In a tough White House Rose Garden speech Monday night President Donald Trump said that if governors and mayors couldn’t bring peace to the streets of their cities then the president, under his powers and responsibilities as chief executive, would do it for them.

The president then walked across the street from the White House to St. John’s Church and, with other Team Trump members like his daughter Ivanka, Attorney General Bill Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, held up a Bible to emphasize the resilience of faith in America. When he held up that holy text, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and an unholy host of other Democrats damned him for it.

The president said in the Rose Garden, “If governors throughout the country do not deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to dominate the streets, the U.S. military would quickly solve the problem for them. We have the greatest country in the world. We’re going to keep it safe.”

The challenge of that statement is breathtaking. President Trump has told state officials across the country that the U.S. Army will enter their states, whether they like it or not, and restore order. This has happened before in our history. In 1832 President Andrew Jackson threatened South Carolina with such an action over a tariff dispute. South Carolina backed down. In 1861 President Abraham Lincoln threatened South Carolina over states rights versus federal rights. That time, South Carolina did not back down and four years of bloody civil war commenced.

Thus the question presents itself: What if one of the governors, as Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker of Illinois has already done, says no? What if a governor tries to back up his refusal with state forces? Are we looking at a Fort Sumter scenario?

As for the president’s church walk and Bible photo op, it was a brilliant piece of political theater, almost perfect optics, and even better bait. It worked primarily as a profound silent statement that honored faith and the Bible. But it was also designed to elicit mockery and derision from the Democrats and the media. But their snide commentary about religion and the Bible went over the top, as the president knew it would, and will be taken as direct insults to churches and holy scripture.

Thus, in contrast with faith-hating Democrats and the press, the president scores major motivational points with his base. His move also reveals the real media and Democrat attitudes on religion to faith-respecting swing voters. The president threw out the bait and the press and the Democrats swallowed it whole.

Here they are digesting the bait: Nancy Pelosi said, “Yet at a time when our country cries out for unification, this President is ripping it apart. Tear-gassing peaceful protestors without provocation just so that the President could pose for photos outside a church dishonors every value that faith teaches us.” That’s right, gulp it right down Nancy.

Hillary Clinton was not to be left out of the parade, saying, “Tonight the President of the United States used the American military to shoot peaceful protestors with rubber bullets & tear gas them. For a photo op. This is a horrifying use of presidential power against our own citizens, & has no place anywhere, let alone in America. Vote.” Not only is that a blatant lie, but Clinton leaves out those “peaceful protestors” had just finished looting and burning many square blocks of the nation’s capitol.

To these two Democrats, the concept of going to a church to honor the Bible and faith are as foreign to them as faith itself and the U.S. Constitution. In November, they may soon learn the strength of both.