General Discussion

...the National Guard is being sent in by Trump as an intimidating show of force, and some of the locals are neither intimidated nor impressed by their presence.

And if their orders are to "call the cops," and that is their only function (beyond the aforementioned optics), it does sound "pointless."

I have no idea what she wanted to do. One option is to not be there if she's not making a difference. I don't know if it implies that she wanted to take as active of a hand as police and make arrests, etc.

And, this is all coming from the ex boyfriend, so it's his interpretation.