‘The language of authoritarianism': how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention

The Guardian

a day ago

Donald Trump and his allies turned to a familiar script over the weekend, casting the sprawling city of Los Angeles in shades of fire and brimstone, a hub of dangerous lawlessness that required urgent military intervention in order to be contained.
'Looking really bad in L.A.,' Trump posted on Truth Social in the very early hours of Monday morning. 'BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!'
But contrary to the Trump administration's characterization of an entire city in tumult, the demonstrations were actually confined to very small areas and life generally went on as usual across much of the city.
Protests began on Friday outside the federal building in downtown LA following reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents were conducting raids nearby. The protests later spread to the cities of Paramount and Compton in response to reported and rumored raids there too, and demonstrators faced off with local and state authorities armed with less-lethal munitions and tear gas.
By Sunday, despite objections from local officials, Trump made the unusual move of asserting control over California's national guard and deployed 300 soldiers to support Ice (nearly 2,000 troops were mobilized in total).
As a pretext to this action, the Trump administration had characterized the protests as a broader threat to the nation. On X, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called Los Angeles 'occupied territory'. 'We've been saying for years this is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see that now.'
'A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations – But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.'
FBI director, Kash Patel, wrote on X that LA was 'under siege by marauding criminals'.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and scholar on fascist and authoritarian movements, says the rhetoric coming from the Trump administration is 'an authoritarian trick'.
'You create a sense of existential fear that social anarchy is spreading, that criminal gangs are taking over. This is the language of authoritarianism all over the world,' said Ben-Ghiat.
'What is the only recourse to violent mobs and agitators? Using all the force of the state. Thus we have the vision of the national guard, armed to the teeth. It's like a war zone. That's on purpose, it's habituating Americans to see those armed forces as being in combat on the streets of American cities.'
Ben-Ghiat pointed specifically to a post on X by defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
'The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil,' Hegseth wrote. 'A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.'
Ben-Ghiat said Hegseth employed 'the classic authoritarian thing, of setting up an excuse, which is that the internal enemy, illegal criminal aliens, is working together with an external enemy, the cartels and foreign terrorists, and using that to go after a third party, of protesters, regular people, who came out to show solidarity'.
In his post, Hegseth added that active duty marines at Camp Pendleton were on 'high alert' and would also be mobilized 'if violence continues. On Monday, the Pentagon said it had mobilized approximately 700 marines. CNN reported that the government was still ironing out 'rules of engagement' for encountering protesters.
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The protests turned violent when federal immigration authorities used flash bang grenades and tear gas against demonstrators, per reporting in the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times. Over the weekend, fiery and chaotic scenes played out in downtown LA, Compton and Paramount. Dozens of people were arrested for an array of crimes, including an alleged tossing of a molotov cocktail towards Iceofficers. Protesters shut down a freeway, several self-driving vehicles were torched and dumpsters were set alight, and there were scattered reports of looting.
Still, as mayor Karen Bass noted on CNN on Monday, on 'a few streets downtown, it looks horrible', but there was 'not citywide civil unrest'.
Local officials said that the addition of troops, who were seen standing shoulder to shoulder on Sunday holding wooden bats, long guns and shields, to the already fraught situation only made things worse. Bass described the decision to involve the national guard as a 'chaotic escalation',; Governor Gavin Newsom called it 'inflammatory'.
Newsom said on Monday that he will sue the Trump administration; attorney general Rob Bonta later previewed that lawsuit by telling the public that the Trump administration 'trampled' on the states sovereignty by bypassing the Newsom.
'This was not inevitable,' Bonta said of the demonstrations that built over the weekend following immigration raids across Los Angeles, adding: 'There was no risk of rebellion, no threat of foreign invasion. No, inability for the federal government to enforce federal laws.'
The inclusion of the national guard functioned as a show of force against a powerful blue state that Trump – and his allies – have cast as an existential threat to the rest of America, in part on account of its 'sanctuary status', meaning local officials don't cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
'Simply put, the government of the State of California aided, abetted and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States,' Stephen Miller wrote on X.
As Trump and his allies fomented chaos on the streets, Maga-world personalities and some Republican officials added to the mayhem by sharing misinformation online. Senator Ted Cruz and Infowars's Alex Jones reshared a video, originally posted by conservative commentator James Woods, of a burning LAPD car during a protest in 2020, claiming it was from the current LA unrest.
Prominent accounts also shared a video from last year of a flash mob attack on a convenience store clerk, claiming that violent protesters were currently assaulting a small business owner. An account called US Homeland Security News, which has almost 400,000 followers, posted an image of a stack of bricks with the caption: 'Alert: Soros funded organizations have ordered hundreds of pallets of bricks to be placed near ICE facilities to be used by Democrat militants against ICE agents and staff!! It's Civil War!!' The image, which was also used to spread false information about Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020, was taken from a building supply company in Malaysia.
Trump has also repeatedly suggested that some of the individuals involved in the protest were 'paid', invoking a popular rightwing conspiracy about dark money bankrolling liberal causes.
This, too, is another tactic out of the authoritarian playbook, according to Ben-Ghiat.
'If there are any protests against the autocrat, you have to discredit them by saying they are crisis actors, they are foreign infiltrators,' Ben-Ghiat said. 'You have to discredit them in the public eye.'
Officials in LA are bracing for further protests. The Los Angeles police department received back-up from at least a dozen police forces in southern California, according to the Los Angeles Times. California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, said on Monday that he thinks it's 'highly likely' that all 2,000 of the national guard soldiers who were mobilized will be deployed to LA.
The weekend's unrest also casts a potential shadow over Trump's military parade slated for this Thursday in Washington DC. Opponents of that event are organizing protests across the US under the banner of 'No Kings'.