{"id":17245,"date":"2025-10-07T06:19:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T04:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=17245"},"modified":"2025-10-07T07:02:39","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T05:02:39","slug":"ein-praesident-gegen-die-gewaltenteilung-trumps-nationalgarde-einsatz-und-amerika-im-ausnahmezustand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/ein-praesident-gegen-die-gewaltenteilung-trumps-nationalgarde-einsatz-und-amerika-im-ausnahmezustand\/","title":{"rendered":"A President Against the Separation of Powers - Trump\u2019s National Guard Deployment and America in a State of Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is unfolding these days in the United States is more than a political conflict - it is an open stress test for American democracy. Donald Trump has turned the National Guard into his domestic instrument of power, a tool of presidential demonstration that pushes the Constitution itself to its breaking points. While judges in Oregon and Illinois are trying to uphold the federal legal framework, armed units are already marching through American cities that the president himself describes as \"training grounds\" for the military. At its core, the issue is whether a president can deploy the National Guard against the explicit will of the states - and how far his powers as commander-in-chief actually reach. The boundary drawn by the Posse Comitatus Act for almost 150 years - the clear separation between military action and internal security - no longer seems binding for Trump. As early as September, he \"federalized\" California\u2019s National Guard against the protest of Governor Gavin Newsom, placing it under federal command. Now the same soldiers are to be deployed in Oregon, even though a court in Portland has explicitly prohibited the deployment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal scholars speak of an assault on the balance of powers. \"What will happen when the president loses the lawsuits?\" asks Alex Reinert of the Cardozo School of Law. \"Will he use that as a pretext to act even more authoritarian?\" The question is not rhetorical. Trump\u2019s lawyer and chief strategist Stephen Miller has already publicly declared that a single federal judge has \"no authority whatsoever\" to prevent the commander-in-chief from \"defending the United States.\" Words that echo the language of states of emergency - and reflect an attitude that sees the judiciary not as a check on power but as an obstacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House itself has also reacted with unusually sharp attacks on the decision of federal judge Karin Immergut, who temporarily halted Trump\u2019s Portland deployment. In an official statement, it said that the judge had \"endangered public safety\" and \"interfered with the work of the president.\" That a government attacks a sitting federal judge in this way marks a new level of conflict: the executive is no longer just questioning rulings but the legitimacy of the judiciary itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Troop deployments of the National Guard from Texas to Chicago<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The legal confrontation intensifies with each passing day. Three states - Illinois, Oregon, and California - have filed lawsuits. In Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, soldiers are already on the streets, some carrying assault rifles, others stationed near protest zones. There are no official figures on the number or mission of the troops; the Department of Defense refers inquiries to the White House, while press secretary Karoline Leavitt insists that the deployments serve only to \"restore safety in the cities.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the justification hardly holds. By law, National Guard members, even when federalized, cannot take on police duties. They may not block roads, make arrests, or disperse demonstrations. The deployment is in truth largely symbolic - but politically explosive. Trump uses the military to project toughness, to make control over the state\u2019s monopoly on force visible. William Banks, a constitutional law expert at Syracuse University, calls it a \"display of power that generates more fear than order.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical comparison shows the dimension: when President John F. Kennedy deployed the National Guard in Alabama in 1963, it was to enforce a fundamental right - to end racial segregation at the University of Alabama. Trump\u2019s deployment pursues the opposite: he seeks to discipline political opponents and circumvent court decisions. The purpose is not the protection of civil rights but the enforcement of his own claim to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n