One would have hoped by now that cooler heads would prevail. But those hopes would have been in vain. Yesterday a new disturbing incident out of Rochester, N.Y. was captured on video. A woman pleading with the masked rioters or agitators destroying the exterior of a store she lived above was pummeled, kicked, and ultimately beaten with a board.
Other horror stories are emanating from countless other American cities under siege. Anyone who was worried that the coronavirus pandemic wouldn’t ultimately destroy the country can rest easy knowing that the riots will amplify that decline. As J.E. Dyer grimly reminds us, the widespread destruction we are seeing may well put additional hundreds of thousands of people out of the jobs they were hoping to go back to.
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So what can and should be done? Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy is calling on the president to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807. The law extends a provision under Article IV of the Constitution that gives the president unilateral authority to put down insurrection and invasion. If Donald Trump were to invoke the law, national guard troops would be deployed wherever needed.
The situation in the country now certainly demands an immediate and more forceful response than we have seen so far. The Insurrection Act may well be the answer. The problem with invoking it, however, is that it would play into the Left’s argument that Trump is trying to usurp absolute control over the nation. Democrats’ hatred of the president and own lust for power have driven them so far left that some among them see the burning of a police precinct as not only acceptable but necessary. Or consider this: Joe Biden’s own campaign staffers are reportedly donating to a group that bails out jailed Minneapolis protesters. A man who would be president has in his employ people who are effectively endorsing anarchy.
Invoking the law would also seem to lend credence to the liberal narrative that the real enemy of American blacks is the state and its racist agents of law enforcement. The name of any protester who was killed or injured in a stand-off against the military would become the rallying cry of the next protest.
