We are rapidly approaching a flashpoint.
Last week, while in Colorado and away from my computer, I had plenty of time to watch television, which is something I rarely do. I watched live broadcasts of the protests in California, press conferences from the Governor, Gavin Newsom, Mayor Bass of Los Angeles, and their top law enforcement officials (city police and county sheriff). I watched the events unfold.
Trump gave Immigration Enforcement from the federal government (ICE) the order to round up and deport "the most violent illegal aliens" in the country. He specified numerous times that he was going after "the worst of the worst," and no one complains about that. He was disappointed that ICE was unable to find and deport the number of offenders that he perceived should be deported, and instructed them to deport 3,000 people a day.
ICE officers, in their attempt to meet this quota, began mass deportations all over the country. However, instead of only targeting "the most violent" offenders, innocent people were being scooped up in these ICE raids, including U.S. citizens, students who are here legally, children who are here receiving medical treatment, and more. This triggered the backlash and outrage. Lawsuits were filed, and in true Trump fashion, the laws were ignored, the court orders were ignored, and judges and lawyers were targeted and sanctioned for having the gall to oppose our Dictator-In-Chief.
The outrage spread from city to city, and peaceful protests began to spread across the country. Agitators took advantage and began attacking police and their vehicles. According to Trump, these were "paid insurrectionists". How would he know that? Who has the financial means to hire groups of people to carry out such activity?
Both the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Police Chief stated that these are not people protesting, but rather agitators who are not even local to the area. They come to create chaos by involving themselves in peaceful protests and use them as an excuse to attack law enforcement, vandalize the city, and loot whatever businesses they can. Of course, non-local politicians seized upon these images to imply that the entire city was under attack. The truth is that the protests in Los Angeles were limited to one square mile in the downtown area. (The city is spread out over more than 500 square miles.)
Trump saw an opportunity and decided to place the California National Guard under federal control against the wishes of the Governor (the Commander of the National Guard), the Police Chief, and the Mayor of the city. The proper procedure is for the police to use the tools they have available to control the crowd and keep it peaceful. When that is not enough, they call for support from neighboring cities and the County Sheriff. That puts over 8,000 law enforcement officers in the area against about 1,000 protestors and less than 100 agitators. They had things under control. If they did not, the Mayor, the Police Chief, and the County Sheriff would contact the Governor and request that THE GOVERNOR deploy National Guard troops to assist in crowd control.
Instead, Trump took over the National Guard without authority and mobilized them "to protect federal buildings and employees". 4000 troops were deployed, and they stood in front of TWO federal buildings and did nothing else. Immediately, Trump began boasting that his quick actions prevented the entire city from burning. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Amid protests by local and state officials that Trump had usurped their authority over the National Guard and the subsequent lawsuit in the court, Trump decided to mobilize the U.S. Marines. Why? Because if he lost the court case (and the court ruled his actions were illegal), he would still be able to control a military force in the area. 700 Marines were deployed, again, against the wishes of the state and local officials. This further inflamed the citizens, causing the protests to become more widespread and vocal.
The problem is that the military armed forces are not trained in crowd control and dealing with civil unrest. The military is trained to target and kill enemies. Local law enforcement is highly trained and equipped to handle civil unrest, no matter how violent it becomes. They had it under control.
Why does any of this matter?
A judge ruled that Trump's deployment of federal troops against U.S. citizens was illegal. That decision was appealed, and it goes to court again today. If Trump loses the case, it will likely end up going to the Supreme Court. If he wins the case, it is a signal that he can deploy any number of military forces to any city or state for any reason.
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law that limits the powers of the federal government in the use of federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. There are exceptions. One of those is the use of the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the employment of the land and naval forces of the United States in cases of insurrection.
Now we can see why Trump & Company insist on calling the agitators "insurrectionists". The court and officials have clearly stated that protected First Amendment peaceful protests are not an insurrection. The protests have been "mostly peaceful" in that out of thousands of people engaged in the protests, very few have engaged in violence.
Trump recently gave the order to ICE to step up immigration enforcement raids in "sanctuary cities in blue states". This is rapidly becoming a red vs blue situation where the federal government is attempting to invade Democrat-led states. And he may be able to use active-duty military forces to do this.
The Second Amendment states that the States have a right to self-defense through a militia. The militia was just its citizens who were armed and could defend the state as needed. Over time, the National Guard became the state-controlled militia so that there was no need to call upon the citizens that the state was trying to protect.
Now we have a situation developing where the state's militia has been taken over by the oppressive federal government. If the federal government decides that it wants (or needs) to invade a sovereign state, the state has no military force to oppose it. It has armed law enforcement that might be able to be called up, but as I pointed out earlier, law enforcement is not trained in combat tactics, just like the armed forces are not trained in controlling civil unrest.
How does this concern the LGBTQ community?
What is happening is happening to citizens of all genders, races, and religions. But you can't see gender identity. You can't see religious views, but ICE has raided houses of worship. Races are easier to target, and we have seen immigrants being arrested at the courthouse where they were instructed to go to legally pursue their legal immigration status. Immigrants have even gone to scheduled meetings for this purpose, had their legal status terminated at the meeting, and were immediately arrested as they left the building.
The outrage is building, as we have seen with over 2,000 "No Kings Day" protests all across the United States. The citizens are fed up. Politicians, judges, and lawyers are fighting this out in the courts, and they are being arrested, sanctioned, and killed.
We are rapidly approaching a flashpoint. Where this is headed is yet to be seen, but it could become very dangerous for all of us.
Pay attention, stay aware, and stay safe.
