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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has expressed his intention, if elected to a second term, to use the U.S. armed forces\u00a0to suppress domestic protests<\/a>. The New York Times reports that Trump\u2019s allies are marshaling legal arguments to justify using National Guard or active-duty military troops\u00a0for crowd control<\/a>.<\/p>\n Moreover, as the Times notes, Trump has asserted that if he returns to the White House, he will dispatch such forces\u00a0without waiting for state or local officials to request such assistance<\/a>.<\/p>\n I am\u00a0a historian<\/a>\u00a0who has written several books about the Vietnam War, one of the most divisive episodes in our nation\u2019s past. My new book, \u201cKent State: An American Tragedy<\/a>,\u201d examines a\u00a0historic clash on May 4, 1970<\/a>, between anti-war protesters and National Guard troops at Kent State University in Ohio.<\/p>\n The confrontation escalated into violence: Troops opened fire on the demonstrators, killing four students and wounding nine others, including one who was paralyzed for life.<\/p>\n In my view, the prospect of dispatching troops in the way that Trump proposes chillingly echoes actions that led up to the Kent State shootings. Some\u00a0active-duty units<\/a>, as well as\u00a0National Guard troops<\/a>, are trained today to respond to riots and violent protests \u2013 but their primary mission is still to fight, kill, and win wars.<\/p>\n The\u00a0National Guard<\/a>\u00a0is a force of state militias under the command of governors. It can be federalized by the president during times of national emergency or for deployment on combat missions overseas. Guardsmen train for one weekend per month and two weeks every summer.<\/p>\n Typically, the Guard has been deployed to deal with natural disasters and support local police\u00a0responses to urban unrest<\/a>, such as riots in\u00a0Detroit in 1967<\/a>,\u00a0Washington in 1968<\/a>, Los Angeles\u00a0in 1965<\/a>\u00a0and 1992<\/a>, and\u00a0Minneapolis and other cities in 2020<\/a>\u00a0after the death of George Floyd.<\/p>\n The\u00a01807 Insurrection Act<\/a>\u00a0grants presidents authority to use active-duty troops or National Guard forces to restore order within the United States. However, presidents rarely deploy Guard troops without state governors\u2019 consent.<\/p>\n The main modern exceptions occurred during the Civil Rights Movement, when Southern governors resisted federal orders to desegregate schools in\u00a0Arkansas<\/a>,\u00a0Mississippi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Alabama<\/a>. In each case, the troops were sent to protect Black students from crowds of white protesters.<\/p>\n The war in Vietnam had grown increasingly unpopular by early 1970, but protests intensified on April 30 when President Richard Nixon authorized\u00a0expanding the conflict into Cambodia<\/a>. At Kent State, after a noontime anti-war rally on campus on May 1, alcohol-fueled students harassed passing motorists in town and smashed storefront windows that night. On May 2, anti-war protesters\u00a0set fire to the building<\/a>\u00a0where military officers trained Kent State students enrolled in the armed forces\u2019 Reserve Officer Training Corps program.<\/p>\n In response, Republican Gov. Jim Rhodes dispatched National Guard troops, against the advice of university and many local officials, who understood the mood in the town of Kent and on campus far better than Rhodes did. County prosecutor Ron Kane had\u00a0vehemently warned Rhodes<\/a>\u00a0that deploying the National Guard could spark conflict and lead to fatalities.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, Rhodes \u2013 who was trailing in an impending Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat \u2013 struck the pose of a take-charge leader who wasn\u2019t going to be pushed around by a long-haired rabble. \u201cWe\u2019re going to put a stop to this!\u201d he shouted, pounding the table at a press conference in Kent on May 3.<\/p>\n Hundreds of National Guard troops were deployed across town and on campus. University officials announced that\u00a0further rallies were banned<\/a>. Nonetheless, on May 4, some 2,000 to 3,000 students gathered on the campus Commons for another anti-war rally. They were met by 96 National Guardsmen, led by eight officers.<\/p>\n There was an edge of confrontation in the air as student anger over Nixon\u2019s expansion of the war blended with resentment over the Guard\u2019s presence. Protesters chanted antiwar slogans, shouted epithets at the Guardsmen and made obscene gestures.<\/p>\nFederalizing the Guard<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The standoff at Kent State<\/strong><\/h4>\n