These are troubled, troubling times. I am not sure I have the wisdom to meet them. All I can do is slow down and try not to make the flame burn hotter.

In the spirit of caution, then, I offer three thoughts about horrifying violence against Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota:

1. I am grateful that President Trump said more or less the right things about the violence:

   

   But also: I remember Jan. 6. I remember his pardon of the insurrectionists. And I remember that just a few weeks ago he was talking about pardoning the men convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Political violence has always been with us. But I cannot think of another president in my lifetime who has seemingly enabled it again and again. Would the Minnesota violence have happened without Trump’s influence? I genuinely don’t know: We don’t have all the facts yet, and even without the person of Trump there is still a large conservative movement that has talked for years about “the blood of tyrants” being a good thing. Maybe we get here without him. But he has not helped.

2. Sen. Lisa Murkowski — a Republican, but also a Trump critic — came under fire a few weeks back for saying “we are all afraid” of retaliation in the current political era.

   “It’s quite a statement,” she continued after a long pause, in remarks first reported by the Anchorage Daily News. “We’re in a time and place where — I don’t know, I certainly have not — I have not been here before. And I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real. And that’s not right. But that’s what you’ve asked me to do and so I’m going to use my voice to the best of my ability.”

   Quite a few left-of-center folks responded with “if you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen”-style commentary. But I think fear is actually a healthy response to what we are seeing. These are fearful times! It doesn’t mean we don’t do the work. It does mean we do it clear-eyed, with the knowledge that there might be consequences. Terrible consequences, even.

3. I hope and pray that this is not the beginning of civil war in America. But I don’t actually know. I am fearful of even saying such a thing out loud, lest I somehow help manifest it. How many assassinations and attempted assassinations can we live with before it reaches a critical mass? I take my comfort from all the Americans protesting peacefully for “No Kings Day” today.

I am, as ever, trying to be a “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” guy. Now, more than ever. It is an idea that is most needed with it is most difficult to accomplish.

God help us all.

Axios reports this morning that President Trump is closer to invoking the Insurrection Act, which would unleash the powers of the military to operate in Los Angeles.

Why it matters: The Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the deployment of U.S. troops to quell domestic unrest, is among the most extreme emergency powers available to a sitting president.

Trump already has broken decades of precedent by federalizing California's National Guard without the state's consent, aiming to crush the escalating protests in Los Angeles sparked by his administration's immigration raids.

He's now openly telegraphing his willingness — even eagerness — to invoke the law, telling reporters Monday: "The people that are causing the problem are professional agitators. They're insurrectionists."

The “professional agitators” has echoes of Jim Crow-era “outside agitators” accusations, but the telling comment here is “they’re insurrectionists.”

It reminded me of 2016:

Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Donald Trump would be a “puppet” for Russian President Vladimir Putin, if the Republican presidential nominee were elected to the White House.

After Trump attacked Clinton during the third and final presidential debate, saying Putin had “no respect” for her or President Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee shot back, “Well, that’s because he’d rather have a puppet as president of the United States.”

“No puppet. No puppet,” Trump shot back. “You’re the puppet. No, you’re the puppet.

It is by now common to say that for Trump “every accusation is a projection.” Another way of thinking about it is “every accusation is exculpation.”

There has only been one true insurrection against the United States in living memory, and it was led by Donald Trump.

We all know this.

So when he accuses anti-ICE protesters — who may be unruly, but who aren’t actually trying to overthrow the government — of being “insurrectionists,” one of the things he is trying to accomplish is to erase his own guilt.

I’d say here that the point is that if everybody is guilty of a particular sin, nobody is. But it’s worse than that: If everybody is guilty, than it’s only the person with power who decides who gets punished for their sins.

And right now, Donald Trump is the man with the power. He is going to make LA pay for his sins.

For McClatchy, I wrote a Kansas-Missouri angle on President Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to California in support of his immigrant crackdown:

There are, after all, tens of thousands of undocumented migrants in the Sunflower State — estimates vary as to the precise numbers — and in many cases those folks are vital members of their communities, friends and neighbors to native-born Americans.

Some of those Kansas communities are likely to speak up if those friends and neighbors are threatened with deportation by ICE agents.

Just look next door to Missouri, where the Trump-loving community of Kennett reacted angrily when Carol Hui, a longtime resident and a Hong Kong native sometimes simply referred to as “Carol” in media coverage, was detained by immigration authorities.

“Ninety-five percent of the people in here support Trump,” said one resident, adding: “But this is wrong.”

Last week, Hui was released from detention and returned home — yes, home — to Kennett.

The protesters in Los Angeles? They’re defending the Carols in their lives. And a lot of communities, in red states and blue, in Kansas and Missouri, have lots of Carols.

Americans may widely support deportations. The devil is in the details.

We’ll see what happens next.

Some quick thoughts about President Trump's move to use the National Guard to clamp down on anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles.

* This is bad. Obviously.

* But also entirely expected: Trump entered office looking to use the Insurrection Act and other authorities to put the military on the streets of Blue Cities. He is an authoritarian by nature and by practice. This moment was always coming.

* And it should also be understood that Trump is plenty willing to deploy the military against violence he doesn't like, but is happy to sit in his private office and do nothing -- remember Jan. 6? -- when there is violence he does like.

* Roxanne Gay asks a question I imagine a lot of folks on the left will be asking of California Gov. Gavin Newsom:

My counter-question: What can Gov. Newsom do that is legal? The president has ample powers to nationalize the guard, though I suspect those powers will be litigated in the coming hours and days.

Not that it will get very far:

* For that matter, what can Newsom do that doesn't precipitate a larger crisis?

Like, say, a civil war?

I genuinely do not know the answer to that question.

* God help us all.

Pray for wisdom.

Pray for peace.

You’re standing in room with two men. Both of them are holding meat cleavers.

One is a chef.

The other is a known serial killer.

Which one do you fear?

I ask, because President Trump is going to hold a military parade in Washington D.C. of the kind we haven’t seen since the end of the First Gulf War. Critics say this is bad, a display of Trump’s authoritarian instincts that wants to put tanks on the streets of the capital in an orgy of tough-guy machismo, or something like that.

At The Altantic, Kori Schake wants everybody to hold up.

But these critics may well be projecting more general concerns about Trump onto a parade. Not everything the Trump administration does is destructive to democracy—and the French example suggests that dictatorships are not the only governments to hold military displays. The U.S. itself has been known to mount victory parades after successful military campaigns. In today’s climate, a military parade could offer an opportunity to counter misperceptions about the armed forces. It could bring Americans closer to service members and juice military recruitment—all of which is sorely needed.

She is right, sort of. Democracies can hold a military parade without it necessarily being an authoritarian celebration.

Authoritarians, however, cannot.

The point of Schake’s essay is that the military is having a tough time making recruitment goals right now because young Americans are either fat or otherwise averse, particularly after the U.S. just spent two decades in the middle of big active wars that killed and maimed a few people. Anything that maybe inspires young Americans to serve, she maintains, can’t be all bad.

Under any other president, that might be true.

But America has this president right now.

Trump is itching to use the Insurrection Act to put troops into defiant U.S. cities. He is replacing the military’s black and female leaders with a new set of generals he clearly expects to be more loyal to him than to the Constitution. And he has been quoted praising the loyalty of Hitler’s generals.

Bad stuff from a bad president.

In that context, a military parade — on Trump’s birthday, no less — is not neutral or benign. It cannot be, because Trump himself will not brook neutrality in federal servants.

Trump is bad for democracy. And that makes his military parade bad for democracy, too.