by Dr David Rubens
The news that President Trump had ordered National Guard troops onto the street of Los Angeles in response to protests against operations by federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration to target illegal immigrants is yet another sign – if one was needed – that America is moving down a path away from open democracy and towards increasing autocracy and repressive responses.
It has been a standard tactic of Trump to identify sections of the population that can then be targeted in order to justify the use of increasingly aggressive polices (often without the basis of legal rights). In his first term it was Mexicans (‘They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists’); Muslims (his pre-2016 election rhetoric include statements that ‘Islam hates us’ and that the US was ‘having problems with Muslims coming into the country’, amid a desire to impose a ‘Muslim ban’ and a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States’) and the federal government itself (making accusations about the ‘Deep State’ that was acting against the interest of America and was embedded in many of the major government departments, including the federal security and intelligence agencies).
His second term has been characterised by attacks on universities (Harvard has had $3bn of funding suspended, as well as its right to recruit overseas students), judges (Memorial Day on 25th May was marked by a series of all-capital tweets that claimed that U.S. judges were ‘on a mission to keep murderers, drug dealers, rapists, gang members and released prisoners from all over the world, in our country so they can rob, murder, and rape again — all protected by these USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick, and very dangerous for our country’) and science (over 100 climate studies have been closed, as have programmes associated with the National Institutes of Health and Human Resources, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation’.
However, it is the sight of National Guards personnel on the street – in full military array – that creates the most visceral images. Trump and other officials claimed that attempts to disrupt immigration officials would be considered a ‘form of rebellion’, and that the protests were an ‘insurrection’. Défense secretary, Pete Hegseth, threatened to deploy active-duty marines, saying: ‘The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil. A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK. Under President Trump, violence and destruction against federal agents and federal facilities will NOT be tolerated’.
For those of us of a certain generation, the memories of National Guardsmen facing off against anti-Vietnam protesters in the 1960’s is still one of the most vivid memories we have of American modern history. Kent State, which saw the killing by Ohio National Guard of four unarmed students from a crowd of around three hundred that had gathered to protest against the expansion of military activities in Cambodia, remains shorthand for what happens when America turns on itself – and particularly its youth.
The conceptual disconnect concerning the role of the National Guard was reinforced during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. The impacts of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans were devastating, and the overwhelming nature of the flooding and its consequences led to a significant failure of local agencies to be able to respond, either to ensure the safety of those who were stranded by the flood or to ensure security in the Houston Astrodome and other places which had been opened to supply mass shelters. Looting had originally started when a shortage of food and other critical supplies had led to direct action to access what was available in shops, but that soon became a wider scene of criminality. It was in such circumstances that the Louisiana National Guard was deployed.
Whilst it might be thought that the security and wellbeing of the citizens of New Orleans would be at the forefront of the operation, the National Guard itself had other ideas. Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force, told the Army Times, ‘This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control’. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting ‘the insurgency in the city’.
The sight of National Guardsmen in full combat mode in New Orleans is an image that is not easy to shake off. And yet, unless there is a specific role for them to play in terms of emergency response, it is natural that National Guard troops revert to a role of a combat force looking to take back control from hostile agents, especially if that is how their mission has been defined.
In normal circumstances, it is the State Governor who requests the deployment of the National Guard. In this instance, it was through a direct Presidential order, despite the fact that California Governor Gavin Newsom said he requested that the Trump administration withdraw its order to deploy 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles County, calling it unlawful.
The President only has the right to deploy the National Guard in a federal (i.e. non-state) role if the U.S. is invaded or threatened with invasion by a foreign nation, if a rebellion or threat of rebellion exists against the government or if regular military forces are insufficient to enforce federal laws.
Governor Newsom accused Trump of trying to manufacture a crisis and violating California’s state sovereignty, writing on X that ‘These are the acts of a dictator, not a President’.
The fact that the consequence of the deployment was a significant escalation in the level of confrontation, violence and ultimately widespread disorder, could be seen not in terms of an unintended consequence, but potentially could be exactly the outcome that Trump and his advisers were looking for.
Trump called the demonstrators ‘violent, insurrectionist mobs’ and said he was directing his cabinet officers ‘to take all such action necessary’ to stop the ‘riots’. The White House issued a statement that ‘everyone saw the chaos, violence and lawlessness’.
Given that on his first day in office, President Trump issued a formal pardon against 1,500 people accused after the January 6 riots at the Capitol Building in Washington (which many people had characterised as a genuine insurrection), caling them patriots, it seems that just as in the 1960’s and early 70’s, we are retuning to a period when political violence is going to be a continuing theme of American politics, and one that is likely to lead to an ever-increasing cycle of response and escalation.
It is never good when troops are put on the ground, but even less so when they are accompanied by the rhetoric we are currently seeing coming out of the White House. As in so much of the news coming out of America, it feels like there could be dark days ahead.
