It was inevitable. And now it’s happening. During his first term, Trump repeatedly encouraged violence. He told police officers in New York not to be so nice when they arrest people. He asked “his” generals if they could shoot protestors in the legs. He broadcast fake videos showing him beating up a cartoon character labeled CNN. He urged his crowds at rallies to beat up protestors and said he would pay their legal fees. He wants to seem like a real man, a tough guy. But don’t forget that this tough guy dodged the draft five times with a podiatrist’s note about bone spurs in his feet.
This week, his troubles were mounting. There was the very public split with Musk, who dropped hints about Trump’s name in the still confidential Epstein files. There was Elon’s claim that Trump would have lost the election and control of the House without Elon’s help. What kind of “help”? There was the tariff mess, which was causing a global economic disruption and predictions of inflation. And Trump’s poll numbers were plummeting.
What a perfect time to send in large numbers of ICE agents to immigrant neighborhoods in Los Angeles! Send them to Home Depot, where immigrants cluster in search of work–not the “criminals, rapists, and murderers” he warned us about, but laborers looking for work.
Voila! Their friends, families, and neighbors turned out to protest the ICE raids, and all at once there are crowds and people waving Mexican flags (a big mistake, they should have waved American flags). The situation was volatile but there was no reason to think that local and state police couldn’t handle it.
Trump is shrewd: he saw his chance to distract public attention from his failing policies, and he took it. Without bothering to contact Governor Newsom, Trump mobilized the National Guard. He ordered 2,000 into the troubled neighborhood. Then he sent in another 2,000, plus 700 Marines.
Only the Governor can call up his state’s National Guard, except in the most exceptional situations (the last time it happened was 1965, when President Johnson mobilized the National Guard in Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators because Governor George Wallace refused to do so).
It is even more unusual for a President to call in the military to oppose ordinary people, which is normally handled by state and local police. There is an act-the Posse Comitatus Act–that specifically forbids the Army and Air Force from acting against civilians on American soil. A different law, 10 U.S. Code 275, forbids Navy and Marine Corps members from the same thing. Trump claims that the anti-ICE protests are an insurrection, which allows him to call in the Marines. Legal scholars disagree, but most think he overreached and that there was no insurrection in Los Angeles.
Indeed, the large show of force drew an even larger crowd to the protests and made it more dangerous. Nonetheless, there seem to be more military at the scene than protestors.
Miraculously, no one has been killed (unlike the genuinely violent insurrection on January 6, 2021, where Trump rioters viciously beat police officers and several people died). He sat back and watched the insurrection on television and is now considering whether to reimburse them for their legal expenses after being imprisoned for engaging in insurrection.
Trump said on national television that “many people” had been killed during the protests (not true) and that if he had not sent in the troops, the city would have been “obliterated.” This is nonsense. The clash between the protesters and the military is contained to a few blocks of a very large city.
Today, there were spontaneous peaceful rallies in many cities to show support for the demonstrators in Los Angeles.
The best response: show up for a “No Kings” rally on Saturday. Check the website http://www.nokings.org to find one or create one where you live. Be peaceable. Sing. Dance. Bring American flags. The Constitution protects the right to assemble peacefully.
Trump is not only diverting attention from his monstrous One Ugly Bill, he is laying the groundwork for martial law and dictatorship.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It will be painfully obvious that he will not be able to “distract the public attention from his failing policies” after Saturday’s 6/14 nationwide mobilization. In Person or In Spirit. Democracy Loving Americans are signaling their rejection of him & his.
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As you say, Trump showed his fascist face. Again. And again.
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The convicted rapist, fraud, felon, and January 6, 2021, TRAITOR, has always has a fascist face. His father was his first mentor.
In May 1927, over 1,000 robed members of the KKK and around 400 non-robed KKK supporters infiltrated a Memorial Day parade, leading to clashes with police. Fred Trump was among the seven men arrested during this incident, according to a New York Times report. The New York Times article listed his address in Jamaica, Queens, an address later confirmed by a 1930 census. The KKK was active in Queens at this time and known for its discriminatory practices against minority groups, including African Americans.
In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Donald Trump and his father, Fred Trump, for alleged racial discrimination in their housing developments in New York City.
It was 1973, and Donald Trump and his father, Fred, were in trouble.
The U.S. Department of Justice had just sued them both and the family’s multi-million dollar business, alleging racial bias by the real estate organization. They settled out of court with a consent decree in 1975, which included measures to ensure non-discrimination in their rental practices.
This was when Trump met his second mentor in chaos and hate. Roy Cohen.
‘All About the Fight’: How Donald Trump Developed His Political Playbook
Deal with the Devil
Donald Trump’s 30-year crusade against the Central Park Five
“The so-called Central Park Five were vindicated in 2002, when their convictions were vacated after a convicted murderer and rapist confessed to the crime — a confession that was corroborated by DNA evidence. (DNA was never found connecting the Central Park Five to the crime.) The Central Park Five were eventually awarded a $41 million settlement from New York City in 2014.
“But over the decades, even as it became increasingly clear that the Central Park Five were innocent, Trump has continued to call for their deaths, and even criticized the city for its multi-million dollar settlement — all without any actual evidence that the Central Park Five were involved in the rape.”
Donald Trump was a prominent figure in the “birther” movement, which falsely claimed that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and therefore ineligible for the presidency.
Why the man Trump once called ‘my African American’ is leaving the GOP
“Gregory Cheadle, the black man President Donald Trump once described at a rally as “my African American,” is fed up.
“After two years of frustration with the president’s rhetoric on race and the lack of diversity in the administration, Cheadle told PBS NewsHour he has decided to leave the Republican party and run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representative as an independent in 2020.
“Now, the 62-year-old real estate broker, who supported the Republican approach to the economy, said he sees the party as pursuing a “pro-white” agenda and using black people like him as “political pawns.” The final straw for Cheadle came when he watched many Republicans defend Trump’s tweets telling four congresswomen of color, who are all American citizens, to go back to their countries, as well as defend the president’s attacks on Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and his comments that Cummings’ hometown of Baltimore is “infested.”
A new account rekindles allegations that Trump disrespected Black people on ‘The Apprentice’
Trump hurls a string of insults at Harris including ‘lazy,’ a racist trope against Black people
While racism is not inherently a defining characteristic of fascism, it is frequently intertwined with and leveraged by fascist movements. Nationalism and In-group/Out-group Distinction: Fascist regimes often define a “true” nation based on specific cultural or ethnic characteristics, fostering a sense of belonging and promoting discrimination against those perceived as “outsiders”.
Nazi Germany: Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany is a prominent example of a fascist regime that explicitly embraced a radical, race-based ideology, leading to the systematic extermination of millions of people during the Holocaust.
Fascist Italy: While initially, Italian Fascism under Mussolini was not explicitly focused on race, it eventually adopted racist and anti-Semitic policies, partly due to political opportunism and alignment with Nazi Germany.
Donald Trump Lies About Race and Communities of Color. His White House often equates race with violence.
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Of course any half way progressive should condemn Trump’s federalizing of the Ca National guard and deployment to LA . And the secret police thug like tactics of ICE . But we should also condemn the LAPD violence against Unarmed overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrators! Among many examples check out the video of the deliberate targeted shooting ( by rubber bullets ) of an Australian TV reporter by a LAPD thug ! Or thé man repeatly beaten by several Mounted Cops as he laid on the street ! No to all State violence whether Federal or Local ! IMHO
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FYI: The link to No Kings does not work because it’s inaccurate. It should end with .org instead of .com, so try this instead: https://www.nokings.org/
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Thank you!
I just made that correction.
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