A pathway to undoing U.S. democracy
Ironically enough, the actions of the president who was the chief champion of American democracy to the world in the 20th century could be repurposed by Donald Trump to do serious, perhaps permanent, harm to that very form of government in the U.S.
In the summer of 1941, as the United States prepared for war, President Franklin Roosevelt used his executive authority to quell a strike at a defense production plant in Southern California.
President Roosevelt cited the overwhelming need to build planes for the Army and Navy and on behalf of the British fighting off the bombardments of their cities by the German air force, as justification for ending the strike by use of the Army.
The attorney general of the United States at the time, Robert Jackson, called the strike at the American Aviation Company’s Inglewood factory less a labor dispute than an insurrection, justifying the deployment of troops.
Therein lies the rub. President Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, seems more than willing to follow the presidential lead, even under the most dubious circumstances. For example, the Justice Department recently indicted former FBI chief James Comey on spurious charges. On Thursday it did the same thing to New York attorney general Letitia James. Both are on President Trump’s list of perceived enemies.
Trump playing fast and loose with the law is a well-documented feature of his presidency. So is his embrace of National Guard troops to patrol U.S. cities for law enforcement purposes over the objections of mayors and governors.
It doesn’t require a major leap of imagination to see how Roosevelt’s legitimate concerns might be used by Trump for illegitimate ones. Here’s a brief on the 1941 episode:
The times were anxious. In May 1941, President Roosevelt declared an “unlimited national emergence,” as a result of the war. In June 1940, the Germans had overrun and occupied France, followed by the Battle of Britain. Meanwhile, the North Atlantic had turned into an oceanic Nazi turkey shoot against Allied shipping, as freighter after freighter was sent to the bottom by German U-boats.
The airplane factory strike was a major blow to FDR’s exhortation for an all-out re-arming drive. The president said the production stoppage by several thousand workers “goes to the roots of the entire democratic system and the efforts of this democracy to preserve itself.”
He called strikers a “small band of irresponsibles” who had assumed “the right” to speak for “loyal, patriotic and law-abiding” citizens. Others said the strikers were Communist dupes working for Russia, then enjoying its last days of peace with Nazi Germany.
AG Jackson said the president’s authority to send in troops “derived from the Constitution” while his powers as commander in chief gave him additional authority to see that laws passed by Congress were carried out.
“These weapons for the protection of the continued existence of the nation are placed in his sole command,” Jackson declared. “The implication” was “clear” that the president was not “paralyzed.” He could act, and he did, following failed attempts by Los Angeles police to handle the situation.
Just as the police were about to be overrun, the Army arrived, with soldiers’ “bayonets glistening in the morning sunlight.” Order was promptly restored. Production soon resumed. The German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 placed the Communist seal of approval on a settlement of the dispute.
On June 20, the administration announced the sinking of the U.S. freighter The Robin Moor by a German sub. Soon thereafter, U.S. Marines were dispatched to Iceland to protect against possible German encroachment of the Western Hemisphere.
The crisis was a real one, unlike today’s manufactured crisis by the Trump administration.
AG Bondi justified the dispatch of troops to Chicago by saying they were needed to help “protect national buildings.” The president declared that Portland, Oregon, required a military presence because the situation there was “brutal.”
On X last week, White House aide Stephen Miller claimed that “a growing movement of left-wing terrorism … shielded by left-wing Democratic judges” is taking place.” Miller told reporters “an insurrection against the laws and Constitution of the United States” is underway.
How far this is away from a presidential declaration of an “unlimited national emergency” and the widespread deployment of the military by invocation of the Insurrection Act is anyone’s guess. But it certainly looks to be one possible outcome.
Richard Robbins lives in Uniontown. He can be reached at dick.l.robbins @gmail.com.