A Tale of Two Police Forces – Real Cops and GOP Enforcers

Florida’s State Guard’s 1st graduating class in July

Most militaries and police forces on earth are technically governmental entities that report through the normal hierarchy of their elected officials exercising their appointment functions. There are exceptions. For example, Mao’s 1949 vision for China, which endures into the present day, is that the People’s Liberation Army – literally China’s entire military (navy, army, air force) – reports to the Communist Party, and is not technically part of the government. That does seem to run contrary to most of the world, particularly the United States. But is it? Florida and Texas have autocratic governors in well-gerrymandered states who desire direct control of police and military forces, even if such formulations seem to run afoul of federal and state constitutional limitations.

The US Constitution gives the federal government, through Congress, the exclusive right to establish the army and the navy. Even state national guard units, which otherwise report to state governors, can be called up and made subject to control by the President of the United States. Several particularly autocratic state governors want military units that cannot be coopted by the federal government. They’ve created what they believe are workarounds, using seemingly benign labels, to form such military units without threat of takeover by the fed. Two red state governors, in Florida and Texas, are pushing that envelope particularly hard.

“A Florida state guard established by the rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, under the guise of a civilian disaster relief force is instead being trained as an armed, combat-ready militia under his personal command, according to military veteran recruits who have quit the program…Several veterans resigned after an encampment last month having become concerned at the ‘militaristic’ training and ‘abuse’ one disabled veteran suffered at the hands of instructors… Promoted by DeSantis as an ‘emergency focused, civilian defense force’ when it was established in June 2022, the state guard has quickly morphed into something quite different, the report found.

“Volunteers have been trained for military combat, including the use of weapons; khaki polo shirts and pants were replaced by camouflage uniforms; and recruits were ‘barked at’ by boot camp instructors at the joint training base who woke them before dawn and imposed lights-out by 10pm.

“Additionally, DeSantis’s compliant, Republican-led state legislature has contributed to the change of direction, this year approving a massive expansion in the force’s funding, size and equipment. Its budget increased from $10m to $107.5m, and its maximum size more than tripled from 400 recruits to 1,500… On the governor’s shopping list were helicopters, boats, police powers and reportedly even cellphone-hacking technology for a force outside of federal jurisdiction, and accountable directly to him… ‘The program got hijacked and turned into something that we were trying to stay away from: a militia, Brian Newhouse, a retired navy veteran with 20 years’ experience, told the reporters.” Guardian UK, July 15th

We have witnessed Republicans elected to Congress rail against the Capitol Police, champion rightwing rioters who injured and even killed those officers on January 6, 2021, suggest that a GOP president would pardon those attackers, and actively suggest the both the Dept of Justice and the FBI be defunded. So, I suspect these new state-sponsored militia aren’t really aimed at “law and order,” a traditional GOP rallying cry. They would seem more in tune with governors who oppose federal policies and are committed to an anti-“woke” culture war.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, in a state where over a third of its citizens are of Latin heritage, has been a “champion” of pushing asylum-seekers coming across our southern border back out or, instead, shipping them off to blue states by the plane and busload. Despite the fact that the US Constitution gives exclusive control over our international boundaries, Abbott unilaterally decided that Texas could and would float concrete anchored barriers, wrapped in barbed wire across our Rio Grande River border with Mexico… barriers which are under federal court order to be removed.

Profoundly gerrymandered, Texas’ major cities are mostly blue under Democratic mayors. But even when such mayors, in good faith, have accepted state offers to provide state law enforcement officers to help the local police, somehow Greg Abbot’s less than subtle commitment to White Christian nationalism seems to be unstoppable. The August 7th, J. David Goodman of the New York Times tells such a tale about the bluest big city in the state, Austin: “Scores of state highway troopers, usually found on roadways across Texas in their distinctive cowboy hats and black-and-white patrol vehicles, have descended on Austin, the state capital.

“At first, they were welcomed by the city’s Democratic leaders, part of a plan to address violent crime and make up for a shortage of more than 300 officers in the Austin Police Department… But in a booming city known for its progressive politics, the partnership between the local police, steeped in the language of reform, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, under the direction of Republican state leaders, soon began to raise concern.

“Statistics emerged showing that those arrested on misdemeanor charges by state troopers were mostly Black and Hispanic. In May, there was a fatal shooting by troopers after a chase. In July, another trooper shot at a fleeing, unarmed man, wounding him. Days later, two troopers drew their weapons on a father and son during a car stop… After that stop, Austin’s mayor suspended the partnership with the state police. But instead of the troopers leaving, they were joined by dozens more when Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, ordered a fresh deployment.” Bolstered by angry conservatives with open carry weapons, including AR-15s, autocrats like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are prepared to use force against Democrats and their mayors to crush any notion of challenge to the MAGA-GOP commitment to complete dominance and control. Even against majorities of Americans who oppose their policies, a fact made abundantly clear as red states press for stricter anti-abortion laws despite the fact that a clear majority of American oppose that belief.

I’m Peter Dekom, and autocracy succeeds when those narcissist leaders are allowed access to significant militia under their exclusive control, charged with side-stepping the legal system to impose their will.