Martial Law is coming. Here is a likely playbook of what happens next

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67. Do you think Trump will replace civilian courts with military tribunals?

If he does so, that would be martial law and the Court would have to decide whether it is consistent with precedent that holds military tribunals can act in place of civilian courts only where and when and for as long as those courts are actually unable to function.

But if all he does is authorize the military to perform civilian law enforcement -- something that the Insurrection Act allows in limited circumstances and something that has been done many times in the nation's history, there won't be any point to the Supreme Court saying that this is "martial law" -- the question, if presented to the court, would be whether the Insurrection Act was legitimately invoked. The concept of martial law will play no part in the analysis or decision.

Folks are intent in conflating martial law and the insurrection act. And all that will do is make Trump look less crazy when he doesn't declare martial law but instead invokes the insurrection act and uses it as it has been used before, albeit in a situation where it never has been used before and should not be allowed.

Too often, folks don't seem to realize that by getting caught up in 'worst case' scenarios that are at odds with the law and facts, they end up normlizing what Trump does. For example, earlier this month, a post on DU predicted that the stock market would be down to 10,000 by the end of the month, based on the fact that over a few days it had dropped an average of 1000 a day. Well, I may be going out on a limb, but it certainly seems unlikely that the market will be anywhere near 10,000 two weeks from now. It certainly isn't dropping 1000 every day. So, while the amount it has dropped is very bad, very serious, by making an unrealistic, fear mongering prediction, that poster only minimizes the harm that actually will occur.