Jamelle Bouie writes:

The United States is no stranger to the use of military or quasi-military force against protesters. During the Whiskey Rebellion, a tax revolt of farmers and distillers in western Pennsylvania that culminated in 1794, President George Washington raised a federal militia to meet insurgents in the field. To break the Pullman Strike of 1894, during which workers shut down rail traffic in much of the country, President Grover Cleveland deployed federal troops to Chicago, sparking a confrontation that ended in the deaths of 30 workers. And in 1932, under orders from President Herbert Hoover, Gen. Douglas MacArthur confronted the Bonus Army — a group of World War I veterans who camped out in Washington, D.C., petitioning the government for their promised bonuses for military service — with infantry, cavalry and tanks.

The difference lies less in the acts themselves than in the ways these events developed. Use of military force against strikers and protesters is certainly controversial, but for the most part it unfolds along clear lines of responsibility and involves powers expressly granted to the president. As the example of Washington and the Whiskey rebellion demonstrates, it was part of the constitutional design. President Trump’s internal security force was, by contrast, created out of public view, using loopholes and expansive interpretations of the law. The reason Customs and Border Protection can be used to police a protest in Portland is, for example, because the Department of Homeland Security can supplement law enforcement from one agency with personnel from another.

There are other elements beyond the fact of its existence that make the emergence of an internal security force extremely troubling. As a candidate, Trump actively cultivated both the leadership and the rank-and-file of the border police and ICE. In turn, they gave him his support — unions for both agencies endorsed Trump for president. Under his leadership, these agencies have shown themselves to be deeply simpatico with the administration’s draconian approach to immigration at the southern border, with aggressive action against migrants, asylum-seekers and unauthorized immigrants.

A secretive, nationwide police force — created without congressional input or authorization, formed from highly politicized agencies, tasked with rooting out vague threats and answerable only to the president — is a nightmare out of the fever dreams of the founding generation, federalists and antifederalists alike. It’s something Americans continue to fear and for good reason. It is a power that cannot and should not exist in a democracy, lest it undermine and destroy the entire project. [Continue reading…]