In L.A., an attempt to “end politics”
The real story of the assault on Senator Alex Padilla is Secretary Kristi Noem’s talk of regime change
Americans are understandably horrified by what happened at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles yesterday — Senator Alex Padilla was shoved, ejected from the room, pushed to the floor, and handcuffed for having the temerity to interrupt Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem with a question. But an even more serious scandal is the statement that motivated him to object:
We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.
Whether or not Noem was riffing and off-script is beside the point. This is a profoundly antidemocratic statement; talk of occupation and regime change that recalls the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. And it’s no empty threat, but one that’s already in practice on the ground this week, with the federalization of National Guard troops and the deployment of Marines over the objections of the elected representatives of the people of California. And as Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes, the plan even involves one of the same combat units.
That makes the choice of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine division for deployment on the streets of Los Angeles especially telling. This infantry battalion served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as many other operations. According to a U.S. Northern Command press release that reads like a war bulletin, the battalion will supplement “soldiers from the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, a California National Guard unit in a Title 10 status, in the greater Los Angeles Area.”
It’s tempting to debunk or dismiss the fantasy scenarios of invasion and exaggerations of widespread lawlessness that Noem and other federal officials have been spinning; the birthday military parade planned for this weekend seems equally ridiculous — a “vulgar display of weakness,” as California Governor Gavin Newsom characterized it.
But as Paul Krugman writes, what’s unfolding in California needs to be taken very, very seriously — that even the most cynical take on what appears to be cynical, bad-faith maneuvering by the White House misses the gravity of the situation unfolding right now in California, and in days to come across the country.
There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls.
What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.
Senator Padilla’s mistreatment is important to consider as an example of the way a society in which force suppresses dissent — the kind of society that Sec. Noem’s policy of regime change looks to bring to the United States. As Padilla warned in his Wednesday speech, and reiterated later on Thursday, the threat is to everyone’s rights:
I will say this: If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,
The autocratic threat is here and real, as political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt wrote last month, but it is not inevitable. The costs of opposition are high, but they can be borne in solidarity.
The government cannot attack everyone all at once. When the costs of defiance are shared, they become easier for individuals to bear.
So far, the most energetic opposition has come not from civic leaders but from everyday citizens, showing up at congressional town hall meetings or participating in Hands Off rallies across the country. Our leaders must follow their example. A collective defense of democracy is most likely to succeed when prominent, well-funded individuals and organizations — those who are best able to absorb blows from the government — get in the game.
Padilla speaking out is one element. Other elected Democrats have followed suit. And the White House continues to lose in court. Thursday evening, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a temporary restraining order (set to go into effect at noon Pacific today) blocking Trump’s federalization and deployment of the National Guard and returning control to Governor Newsom. The DOJ has appealed, seeking to block the stay, and the outcome remains to be seen. Now that 22 states have joined California in objecting to federalization of the Guard, the White House is likely to be spending a lot more time in court, regardless of the portrait of American carnage they try to paint. As California Attorney General Rob Bonta put it after the ruling came down:
“They like to say there are rebellions or invasions or emergencies or insurrections, because that triggers more executive authority, and that’s really the end goal for them,” he said in a livestreamed news conference. “But unfortunately for them and fortunately for us, we are stopping them when they take unlawful actions.”
But the courts are only part of the solution, because ultimately, that lies with the people. And as Indivisible’s Ezra Levin told USA Today, the people are far more motivated now:
[W]hen this kind of thing becomes part of the national conversation, a lot of people who weren't paying attention before lift their head up and say, “Oh my gosh, that's terrible. What do I do?” And there's a very clear answer, it's show up on Saturday in a peaceful protest in a town near you."
More than 2,000 rallies are planned for the No Kings nationwide day of defiance happening tomorrow, Saturday, June 14, hundreds more than were held for the April 5 Hands Off! demonstrations, and millions of Americans are expected to turn out in peaceful protest against the vision of America implied by Secretary Noem’s words — the vision Senator Padilla has objected to so clearly.
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Live conversations next week!
Join us on Monday, June 16, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, when we talk again with scholar of authoritarianism Ruth Ben-Ghiat. Then on Tuesday, June 17, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, we’ll have a piano-side conversation with musician, activist, and author Adam Met. And on Wednesday, June 18, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern, Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyhone Will Have Always Been Against This, will join our Book Club meeting.
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In the face of this government's actions I often feel a flood of emotion and then a numbing. It makes it hard to think, to be thoughtful, to have clarity. Others' clear words are necessary for me to get out of my fog. I am thankful to have access to the.ink and Substack in general. Tomorrow I will be at my local protest spot, standing tall and sure.
As I recall the dept. of homeland security was created after 9/11. I remember being very uncomfortable with it's creation. My fears have been realized. Noem is ruthless democracy killer dog killer. Homeland security needs to be dismantled when we hopefully get our democracy back.