This is one of the most challenging columns I have written. Not only have we experienced unprecedented unconstitutional abuse of government power exercised in response to COVID-19, 2020 election irregularities, and January 6, which has left our country in a state that has more in common with a banana republic than the constitutional republic that has defined us previously for some 230 years. Recent developments suggest that this could be a prelude to worse to come.
Everyone senses that the open border policy of the Biden-Harris administration, best described by the U.N. term “replacement migration,” has been driven by a kind of unprecedented anti-American wickedness directed at destabilizing the United States through overwhelming our health and education welfare system and bringing on potentially massive election irregularity from a spike in illegal immigrant voting. On top of that, we have become the number one country in the world in human and child trafficking, criminal gang activity, and seeding our territory for insurrection and direct terrorist attacks—the latter likely to happen leading up to election day or shortly after that.
Then we have the backdrop, accomplished just a few months ago, that gave a veneer of legitimacy to what was, in fact, a coup of Kamala Harris removing and replacing Joe Biden without a single vote—primary or otherwise—being cast. Banana Republic 2.0.
Also of note is the existence of over 700 detention camps that have been built across the United States over the last twenty-plus years to provide “national essential functions” in the event of “catastrophic emergencies” under the control of the President and the Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is a part). These facilities have been used sporadically in response to natural disasters. Still, watchdog groups point out the likelihood of these facilities being used to detain American citizens for resistance and alleged crimes against the state, similar to what happened to many J6 attendees who acted in good faith of their First Amendment rights but ended up being incarcerated.
Most Americans are unaware of the August 27 and September 27, 2024, revisions to the U.S. Department of Defense Directive 5240.01, which authorizes and expands the reach of military power on U.S. soil—a development with extremely serious implications.
When most think about military power being used in America, they think about foreign threats, with the military being directed against adversaries outside our borders. But what would happen if this directive would turn American military power inward? The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, passed after the Civil War during Reconstruction, was passed to prevent that possibility, explicitly limiting the federal government’s ability to use the armed forces for domestic law enforcement and to avoid any blurring of the line between the military and police.
Despite the insurmountable wall of Posse Comitatus that bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement, the updated DoD Directive 5240.01 loosens the criteria for the use of deadly force by the U.S. military on American civilians, with authority being lowered to military heads and senior officials. It’s now a fast-track process that authorizes the military to act in chaotic situations that might evolve from groups’ protests in defense of First Amendment rights.
The current DoD Directive 5240.01 sets up a system that provides a rapid transition to military action and reads like a playbook for long-term domestic military engagement. If we get accustomed to seeing the military in public places on U.S. soil to keep or restore order or confront civil disturbances, when and where would that end? Then, we would no longer be civilians in a democratic constitutional republic but instead subjects in a national security state.
What is alarming about the language of the August 27 update of 5240.01 is the mandate for readiness for large-scale unrest, authorizing the military to assist in “civil disturbances” where there is a perceived threat to public safety. The problem is that public safety is a subjective term, and those with the task of enforcing it might have a political bias or simply err, as they did in the 1967 Detroit riots, Kent State University in 1970, and the Los Angeles riots of 1992—following the acquittal of the officers in the Rodney King beating.
The current situation in America is further complicated and problematic because the country has been more divided than ever since the Civil War. Particularly troubling is that the leadership of DHS and FEMA, the DoD, the FBI, the CIA, and even the Secret Service seem to have become politically compromised.
If civil unrest breaks out in the U.S., perhaps instigated by military and provocateur elements from China or Hezbollah terrorists from Venezuela who are now in the U.S. having crossed the southern border, the Deep State puppet masters would likely take advantage of the chaos and fog of confusion to manipulate public opinion to blame Trump supporters, which would then justify their mass round up and arrest by the military. If Trump is elected on November 5, this might be used to deny Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2025. Thus, the November 2024 election would be nullified, and the Constitutional Republic of the United States would be replaced by martial law and tyranny of the Deep State.
Despite this very real possibility, we must never lose hope or forget that God has the power to defeat evil. In the Gospel of Luke (13:30), we confront the Great Reversal that God orchestrates, wherein everything we know is turned upside down: “Behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” The Christian founders who drafted the Constitution of the United States created an anti-elite government of the people, by the people, and for the people. As November 5 approaches, let us hope that the prayers of the large remnant of believers are sufficient for God to stop evildoers and open the way for the Great Reversal.
Scott S. Powell is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His timeless book, Rediscovering America, has been #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre for eight weeks. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org