Wannabe Dictator

   Security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear a park near the White House so the president could have a photo op in front of a damaged church, holding up a Bible.
   Protestors had been in Lafayette Park for much of the day, and there had been no incidents.
   Before walking to the park, the president spoke in the White House Rose Garden during prime news time, threatening to mobilize federal forces to deal with disturbances throughout the country unless governors use enough National Guard and police force to "dominate" gatherings of those protesting the police killing of an unarmed man in Minnesota one week ago.
   In a telephone talk with governors before the church pose, the president charged that "Most of you are weak," and warned that if they don't "dominate" protestors, he would used "the unlimited powers" of the federal military to enforce order, as if he were dealing with an insurrection rather than a series of protests against unwarranted police treatment of citizens.
   Separately, news reports have noted that there is far more maltreatment of black citizens than of white Americans.
   In a TV interview, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, said the president "should be calling for calm," and not saying "outlandish, crazy things" that show him to be "a racist" using "inflammatory rhetoric."
   In response to Pritzker's comment about inflammatory rhetoric, which he used in a telephone conversation with the president, the president replied, "I don't like your rhetoric, either."
   Commentators pointed out that the president may be referring to the Insurrection Act of 1807 as an excuse to send in federal troops to deal with disturbances within a state. Experts pointed out, however, that he could do that only if state officials ask for federal help.
   Governors regularly deploy National Guard forces -- the equivalent of a state militia -- to help with law enforcement, but an 1878 law forbids the national government from using its military as a police force within America. But unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act, bypassing state officials, he cannot send in federal troops unless requested by state governors.
   But if the crisis continues and the president goes forward with his plans to dominate law enforcement, the nation may be "teetering on the brink of a dictatorship," in the phrase used by CNN news anchor Don Lemon.