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When President Donald <\/span>Trump threatened to send troops against the Black Lives Matter movement five years ago, some members of his own party offered guarded criticisms.<\/p>\n Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., then serving as the majority whip, said he opposed using the military.<\/p>\n \u201cI would prefer that these things be handled by the state and local authorities,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cYou want to de-escalate, rather than escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the past week, however, Thune has been one of many Republican leaders endorsing Trump\u2019s call to send U.S. Marines to Los Angeles <\/a>amid the anti-ICE protests as deportation operations expanded. The near-unanimous chorus is a sign of how thoroughly Trump has consolidated his grip on Republicans \u2014 and how fiercely the party\u2019s base turned against protests after George Floyd\u2019s murder<\/a> in 2020.<\/p>\n Although the party was split five years ago, some Republicans at the time rejected Trump\u2019s inflammatory calls for military force.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen the looting starts, the shooting starts,\u201d Trump tweeted <\/a>on May 29, 2020. Days later, as federal police tear-gassed protesters <\/a>outside the White House, Trump said in a Rose Garden address<\/a> that governors should \u201cdominate the streets\u201d with the National Guard \u2014 or he would \u201cdeploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.\u201d<\/p>\n The tear-gassing episode \u2014 where Trump was accused of using force so that he could stage a photo op in the area<\/a> \u2014 drew condemnations from several Republicans in the Senate, including then-Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.<\/p>\n \u201cIf your question is, \u2018Should you use tear gas to clear a path so the president can go have a photo op?\u2019 the answer is no,\u201d Scott said soon after<\/a>. (An Interior Department probe later cleared Trump<\/a> of using tear gas to set up his photo op.)<\/p>\n The caution was far from unanimous among Republicans: There were always supporters of Trump\u2019s military talk, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe military has been called up a number of times to defend the nation. The natural route is to use the National Guard. That is appropriate. If necessary, the military should be used and there is a long tradition of that,\u201d Cruz said in June 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n