The president would like you to believe that the violence in Los Angeles is so bad that he has “no choice” but to send in 4,000 National Guard troops in addition to 500 Marines to restore law and order. 

He is also counting on TV news coverage of said violence to prove the allegation – that he must act against those who would prevent the federal government from protecting the integrity of the United States.

The thing about this is this: except under exceptional conditions, like a terrorist attack, it doesn’t matter how bad the violence is alleged to be, because Donald Trump has no authority under law or the Constitution to bypass the government of the state of California. (This depends, of course, as in the case of a state that’s violating federal law. No, so-called sanctuary cities like LA do not violate federal law.)

The governor has not asked for help. Neither has LA’s mayor. That’s because both have their own policing forces. They have the right to address threats to public safety in their jurisdictions. And so far, they say, they have everything pretty much under control. Yet Donald Trump overrode their rights, infringing California’s sovereignty.

Actually, it’s an infringement two times over. 

Not only did Trump bypass Governor Gavin Newsom’s and Mayor Karen Bass’s authority when he sent in federal troops against their wishes. He bypassed it by permitting Border Patrol to use flash-bang grenades and pepper-spray on peaceful demonstrators who were protesting the arrest of undocumented migrants outside a Home Depot.

Customs and Border Protection, which includes ICE and Border Patrol, does not have authority outside federal immigration and customs law. It does not do crowd control. It does not disperse public protesters. That’s the job of state and local cops, as directed by state and local leaders. Yet here they were, taking authority that was not theirs.

And in infringing California’s right to self-determination, the president created the conditions for more and greater violence, which is to say, he created conditions for doing what he appears already to have wanted to do, which was to send a military force to occupy a big multiracial city, as an example of how far he will go to crush dissent.

It has been widely reported that the violence that you have seen on television was not the immediate result of “insurrectionists” who were preventing the administration from being “able to enforce immigration law in this country,” as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has said. 

It was the immediate result of government actors behaving lawlessly and violently. At the direction of White House advisor Stephen Miller, ICE agents skipped the “longstanding practice” of identifying people suspected of illegal entry, according to the Wall Street Journal. Instead, they raided local businesses and snatched anyone who looked the part.

This triggered a reaction from the public, which triggered a reaction from Border Patrol, which to say, it started tear-gassing people. That’s when anti-ICE protests began to swell. And that’s when the president decided he had “no choice” but to send in the National Guard.

If this were another kind of story, one about conservatives fighting back against government overreach, whatever violence ensued would be seen as justified, at least in part. This isn’t that kind of story but the moral is the same. The government can’t just reach down and snatch people, and it can’t blame residents when they react to such injustice.

Perhaps the biggest reason the president’s rationale for military occupation is bogus is the most obvious. No one is preventing the administration from enforcing federal immigration law. No one. We know this is true, because anyone who tries interfering is arrested.

Perhaps even more obvious is the insanity. It’s just bonkers to call in 4,000 National Guard troops and 500 Marines to contain protests in one mile of one neighborhood in one city, protests that have been largely peaceful but even when they haven’t been, the LAPD is on it.

I asked Charlotte Clymer about that. She’s a writer and military veteran. She publishes Charlotte’s Web Thoughts. “Federalizing the National Guard in response to these protests is like calling in a SWAT team because your kid punched your other kid,” Charlotte told me. 

What are the legitimate reasons for sending the National Guard?

The president has wide latitude to federalize the National Guard. In good faith, this should only be done during national emergencies and severe domestic unrest. There’s a heated debate over whether some of history’s previous federal activations of National Guard units were appropriate (at best), but this activation by Trump, without a doubt, is very deeply inappropriate. And I would call it an impeachable offense.

Trump is holding up the “law and order” banner while he does this, but even if we were to accept that his actions leading up to the ICE protests in Los Angeles have all been lawful (they mostly have not), we’re still left with the vastly disproportionate response of federalizing the National Guard to deal with a small, localized protest. 

The common sense reading here is that Trump is attempting to instigate civil unrest, force a framing of protestors as radical extremists who are trying to harm the country, and then use that as pretext for an expansion of his powers. Federalizing the National Guard in response to these protests is like calling in a SWAT team because your kid punched your other kid. It’s insane.

Speaking of insanity, it’s kinda insane that the Trump regime keeps referring to undocumented migrants as “invaders” when their crime (illegal entry) is, on the first offense, a misdemeanor. And now they’re calling in the guard. Isn’t the abuse of power obvious?

Oh, it’s quite obviously an abuse of power. Remember: Trump and most federally elected officials in the GOP have always personally benefited, in some way, from the labor of undocumented migrants. 

The “debate” among Republican electeds over undocumented people is the longest enduring sleight-of-hand in American politics – pay lip service to curbing illegal immigration and then directly and financially benefit from the labor of undocumented migrants. Deport just as many human beings as necessary to keep up appearances, but not so many that it hurts your bottom line. Even just the premise central to the question of “abuse of power” is itself incredibly flaky.

That’s partly what’s so disgustingly sinister about all this. Trump and the GOP don’t want too many undocumented migrants to be deported. That would hurt them financially. That would kill the economy. This controversy is literally geared toward replenishing propaganda efforts.

So yes, it is absolutely an abuse of power, and the abuse itself isn’t even being done in support of a good faith objective.

There is a debate among liberals. In simple terms, one side says Trump is going to put soldiers everywhere to create a military state. The other side says, well, maybe, but there will be consequences and anyway, don’t treat Trump as invincible. Again, simple terms, but I think the deeper question is how alarmed should we be?

On that question, I want to first recognize that centrist, liberal and progressive people across the spectrum are engaging in good faith. I think both ends of this discussion are coming from reasonable perspectives, even if uninformed. I don’t want this to turn into another round of “leftist vs. centrist,” because I don’t think that’s helpful.

That said, even if the National Guard were being federalized in a good faith manner, with the blessing of the governor, to address a social unrest crisis that the vast majority of reasonable adults could agree is a problem — even in that scenario, of a relatively pristine mandate, I would be worried about innocent people getting hurt and even killed.

I was never part of a crowd control operation in the military, but given my military occupational specialty, it would not have been out of the realm of possibility that my unit could be deployed for crowd control. 

And just thinking about that terrifies me. 

I wouldn’t trust active duty troops to be adequately trained for this. So imagine how much faith I have in the training of National Guard troops, who get training one weekend a month and two weeks a year.

What do I mean by all this?

Yes, Trump desires to create a military state in his own image. I think that’s been pretty clear to every reasonable adult who has decent media and news hygiene. I don’t pretend to know exactly how that looks or the process for how it would come to be, but I do believe that’s what Trump wants to accomplish.

I am far less convinced, however, that it would be successful. I don’t believe Americans would tolerate being beholden to a strict military state. A surveillance state? Yes. A stolen election? Yes. Because these are things that can be framed at a more conceptual level. But when armed military personnel are marching down your street and ordering you to get inside and stay inside, that’s too visceral to tolerate.

In the long-term analysis, between the very poor military training for this kind of thing and the sheer pettiness of the American people, I don’t see Trump being successful. But in the meantime, a lot of people will be hurt and killed. And that, for me, is the biggest issue here.

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