There’s no need for a formal act that alters the legal constraints when there is no practical impact from legal constraints in the first place.
Because it’s meant to inflame the population into reacting, further justifying the oppression.
You’re right in that there’s no legal need for it, but that’s not the goal. The goal is to create a level of chaos that justifies and solidifies the existence of a totalitarian regime.
You only need to justify the oppression if there is meaningful constraint on it without further justification.
> You’re right in that there’s no legal need for it,
No, I didn't say anything about legal need. What I am said is that there is no practical need because the actions are already far beyond what the law allows and there is nothing, whether through legal institutions, popular resistance, or otherwise, that is meaningfully constraining action, so a formal act that would relieve legal constraints is practically meaningless, because the legal constraints which it relieves have no practical force as it is.
I’m saying that will-he-won’t-he about invoking the Insurrection Act, or “declaring martial law”, or any other formal change of legal regime are, at this point, serving as a distraction from the fact that the executive’s substantive actions are not actually constrained by the nominal legal regime, and that changes in what is formally allowed do not matter very much when what is being done without meaningful resistance is already well outside of what is formally allowed.