This is serious enough to break in on the weekend.
You’ve seen the intentionally provocative ICE raids in LA and the protests spawned by them. A short time ago White House immigration Czar Tom Homan said he was sending in the National Guard to control the situation. It wasn’t clear what he meant since the California National Guard reports to the Governor of California. The President has to nationalize the Guard to put it under his command. About fifteen minutes ago Gov. Newsom tweeted out a statement that the President is in fact nationalizing the California State Guard. The exact words from his statement were “the federal government is moving to take over the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 soldiers.” But that’s clear what that means.
Some key facts. The President does have the authority to nationalize the state National Guards. This is clearly within his power. The Governor has no power or authority to resist that move. Same applies the Adjutant General (the top officer of each state guard) and the soldiers. But they are still not allowed to obey illegal orders. This is why I said a few times through the Spring that governors needed to have serious talks with their state adjutant generals and find out just who they were, their values, understanding of their responsibilities, etc.
There have always been a few clear break points, rubicon thresholds in the Trump autocracy storyline where the entire legitimacy of the state and the freedom of American citizens could go sideways very, very fast. This has always been one of the most obvious ones. There’s no need here for the Guard. The irritant is the wildly inflammatory raids by militarized ICE squads. But even assuming those continue the Guard still isn’t necessary. The President has triggered this crisis and is now using it to exercise military authority within a state against the wishes of the state’s civilian elected leaders – Mayor, Governor, congressional representatives, etc. This is 100% Trump. He’s created the situation and now he’s exploiting it.
We’re very clearly entering a moment of grave danger. My main thought about this is to remember – as we’ve said in other contexts – that the fight to preserve the American republic remains fundamentally one over public opinion. The President has a lot of power here for violence and mischief. But he’s not in charge of what people think about it, whether they think his actions are legitimate, wise, anything they support. You can dismiss whether public opinion matters in a case like this. I disagree. It’s fundamentally what it’s all about, what will eventually decide all of this. So I hope all the players here, in the decisions they make, keep that in mind.
