The octogenarian GOP leader made headlines as he dispatched thousands of National Guard personnel to quash protests earlier this week. These displays of civil unrest sprung into action across Los Angeles last Friday (6 June), coinciding with media reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducting aggressive raids predominantly Latino neighborhoods. The public outcry in LA escalated on Monday (9 June) following the U.S. President’s decision – previously he pledged to initiate the ‘largest expulsion operation’ in U.S. history meant as part of a ‘full-fledged reestablishment of America’ – to send an additional 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines into the city, building upon the existing 2,000-troops deployment, an action now facing lawsuits due to its questionable nature.
Kamala Harris was seen in a video making startling statements about the President, whom she says desires a military loyal to him above all else. According to her, the former chief-of-staff, John Kelly (a retired four-star general) alleged that Trump ‘yearned for generals similar to those Adolf Hitler could command’. Harris added, he wants an obedient military, one that follows his directives to the point of breaking the law or betraying their sacred oath to the Constitution.
She went further to claim that the President has referred to fellow countrymen as the enemy of the state several times in the past week, even as he insisted he might deploy the very military meant to protect them against them. Such statements from the President rings alarm bells as Trump appears to be paralleling himself with Adolf Hitler, who is to blame for the genocide of 6 million Jews and the death of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The outrageous accusation of Harris resonates when she categorizes Trump as a ‘fascist’, purporting that his behavior is veering towards ‘increasingly erratic and unbalanced’. She then added a further warning in case of a hypothetical second term in which ‘sensible individuals like John Kelly would no longer be around to contain his worst inclinations and his actions’. This suggests the absence of those who used to deter him from acting upon his most destructive impulses.
The President’s choice to send National Guard by the thousands to LA has drawn virtually unanimous criticism. Among the dissenters, Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, has opined that U.S. Marines ‘should not be confronted with their own countrymen to carry out the warped fantasy of an autocratic President. It is un-American’.
Newsom also vocalized his belief that the widespread violence following the ICE arrests and the consequent raids are ‘just what Trump wished for’. In Newsom’s opinion, the President had ‘fanned the flames and illegally moved to federalize the National Guard’ with his weekend resolution that pulled thousands of soldiers into federal service for two months with the aim of quelling ‘a sort of rebellion against the authority of the U.S. Government’.
It’s worth noting that Newsom also mentioned the perturbing fact that Trump’s directive, in essence, creates the potential for deviations from the norm. Specifically, it opens up the opportunity for employing both National Guard and active-duty military personnel to suppress protests on a nationwide scale.