Q: What’s your opinion about President Trump’s actions with the National Guard?

“I deeply disagree with the President’s use of National Guard to send into these cities. I think it’s an abuse of the process and what the National Guard is supposed to be used for. It’s not being done with the consent and the support of these cities and states.” —Congressman Jason Crow (D-6)

“This is using solving a problem [crime] with the wrong means, in my opinion, because you have other ways to do this. It does not have to be from a federal side. And of course, Trump is doing this so he can take credit for crime going down. I don’t think long term, this is a solution that’s gonna have any real traction, even when the Supreme Court gets around to this. I don’t feel like Trump can get past the general requirements for deploying the National Guard.” —Government teacher Tom Michel

“The biggest dilemma is the fact that what’s happening right now is a word that we hear a lot these days, ‘unprecedented.’ This is not the norm. And I also think it’s a scary precedent to set in the future, because this happens in all sorts of different aspects. It’s not historically something that’s happened by either party, [Democrats] feel that it’s an overreach of federal power. They feel like [Trump is] controlling their own cities.” —Government teacher Tim Kirkpatrick

Q: Is there merit to claims that Trump’s actions are authoritarian?

“I think the claims of authoritarianism have some teeth, but not until the National Guard is deployed against people instead of just standing somewhere. I haven’t seen that the National Guard has been empowered to enforce local laws because typically they don’t…But if it got to the point where the National Guard is going into Denver, they’re the ones who are going to arrest individuals, and now they’re going to participate in that. Now we’ve got some federal overreach.”—Michel

“There are a lot of arguments to be made that a modern president wields more power than what the framers intended them to and I think that Trump is doing that because he made all these executive orders. Obviously our elected representatives are the ones who are supposed to be making the laws, Trump’s just supposed to be enforcing them. And I do feel like he’s gone a little bit beyond just enforcement of the laws that Congress makes, and taken probably more power than at least what was intended, and doing it pretty unilaterally.” —Kirkpatrick