Four thousand National Guard soldiers and seven hundred Marines in Los Angeles: a dress rehearsal and the start of a large-scale military operation, a war that is no longer just metaphorical, but real, which Donald Trump coldly and knowingly intends to conduct during his presidency. The goal is to annihilate – “obliterate”, to use his own term – every form of political and social opposition with military force. Now it seems even clearer why the top military leaders were removed, one of the first decisions made after taking office, unusual for its speed and disdain for form. General Charles Brown, the first black man to hold the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gone. No more security for General Mark Milley, Brown’s predecessor, who distinguished himself by opposing Trump’s coup plots during his first term and by warning of the risk of an authoritarian twist in his second term. In comes the new head of the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, an alcoholic and molester, who in four months has made a clean sweep of all the top positions in Defense. And with him Dan Cain, the new head of the armed forces, the first person to hold the highest military position without even being a four-star general.
It won’t take long to understand how far the cleanup in the Pentagon has gone and whether it is enough to annihilate any possible form of internal resistance to the mad enterprise of soldiers and marines who will have to shoot defenseless fellow citizens.
It is a war scenario fueled by the construction of an imaginary enemy, with the massive dissemination by the Trumpist world of artfully created or manipulated photographic and video images of invading, terrorist immigrants. In Trump’s lexicon the word immigrant is now directly associated with criminal activity. It is a movie of a genuine insurrection being orchestrated and carried out by “foreigners”, a monstrous and villainous operation, because these are legitimate and peaceful protests, which have in fact only affected certain areas of the Californian metropolis.
The first battlefield is therefore California, and its most important city, Los Angeles. It is the largest state in the United States. If California was not part of the US, it would be on the list of the richest and most important nations in the world. It is also the state of Gavin Newsom, the strongest figure in the Democratic field and presidential candidate in pectore. Trump has shoved him aside, taking away command of the California National Guard from the governor and going as far as to threaten his arrest. All this with the active support, on social media and elsewhere, of the vile Elon Musk, who, in the wake of the clash with Democratic California, is trying to get back on board Trump’s boat.
In less than five months, the radicalization of the White House has exceeded all barriers. The military’s disinvestment in traditional areas of American presence is functional to the movement and deployment of troops at the borders, but also to their use for control, intervention and domestic repression, especially in states and cities governed by Democrats.
If these are the first four and a half months of Trump’s presidency, the next four and a half will be marked by a further, progressive and inexorable slide towards authoritarian power, which to a large extent is already underway. Newsom says: “You cannot work with Donald Trump. You can only work FOR Donald Trump.” From authoritarian he will inevitably become dictatorial, if he is not stopped.
The White House’s reaction to the protests in Los Angeles – and, in solidarity, in Santa Ana, Dallas, Austin, New York and many other American cities – beyond the specific merit of safeguarding the fundamental rights of those who live and work in the US, even if they are “irregular”, make clear the planned coup that Trump has had in mind since his entry into politics, and which is now being rolled out in all its details.
We will soon see whether the iron fist can silence the opposition in the streets to the roundups and raids against immigrant workers, even those who have been living in the US for decades. To what extent will it radicalize – if it is effectively declared illegal – what is in all respects a wave of peaceful protest and solidarity?
In America, there are more firearms in circulation than there are people. With a presidency solidly supported by the gun lobby, their diffusion and display are unstoppable. The Republican administration recently decided to allow the application of repeating triggers to common rifles and pistols, effectively making them into machine guns.
Will the next chapter of Trump’s war be marked by vigilante citizen shootings of other citizens and immigrants to support the soldiers? And will there be a symmetrical response? In the US today, the Wild West is just around the corner, and that’s what Trump wants. The big military parade in Washington on Saturday, on his birthday, is cold proof.
[Originally published in Il Manifesto]
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