The very fact of deploying the National Guard is striking in itself, but it is the circumstances surrounding Trump’s Saturday night decision to do so that are particularly extraordinary. Foremost among those is that no-one has asked for the help of the National Guard, and there is no obvious crisis in LA for them to solve.
And yet Trump has ordered at least 2,000 National Guardsmen into the Californian city after three days of protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. ICE had deployed tear gas and non-lethal munitions against the protests, but in a statement late on Saturday evening, Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement confirming the protests “remained peaceful” and “concluded without incident”. While some turbulence on the streets escalated in the evening, LA’s police also stressed they were in a “heightened readiness posture” and “ready to ensure the continued safety of communities”.
In his executive memorandum ordering in the troops, Donald Trump said that those peaceful protests “constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States” – using this as a justification for the first non-consensual deployment of federal troops in this way since the civil rights clashes in the South. As if all of this wasn’t enough, Trump’s defence secretary (and former Fox News presenter) Pete Hegseth threatened to send in Marines to LA – a move California’s governor Gavin Newsom has rightly called “deranged”.
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But the blazing hypocrisy of Trump and his top officials should stand out, too. One of Trump’s first actions on regaining the presidency in January was pardoning thousands of insurrectionists who participated in a violent invasion of Congress – including those who assaulted police. Now, mere months later, Trump claims to be so outraged by peaceful protest, which is protected by the First Amendment of the US constitution, that he is deploying troops against them.
It has to be hoped that cooler heads prevail and manage to pull this particular crisis back from the brink. The people who actually make up the National Guard are not fanatics: they signed up to help their nation during crises, not to be a private army for a dictatorial president. California’s government and senior law enforcement officials will be trying to find ways to deploy troops that don’t risk escalating the situation. As always happens when Donald Trump is president, people will be working quietly to try to save America from the man leading it.
The citizens of Los Angeles were protesting against Trump’s unlawful use of the federal agency ICE to deport their friends and neighbours. For that, they are being called rebels against the state, and facing its military force. However the mess Trump has made in LA ends, America surely cannot withstand three and a half more years of this.
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