7 hours ago
'Los Angeles is just the start: a big, beautiful civil war is coming to America'
It was a hot wet day in June as the tear gas rained upon the land of the free. Peaceful protesters, live streamers, and the ready-to-be-angry were pepper-sprayed.
Those two most dangerous foes of tyranny, innocent bystanders and journalists, were fired upon with rubber bullets and stun grenades. And America is such a great nation this was considered a mercy, as these snub-nosed 'non-lethal rounds' 4cm wide and 10cm long, tear flesh apart and usually stop before they reach an organ, rather than pierce with the deadly certainty of a 9mm hollowpoint.
This was a rebellion against the rule of law. This was a reminder of obedience to the US Constitution, and to the mandate of a general election in a country that has been a democratic beacon to the world. But Donald Trump was having none of it, and sent the National Guard to begin his second insurrection for him.
There were Highway Patrol troops with gas masks and truncheons. There were immigration officials with military fatigues and guns. There were horses to trample with their hooves. And they were sent to calm down people who had committed no crime except to be frightened. It did not, and will not, work. Nor is it supposed to.
It had begun perfectly, with immigration raids in a borough that is 80% Hispanic in a Democrat city in a Democrat state. The officers came armed not with laptops or paperwork, but in body armour and clinging to the side of an armoured vehicle of the sort last seen taking an RPG outside the Nakatomi Plaza.
They went to Home Depot, a doughnut shop, a clothes factory, and a warehouse. They did not find it necessary to take the police with them, for in America visa officials have the power to arrest, prosecute and shoot whoever they please. They lined up and arrested 44 people, and took them to a detention centre, where statistics show they are likely to be deported within hours, without due process, without a lawyer, and without any good reason beyond having been openly Hispanic.
A few dozen people appeared outside the centre with placards. Activists shared details of sightings of the immigration officials, which wasn't difficult because camouflage paint doesn't really hide tanks in an urban setting. Graffiti was sprayed, loudhailers were wielded, and in an act of what must have involved great strength and determination, some of the militarised run-flat tyres got slashed.
The President, who was watching closely, decided this was "insurrection". Well, he would know. He sent in National Guard troops to quell the rebellion even though no parliamentary property had been stormed, no police officers killed, and no-one had dressed up as a bison, which is the universally-accepted sign of S*** Going Down.
The troops did not ask why their President, 2,6669 miles away, had decided his government was under more threat from a few dozen activists than, say, the government had been when 2,000 people tried to get their hands around Mike Pence's throat while he was counting votes. The portly little sheriff, the desk-jockey from the suburban precinct, and the beat cop were not about to let a chance to play with the hand-me-down military equipment go to waste.
The protests grew to several hundred people. Young men grabbed rocks and flags, enlivened by the chance to get one in Goliath's eye. Cop cars were torched, and suddenly there were people sat on the ground with banners and people stood at the back chucking rocks, and the police said hang it let's just shoot 'em all.
And the Defence Secretary, who would like people to stop talking about his Signal messages, his wife, and his disastrous handling of just about everything, put the Marines on standby in what must have been certain knowledge that would make it all so much worse.
The president's fembot told the world of "mobs" and "attacks" as politicians "abdicated responsibility" and put America at risk of an "invasion", but down was up and wrong was right, and she did not mention that the president was the one breaking the most laws.
For this was not the deportation of criminals he had promised in his run for office. This was not scooping up the wrong'uns for which people had voted. It was random, broad sweeps that had already seen innocents deported, children separated from parents, US citizens and those with a right to remain, those protected by court orders and due process, crushed by the apparatus of the state. They were directed at those districts which had the temerity not to vote for him, and now had the temerity to protest.
The president has no right to send in the National Guard unless there is an invasion, a rebellion, he is unable to execute the law, and he has read a tiny clause in a rarely-used bit of legislation. The president has no right to deport US citizens. The president has no right to throw stun grenades at people exercising their constitutional right to protest. But the president needs an enemy, and the browner the better. For there is no point to Donald Trump - to the anger, the ignorance, the bullying, the dick-waving - if there is no problem with the Hispanic family in your street. He has no use for joy or happiness or community, only fear and rage and hate.
Which is why, when he has stoked the small protest into a grander, flaring thing, when it is matched with riots fuelled by summer heat and immigration raids in Democrat strongholds across the country, he will inflame it as much as he can. So that when his time should be up in the White House he has reason to say: you need me. Look at the violence. Fear your neighbour. What you need, he will say, is a big, beautiful civil war to put all of this right.
For him there is no other way. And it is probably about time America had this argument with itself. Only then can it decide to take power away from those who wield it so vindictively. It managed it once before, and the whole world hopes it can do it again.
