept of the United States of America, regardless of what they think about ICE or immigration protests.
Filed Under: california, donald trump, gavin newsom, karen bass, martial law, national guard, pete hegseth, state’s rights
