Trump Is the Problem. The Organizational Chart Doesn’t Matter.
Federal agents are confronting protesters in Portland because voters chose a president with authoritarian instincts.
In the memoir Decision Points, President George W. Bush looked back ruefully on one of his greatest mistakes. No, it wasn’t the war in Iraq. It was his failure to invoke the Insurrection Act and send active military troops into New Orleans during the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster.
In retrospect, the troops were needed. Under the Constitution, which offers a “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government,” most power of public safety lies with governors, mayors, and other local authorities, and presidents do not lightly deploy armed officers on domestic soil. But New Orleans—whose infrastructure was inundated and whose government lacked the wherewithal to save lives in immediate jeopardy—was a
