With all due respect to Rod Dreher,

invoking the Insurrection Act would have been a truly dumb idea. First, there was no insurrection. Second, it would have put the people of the city in the middle of a contest between the military saying, "We're here to help you," and their own mayor and governor, the Press, and every Democrat leader in the nation on the other side calling it a coup d'etat. The had plenty of conflicting instructions as it was. Would you really want to make it worse?