invoke

Last month, Trump said at a campaign rally that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used 1798 law to deport anyone who is not in the country legally.

After Patterson, some scholars associated with Afro-pessimism began to invoke social death somewhat differently as a condition that negates free will, agency and meaningful political action, and expanded its premises to describe the condition of current African Americans.

Trump has also threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act to order a military occupation of “blue states” and Democrat-led major cities as part of a plan to crush dissent.

So although Trump pledged to his Madison Square Garden audience to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on his first day in office, the same act used to imprison Italian and German nationals during World War II, including refugees from the Holocaust . . . he might be kidding.

While some warn that Trump’s election will result in a spasm of street protests and violence that will allow him to invoke the Insurrection Act and crack skulls as he has long mused about doing, the bigger risk might be an immediate drift into grim resignation.