We urge the American electorate, legal community and media commentators to take seriously the threats by extremists to deploy U.S. troops to quash domestic opponents or to “restore public order” in Blue State cities in the event of a second Trump administration.

Many Americans may honestly doubt that this type of authoritarian repression can happen because the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (codified at 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1385) explicitly restricts the use of U.S. active-duty military personnel for domestic law enforcement. But there is a statutory exception to Posse Comitatus that allows the use of force if undertaken pursuant to The Insurrection Act.