It was inevitable. And now it’s happening. During his first term, Trump repeatedly encouraged violence. He told police officers in New York not to be so nice when they arrest people. He asked “his” generals if they could shoot protestors in the legs. He broadcast fake videos showing him beating up a cartoon character labeled CNN. He urged his crowds at rallies to beat up protestors and said he would pay their legal fees. He wants to seem like a real man, a tough guy. But don’t forget that this tough guy dodged the draft five times with a podiatrist’s note about bone spurs in his feet.
This week, his troubles were mounting. There was the very public split with Musk, who dropped hints about Trump’s name in the still confidential Epstein files. There was Elon’s claim that Trump would have lost the election and control of the House without Elon’s help. What kind of “help”? There was the tariff mess, which was causing a global economic disruption and predictions of inflation. And a Trump’s poll numbers were plummeting.
What a perfect time to send in large numbers of ICE agents to immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles! Send them to Home Depot, where immigrants cluster in search of work–not the “criminals, rapists, and murderers,” but laborers looking for work.
Voila! Their friends, families, a neighbors turn out to protests the ICE raids, and at o e there are crowds and people waving Mexican flags (a big mistake, they should have waved American flags). The situation was volatile but there was no reason to think that local and state police couldn’t handle it.
Trump is shrewd: he saw his chance to distract public attention from his failing policies, and he took it. Without bothering to contact Governor Newsom, Trump mobilized the National Guard. He ordered 2,000 into the troubled neighborhood. Then he sent in another 2,000, plus 700 Marines.
Only the Governor can call up his state’s National Guard, except in the most exceptional situations (the last time it happened was 1965, when President Johnson mobilized the National Guard in Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators because Governor George Wallace refused to do so).
It is even more unusual for a President to call in the military to oppose ordinary people, which is normally handled by state and local police. There is an act-the Posse Comitatus Act–that specifically forbids the Army and Air Force from acting against civilians on American soil. A different law, 10 U.S. Code 275, forbids Navy and Marine Corps members from the same thing. Trump claims that the anti-ICE protests are an insurrection, which allows him to call in the Marines. Legal scholars disagree, but most think he overreached and that there was no insurrection in Los Angeles.
Indeed, the large show of force drew an even larger crowd to the protests and made it more dangerous. Nonetheless, there seem to be more military at the scene than protestors.
Miraculously, no one has been killed (unlike the genuinely violent insurrection on January 6, 2021, where Trump rioters viciously beat police officers and several people died). He sat back and watched the insurrection on television and is now considering whether to reimburse them for their legal expenses after being imprisoned for engaging in insurrection.
Trump said on national television that “many people” had been killed during the protests (not true) and that if he had not sent in the troops, the city would have been “obliterated.” This is nonsense. The clash between the protest and the military is contained to a few blocks of a very large city.
Today, there were spontaneous peaceful rallies in many cities to show support for the demonstrators in Los Angeles.
The best response: show up for a “No Kings” rally on Saturday. Check the website http://www.nokings.org to find one or create one where you live.
Trump is not only diverting attention from his monstrous One Ugly Bill, he is laying the groundwork for martial law and dictatorship.
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