So how do Americans really feel about officials in the executive branch, not only the president, but also governors, calling out National Guard troops when a protest gets unruly and threatens public safety? Sadly, in these polarized times, the answer depends on what team controls the ball and what Jersey you’re wearing, and consistency being dead and gone. It doesn’t matter what you said 30 minutes ago. For instance, if you’re Republican, you won’t let the fact that former President Donald Trump refused to call out the National Guard in Washington on January 6 to crack heads of Maga supporters who were vandalizing the US Capitol and threatening police officers. You won’t let that fact stop you from now arguing that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz should have absolutely called out the National Guard in Minnesota much earlier than he did in the summer of 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis Police Officer, while Walt strikes his feet protesters beat up cops and burned down a police station.

And if you’re a Democrat, well, simply reverse what I just said. You probably excused waltz at the time for not sending in the guard too soon, and perhaps making a bad situation worse. But then you turned around and blasted Trump for not calling out the troops to protect the US Capitol on January 6, the Minnesota meltdown was a disgrace, and waltz the presumptive Democratic nominee for vice president needs to own that failure. Likewise, the attempted coup in Washington was a disgrace, and Trump, the Republican nominee for president, needs to own that too. But there’s a difference. Waltz has admitted that he was wrong not to call out the National Guard sooner than he did. Trump, as we know, is physically incapable of admitting that he’s done anything wrong, or that he’s ever wrong about anything.

In fact, Trump blames former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for what happened on January 6, insisting that she also had the power to call out the National Guard.

Fact check. The National Guard, like the rest of the armed forces, are under the control of the executive branch. In January 2021

Pelosi resided atop the legislative branch. One of these things is not like the other. When a group of protesters tramples upon the authority of local police and morphs into a mob, what exactly is the executive supposed to do? As for me, I’m all in on all four calling out the National Guard and doing so at the first sign of trouble to prevent even bigger trouble. Critics of the idea of using armed soldiers to control us citizens who have lost their damn minds will often point to the tragedy that occurred at Kent State, where, in May of 1974

unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War were killed and nine others were wounded when 28 soldiers from the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd. I prefer to cite the good things that National Guard troops did during the Civil Rights Movement. For instance, in June 1963

Alabama Governor George Wallace, in a symbolic stunt, stood in the doorway a Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama to try to prevent two black students, Vivian Malone and James hood, from entering the building. The unapologetic segregationist got spanked and taught a civics lesson to boot. When President John F Kennedy issued an executive order which federalized the Alabama National Guard. Then guard General Henry V Graham then ordered Wallace to step aside. How great was that? As for why Americans keep winding up back here and confronting the question of when and how to use the National Guard, we can put at least some of the blame on Thomas Jefferson. You see, once upon a time, the founding father created a document that declared, quote, whenever any form of government becomes destructive, it is the right of the people to alter it or to abolish it and to institute new government,

you see, but Jefferson left out something the government also has rights, and that includes The right to push back in order to prevent such an uprising, and to do so with all available resources, including the National Guard