Troops with assault rifles

Just four months in and already they’re going for military takeover.

US national guard troops began to deploy in downtown Los Angeles after an immigration crackdown saw police use teargas on protesters in a move that has sent shockwaves though American politics.

Local television station ABC7 reported that national guard troops had started to arrive in downtown Los Angeles. It broadcast video of military trucks and troops with the helmeted soldiers wearing green camouflage uniforms, carrying assault rifles and handing out riot shields.

The troops paused at City Hall and drove through the Paramount neighborhood where protests had happened. The initial deployment represented about 300 troops at three different locations out of a total expected of 2,000. “There are approximately 300 California National Guard in Los Angeles currently,” Izzy Gardon, director of communications for California governor, Gavin Newsom, told CNN.

Protests. Not riots, not street fighting, not guerilla warfare, but protests. We are in fact allowed to protest.

The order to deploy the soldiers came from Donald Trump late on Saturday night and marks a stunning escalation in a broad crackdown on immigrants in the United States following raids across the country which have triggered protests.

Trump’s federalization of the guard troops is the first time an American president has used such power since the 1992 LA riots. At that time widespread violence broke out in reaction to the acquittal of four white police officers for brutally beating Black motorist Rodney King.

But that was then. Now we don’t wait for widespread violence, we just send the troops in because people are talking back.

Trump’s move has been followed by the threat of even more escalation. Earlier Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s controversial and hardline defense secretary, had raised the possibility of deploying US marines onto the streets of the Democrat-run state amid the protests that had erupted in the wake of raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) authorities in the state.

“Under President Trump, violence & destruction against federal agents & federal facilities will NOT be tolerated. It’s COMMON SENSE,” Hegseth wrote on social media.

“If violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized – they are on high alert,” Hegseth said.

The Marines.

This is how military coups begin.

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