Embattled President Deploys Military To Crush Dissent
Authoritarianism is coming. Get organized.
On Friday, masked ICE agents raided Los Angeles citywide. They kidnapped 44 undocumented Americans from their workplaces and arrested US citizen and SEIU California president David Huerta.
Thousands protested against ICE. The demonstrations were cheered by an overwhelming majority of liberals, progressives, leftists, and even libertarians.
The protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, according to the notoriously conservative Los Angeles Police Department:
[D]emonstrations across the City of Los Angeles remained peaceful, and we commend all those who exercised their First Amendment rights responsibly.
On Saturday, Trump ignored the facts above and claimed that the protests are "rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States". Trump federalized 2,000 California National Guard troops, who deployed to Los Angeles on Sunday, over Governor Newsom's explicit objections. ("Deranged".)
(The last time National Guardsmen were federalized without Governor approval: 1965, when President Johnson federalized Alabama National Guard troops to protect the "March to Montgomery" civil rights protest.)
Trump claimed that "Radical Left protests" will "NOT BE TOLERATED" and that "masks will not be allowed at protests". Either would be an immense violation of the First Amendment. Trump doesn't want to protect peaceful protest. He wants to remake the National Guard into strike breakers and protest crushers.
Trump's overall approval has been underwater for months. Trump's approval on immigration, long his strongest issue, has now turned negative in YouGov and Ipsos and NORC polling. While Americans still support deporting violent criminals (+31pp), Trump's actual mass deportation policies are all deeply unpopular:
Deporting those with jobs (-10pp)
Deporting those who came to America as children (-13pp)
Deporting pro-Palestine student protesters (-19pp)
Denying due process to detainees deported to El Salvador (-35pp)
Granting ICE agents permission to search houses for illegal immigrants without a search warrant (-54pp)
In short: A conservative President has deployed the federalized military to crush demonstrations against his unpopular mass deportation policies. He defies court orders. He calls a demonstration a "rebellion". He masks his military and unmasks protesters. He plans to surveil every person in the country with AI.
If you read about this in another country, you'd instantly see that he's building an authoritarian regime.
Trump doesn't care how peaceful the protests are. Trump has long planned to use the US military to conduct mass deportations in "lawless" blue areas. Stephen Miller, his immigration advisor, wants to federalize red state National Guards and use them to occupy "unfriendly" blue states. Vice President Vance calls the protests "insurrectionists" and an "invasion". Defense Secretary Hegseth has threatened to send in the US Marines.
They're obviously preparing to use the deeply undemocratic Insurrection Act, which allows deployment of the US Armed Forces into blue states and blue cities, and which grants near-total martial law power to the President.
It's never been more important to get organized.
If you're a socialist, join the Democratic Socialists of America. (It rules!) If you're a progressive, join Our Revolution or the Working Families Party. If you're a liberal, join Indivisible or 50501.
You can fight authoritarianism. But you are powerless alone. When we organize, we win.
