WorldNetDaily rooted for President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act in a Jan. 8 article by Bob Unruh:
Already, Rep. Nancy Mace R-S.C., has called on President Trump to arrest Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for his implied threat to send state National Guard troops against federal immigration agents who are in Minnesota to enforce the nation’s border laws.
“Let me remind Governor Walz: President Trump is the Commander in Chief. Using your National Guard to obstruct federal law enforcement violates the Supremacy Clause. Inciting rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States is also a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. § 2383. President Trump should have him arrested and charged accordingly,” she said.
Now similar comments are flooding the internet, including a recommendation from Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., that Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act.
That assigns to the president the power to arrest suspects obstructing federal law enforcement.
Trump himself made his own contribution to the issue in a Jan. 15 article by Unruh:
President Donald Trump is warning officials in Minnesota, whose state is beset by race rioting amid a federal immigration law crackdown, that there is such a thing as a federal Insurrection Act.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on social media.
The law allows a president to send the military or federalized National Guard troops into the state.
[…]Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche is the one who called the violence in Minnesota an “insurrection,” and he accused Democrat Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey of “encouraging violence.”
Additionally, a Jan. 11 article by Joe Kovacs quoted White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt describing Renee Good, who was killed by an ICE agent, as a “leftist insurrectionist.”
But WND wasn’t always so eager to describe things as an insurrection. For instance, it insisted that the Capitol riot was not an insurrection, whining at one point: “Democrats have been harping on the riot, describing it as an ‘insurrection’ although it was more or less a riot, ever since it happened. That’s because a conviction for insurrection would prevent Trump from ever being in office again – one of the major goals of the entire Democrat party [sic].”
Of course, that particular insurrection involved WND’s fellow right-wingers. It has much more willing to describe non-right-wingers as insurrectionists.
Craige McMillan complained in an August 2021 column:
How in the Democrat mind BLM can burn down cities as part of its protests against civil authority, but Republicans in the Capitol are insurrectionists boggles the mind.
Democrats have a long history of insurrection against civil authority themselves. America fought a civil war in large part because the Democratic Southern states refused to give up slavery as their economic model – and in fact wanted it continued out into the new territories opening in the West. The industrialized Northern states couldn’t live with that. Thus the war came, which was indeed an armed insurrection against America’s federal government, led primarily by the Democratic Southern states.
[…]There is indeed an insurrection that has occurred in America over many decades. This is being wrongly interpreted by many as Armageddon. In fact, it is much more like Tower of Babel 2.0 The Tower of Babel 1.0 insurrection ended with God’s confusion of earthly languages, so that people could no longer understand one another (and cooperate).
The goal of both Tower of Babel 1 and 2 is for humanity to become like God through our own efforts. The tech elites, the mad scientists experimenting on fetal tissue and even aborted babies, believe humanity belongs to them. No one has ever been more wrong.
A November 2021 column by Joseph Farah carried the headline “Double standard: Antifa thugs vs. Jan. 6 ‘insurrectionists’.”
Larry Elder groused in a January 2024 column:
To repeat, the Jan. 6 rioters certainly deserve punishment. But was it “insurrection,” a coordinated attempt to overthrow government, let alone one inspired, orchestrated or led by Trump?
[…]But this casual characterization of Jan. 6 as an “insurrection” appears to be creating a backlash, at least among Republicans. This likely explains a new CBS News poll finding fewer Republicans “disapprove strongly” of the Jan. 6 riot. In January 2021, 51% of Republicans said they “disapprove strongly.” Now it’s down to 32%. It looks like Republicans believe calling Jan. 6 an “insurrection” is just a “Big Lie.”
Unruh invoked the I-word to describe the mayor of Denver as part of his war on Colorado in a November 2024 article:
The mayor of Denver, given the Republican sweep of the House, the Senate and the White House, almost certainly will be losing the federal support he’s enjoyed for his pro-illegal alien agenda.
And if he continues, under a White House run by pro-border security President Donald Trump, he “will lose,” according to a member of the U.S. Senate.
“What he is offering is a form of insurrection,” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., explained during a television interview.
That’s how a double standard works at WND.