Donald Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act in order to deploy American troops against protesters

What’s happening in Minneapolis looks less like immigration enforcement and more like a test of how far presidential power can go.

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Trump threatens invoking the Insurrection Act

Donald Trump is now openly threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act in order to deploy American troops against protesters in Minneapolis.

Let’s be very clear about what that means.

What’s unfolding in Minneapolis is not about immigration enforcement. It’s about testing whether a president can use the military against Americans and what happens next if he gets away with it.

If this is truly the direction we are heading as November 2026 approaches, this moment will stand out in hindsight as one of those quiet alarms that should have been impossible to ignore.

Trump didn’t hedge. He didn’t float a hypothetical. He took to Truth Social and laid out a conditional threat: if Minnesota officials do not “obey the law” and stop what he calls “professional agitators and insurrectionists,” he will invoke the Insurrection Act and “quickly put an end” to what he describes as a travesty.

Just months ago, when asked about the Insurrection Act, Trump treated it as a vague tool he might need someday. Now he is identifying a specific city, a specific set of protests, and a specific next step.

What’s actually happening on the ground

Since early December, the Department of Homeland Security has flooded Minneapolis with federal immigration enforcement officers. According to Mayor Jacob Frey, the force deployed is roughly five times larger than the city’s entire police department—around 3,000 federal agents compared to roughly 600 local officers.

Frey has called it an invasion and unfortunately, that does not appear to be hyperbole.

One of those federal operations ended with Officer Jonathan Ross firing three close-range shots at Renee Good, killing her. The justification that Kristi Noem and the Trump administration offered was that Renee posed a threat by driving away. But shooting her did not stop the vehicle. The car continued moving and then crashed. Anyone familiar with basic physics (or basic policing) should understand that firing into a moving car does not safely neutralize a vehicle.

Then another shooting followed. A federal officer shot a man in the leg during an arrest attempt. Nightly protests erupted. Federal agents in gas masks fired crowd-control munitions into groups of residents who are angry, frightened, and demanding accountability.

Trump’s response to all of this was not de-escalation. It was escalation.

He labeled protesters “insurrectionists” without evidence. He called Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “Patriots” with a capital P. He accused Minnesota Governor Tim Walz of corruption for not cracking down harder.

And then came the threat: military deployment against civilians.

This is how police states begin

I don’t like hyperbole. This is not “civil war tomorrow,” but this is something more procedural and, in many ways, more dangerous.

There is a well-worn playbook here:

• First, flood a city with federal agents.

• Second, allow, or even provoke, violence and public backlash.

• Third, label the backlash as terrorism or insurrection.

• Fourth, declare local authorities corrupt or incapable.

• Fifth, justify military intervention.

We are already well past step three. Trump is now openly talking about step five.

Once that line is crossed, the precedent is extraordinary. If the president can flood any city with federal agents and then claim that public reaction, especially after killing a civilian, justifies deploying troops, then no protest is safe.

Environmental protests? Deploy the troops.
Protests against abortion restrictions? Deploy the troops.
Labor protests? Deploy the troops.

At that point, immigration enforcement is no longer the issue. Power is.

The election question no one wants to ask

Governor Walz has called what’s happening a “campaign of organized brutality.” The video evidence increasingly supports that characterization.

The deeper concern is where this road leads. Trump has spent years testing the boundaries of executive power. Each time he pushes, he watches to see what he can get away with and so far, he’s gotten away with a lot.

At the end of this road is an obvious question: is this laying the groundwork to interfere with the 2026 midterm elections?

The counterargument is real and important. The federal government does not run elections. States do. Legally, the president cannot simply cancel them.

But legality has unfortunately never been the sole constraint for this administration. We should not underestimate Trump’s willingness to impose force even when it is plainly unlawful.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is already asking military branches to provide dozens of lawyers to support immigration operations in Minneapolis. The Pentagon is publicly boasting about its role. There is no meaningful internal resistance on display.

Why this moment matters

What happens in Minneapolis over the next few days could shape the next several years of civil liberties in the United States.

Free speech.
The right to protest.
The integrity of elections.

This is not about one city or one policy dispute. It is about whether a president can use the machinery of the state, and the military itself, to suppress dissent and normalize it.

The stakes are extraordinarily high. And this is a line that cannot be allowed to become routine.

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