Trump’s decision to send the National Guard into Los Angeles amid protest against heavy-handed ICE raids is a blatant attempt to create chaos and manufacture headlines that the White House can use to besmirch those who dare stand up to his Democracy-crushing authoritarianism.
This is a dangerous moment in American history, perhaps even more so than the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
Both the violence in LA and at the Capitol were purposefully exacerbated by Trump.
However, this time, he’s not on his way out the door. Now he enjoys an ass-kissing majority in the House and Senate, a Supreme Court that all but ruled that anything he does as president is legal, and a cabinet replete with obsequious, loathsome toads who will carry out his most authoritarian whims with near sexual excitement.
In fact, I’d put real money on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth already being fully erect at the idea of sending active-duty Marines into LA, as Trump suggested he might do.
Of course, none of this is in service to quell the violence that has plagued these mostly peaceful protests over ICE’s uses of heavy-handed, Gestapo-esque tactics of intimidation while rounding up the allegedly undocumented.
Instead, it’s an effort to strike fear into the hearts of those who dare question an administration hellbent on reversing the ongoing erosion of white majority rule and population superiority in America while also crippling any future political ambitions a certain California governor might have in 2028.
Speaking to reporters amid the increased chaos wrought by Trump sending the National Guard into the LA streets, Gov. Gavin Newsom called it like many of us see it:
“[Trump] created and exacerbated the conditions that are persisting today,” Newsom said amid clashes between uniformed servicemembers and those protesters do damage the governor condemned. “This is a manufactured crisis.”
“They are trying to incite violence, they are trying to impose the kind of rhetoric … that quite literally puts people’s lives at risk, and they are intentionally and knowingly doing that.”
In the NBC News interview, Newsom took the opportunity to address the president directly, knowing he was glued to the coverage of the chaos he created.
“Where’s your decency, Mr. President? Stop!”
I’m certain Newsom, just any other semi-sentient human being with a shred of shame, knows that Trump has no decency, which he noted several times in the extended interview.
“You come after poor kids, you come after families,” said Newsom, referring to reports that children as young as four were picked up by ICE agents.
“We will do everything in our power to stand up and stand in your way.”
Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar and fellow traveler relishing in the cruelness of the crackdown, even threatened to arrest the California governor for reasons neither legal nor adequately explained.
“Come after me, arrest me, tough guy. I don’t care,” said Newsom, responding to the threat.
“Tom, arrest me. Let’s go.”
Kudos to California’s leader for standing up to Trump and his minions so publicly, though I’m afraid doing so will have little impact on the threat to our Democracy unfolding in LA and across the country.
Trump is feeling unbound by law or precedent and is moving full-bore ahead with his effort to break the will of those who defy him and the constitutional fabric of our nation in the process if need be.
Because he hates being accountable to anyone, particularly the Founding Fathers and past presidents.
Trump abhors them all because, deep down, he knows he’ll never live up to any of them.
He’d rather destroy all they and generations of Americans built and sacrificed for than acknowledge that bitter reality.
And that’s what makes this moment in history so dangerous.
