Events in the USA are rapidly spiralling out of control. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are sweeping across the nation arresting undocumented immigrants and shipping them off to detention centres for eventual deportation somewhere. The BBC reported on one such raid in Los Angeles where a law-abiding Hispanic named Jesus working at a car wash was detained and is now being held without being able to contact his family or lawyers. The whole exercise is sparking terror among the population which is said to include 900,000 what the administration calls illegal immigrants, 10% of the LA population.
Trump and his acolytes started out by saying they would target criminals (ironic really since the president himself is a convicted felon and an adjudicated rapist) but that seems to have been forgotten as they struggle to reach their target of 3,000 arrests per day. Anyone and everyone - even US citizens - is now at risk.
It is this pogrom that triggered protests last weekend. This in turn gave Trump an excuse to (illegally apparently) send in the California National Guard without consulting with Governor Gavin Newsom or local law enforcement. Newsom claims there was only relatively peaceful protests until the National Guard showed up. Trump is now sending in serving Marines, again without any legal basis according to many.
The 1st Amendment to the Constitution enshrines the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Supreme Court decisions over the years have held this to include peaceful protests, but Trump is riding roughshod over that right - as he is over plenty of others too.
His press secretary was asked why Trump hasn't once said the rights of peaceful protesters will be protected:
She struggles to answer the point because she knows he simply wants to suppress ANY protest.
Trump's actions have less to do with removing dangerous criminals and gang members and more to do with creating and maintaining an atmosphere akin to that which has existed in brutal dictatorships like Russia and China for decades. Have a listen to this from a sitting US president at Fort Bragg in North Carolina a couple of days ago:
It's unprecedented and terrifying. He is indeed politicising the army, but Donald Trump is mistaken if he thinks the US can be turned into a police state as some claim, and the American people quelled into submission by force like Russia.
There are around 400 million privately held guns in America.
Modern Russia has been a police state since the revolution. It was created out of a civil war. Political repression and the murder of political opponents have been a way of life for over a century. The state has slowly built up an entire ecosystem from corrupt judges to police officers and paid informers through a state-controlled media pumping out a distorted version of reality, all headed up at present by a man who cares nothing for human life. The organs of repression are everywhere.
It takes a lot of time to get to that position and although Trump has started down that road, I venture to suggest he will not do it easily in America with heavily armed citizens (on both sides of the political divide) many of whom revere the Constitution and recognise the damage he is doing.
I think Trump is playing with fire. Sending in troops is a provocation and in a situation where a crowd of protesters is confronted with such military force, it only takes one hot-head to fire a live round for all hell to break loose.
His controversial Kremlin-style military parade is due to take place in Washington on Saturday (his 79th birthday BTW) and he has already threatened any potential protesters:
"People that want to protest will be met with big force," he said, noting that he hadn't heard of any plans to protest at the military parade in Washington yet. "But this is people that hate our country. They will be met with heavy force."
Activists say they will hold demonstrations in the coming days, with “No Kings” events across the country on the same day, to coincide with Trump’s parade.
It is going to be a long, hot and very dangerous summer and I don't mean because of climate change.
