When a country’s leader celebrates their birthday with a big military parade it doesn’t look much like democracy. Today, as Donald Trump turns 79, that is precisely what will happen in Washington, DC. Yet as tanks roll down the city’s wide avenues, a nationwide mass opposition movement is forming.
Trump casts the use of the military as a necessary tool against growing disorder, while his opponents will try to frame it for what it is: a power grab that threatens the foundations of American democracy.
Today’s events will escalate the conflict that began in Los Angeles over the past several days – and ratchet up the battle to control the narrative.
On June 6th, workplace raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) rounded up and imprisoned hundreds of people, many of whom have the legal right to live and work in the United States. Inevitably these raids sparked protests, which Trump used as justification to call in the national guard and the marines. He depicted LA as a city “invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy” that “would be burning” if he had not acted decisively. Armed forces have rarely been used to suppress civil unrest in the history of the US or any other democracy. One has to go back to the Rodney King riots of 1992 – also in Los Angeles – for precedent, and all the way back to the Selma marches of 1965 when they were deployed to protect a peaceful civil rights march, despite the objections of state and local authorities.
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It is deeply ironic that Trump poses as a figure of law and order when a mob of his supporters led an insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6th, 2021 during which more than 150 police officers were injured. Trump called it a “day of love” and pardoned all of the perpetrators on his first day in office.
Now he also grossly misrepresents the real situation in Los Angeles. While there is sporadic violence, it is hardly on the scale of the King uprising or even, arguably, this week’s rioting in Ballymena. Most protesting in LA has been non-violent, and it was entirely non-violent until June 7th, when Trump called in the national guard. His actions have provoked violence, not quelled it. Yet images of a few protesters burning self-driving cars or throwing rocks at the police, endlessly circulated on right-wing social media, give ostensible credence to his claims.
Trump appears to have deliberately manufactured a crisis for political reasons. In the short term, he needed to rally his base behind him. His budgetary legislation – his so-called “big, beautiful Bill” – is stalled in Congress. Because it would massively inflate the national debt, it has proved controversial among many of his own supporters, most notably Elon Musk, with whom Trump had a very public falling out earlier this month. But the spectacle of public disorder in a liberal city and state more friendly to undocumented migrants has united his supporters.
Trump’s actions also have a longer-term political goal: normalising the use of military forces in law enforcement. American law generally forbids the domestic deployment of the armed forces. Two of the exceptions are in cases of invasion or insurrection. It is hardly a coincidence that the US president and his supporters have consistently referred to the “invasion” of migrants and labelled protesters exercising a basic democratic right as “insurrectionists”.
Yet Trump’s actions do not come free of political risk. His show of force is actually an admission of weakness. After all, if the Maga movement could be sure of winning future elections, it wouldn’t need to resort to military force. But it would likely lose fair and free contests in 2026 and 2028. A majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance as president. His economic policy – a main reason he was elected – will hurt ordinary voters. In addition to inflating the national debt, the “big, beautiful Bill” would massively redistribute wealth upwards to the richest Americans, take away health insurance from millions of Americans and stoke inflation. Most Americans may approve of Trump’s goal of deporting undocumented migrants but most disapprove of the draconian methods he is using. The deployment of armed forces to LA has not been popular.
Trump needed to generate political unrest to act the strongman, but in so doing he has sparked the first massive protest movement against his rule. Protests have spread beyond Los Angeles to other big cities including Chicago, Houston, New York and San Francisco. The vast majority of protesters have been non-violent. The previously planned “No kings” demonstrations – happening today to challenge Trump’s military display and his authoritarianism – have been given new energy. More than 2,000 demonstrations are planned throughout the country.
Trump has also unified the political opposition. The Democratic Party, which has been lost at sea for much of Trump’s second term, now seems to understand its role. Democrats at all levels of government are voicing their support for peaceful protest and their opposition to Trump’s use of the military and taking some personal risk in doing so. California governor Gavin Newsom has become a prominent spokesperson, a role that led Trump to threaten his arrest. Senator Alex Padilla from California was tackled and handcuffed by FBI and Secret Service agents just for trying to ask questions during a press conference by Kristi Noem, Trump’s homeland security secretary.
Much of what happened in the US these past several days was predictable, but it is unclear how things will play out from here. The potential for violent clashes is very high. So far, Trump’s narrative of civil unrest is focused on the meme of protesters burning cars. The authoritarian danger of his use of the military remains abstract, as troops have not yet been used to suppress protests. The opposition may soon have its own defining image if a US soldier is recorded beating, clubbing or shooting a nonviolent protester. Trump’s second term might well be defined by violent clashes on American streets and the reverberating battles of interpreting that unrest. Los Angeles is only the beginning.
