White Hats are refuting online rumors claiming that President Donald J. Trump will issue a declaration of martial law on April 20. Instead, they say that the US is already under a de facto state of martial law and that the Insurrection Act of 1807, which the president invoked before leaving Washington in 2020, is still in effect.
Early this week, social media posters speculated Trump would publicly and passionately address the nation on April 20, informing Americans that the ongoing border crisis requires sterner measures to resolve. “My fellow Americans, we’re getting rid of illegal aliens the likes of which no one has ever seen,” Trump would likely say, and implore citizens to stay calm if they saw military convoys cruising along Main Street. The posters’ evidence for this scenario: On Inauguration Day, the president signed an executive order declaring a national emergency at the southern border, writing, “Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”
Some online personalities construed the EO as a haunting decree of imminent Martial Law, as the 90-day window will expire on April 20.
While many MAGA might champion a full-scale military occupation of the border and adjacent cities, the president, one source said, will not sow panic among elderly constituents who might drop dead from heart attacks if Armed Forces members started door-to-door searches for illegal aliens.
“A few things. You have to keep in mind there are Trump supporters and then MAGA. All MAGA support Trump, but not all Trump supporters are MAGA. Some folks are just hard-working owners of mom-and-pop convenience stores who like the president’s policies but don’t understand MAGA culture. This group would get scared shitless if uniformed soldiers suddenly knocked on their front doors. And we’re already at the border; we’ve been there a long time—Marines, Army Rangers, soldiers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. We stopped thousands of illegals from entering the country to vote for Harris. And we’ve been working under the Insurrection Act for over four years now—it’s what’s allowed us to pursue Deep Staters,” the source said.
“No one can predict POTUS’ actions, but if Martial Law were ten days down the road, I’d like to think we’d be in the loop,” he added.
He contradicted himself, though, saying that the president’s speeches contained significances understood by only his most ardent, stalwart adherents.
“It’s not uncommon for POTUS to speak to two groups at once—the normies and MAGA. Reading between the lines is a real thing, but people take it too far; they get fantastical visions in their heads, dreams of military mobilizations gunning down illegals on America’s streets. That isn’t going to happen.”
In closing, though, he hinted at something equally ominous: “Look to June 14. It’s not about illegals, but it’s important. I can’t say more because it’d complicate things, but it’ll be a day long remembered.”