The Day Before

 
Suddenly everybody's talking about kings.  Governor Newsom of California, House Democratic Leader Jeffries, the manhandled Senator Padilla of California, and most telling, Judge Breyer in his court decision that ended with a restraining order turning control of the California National Guard back to the Governor.  The federalizing of the Guard based on a statute was not justified on the basis of a rebellion, because conditions for rebellion weren't met, he said.  It was not an armed and organized group proclaiming their intent to overthrow the government.  That the Executive doesn't get to unilaterally decide what is rebellion and when to use force is precisely why the US Constitution was written and the US government formed.  That kind of Executive existed: King George.  And the American Revolution was fought to separate from that arbitrary power.

Judge Breyer's decision was "stayed" (the stay of a stay) with questionable legality by a 3 judge panel of the Court of Appeals, until they hear the federals appeal, which is in itself of questionable legality.  But Breyer made the case as clearly as anyone could.  Making it within 48 hours of the No Kings demonstration day was fitting but accidental.

Not so (probably) the vocabulary used by these Democratic officials, who stopped short of urging people to attend the No Kings demonstrations, though mentioning the principle of No Kings was very likely not coincidental. That's an interesting difference from the last two big demo days, in April and May.

Also on Thursday, US Senator representing California Senator Alex Padilla (member of the Judiciary Committee) was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed for attempting to ask Homeland Security boss Kristi Noem a question at her press conference in an LA federal building.  He said he was moved to do so by something she was saying.  It was this:

"We're not going away.  We are staying here to liberate this city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and this mayor have placed on this country..."

In other words, the intent of the federalized National Guard and ICE was to overthrow the elected officials of California by force, which does meet the definition of rebellion, or insurrection. Or simply, a coup by the current federal executive.  So that makes it tyranny, the tyranny of dictators, the tyranny of kings. Recall that when Boss Chaos was asked what crime Governor Newsom had committed that warranted arrest, he said in effect the crime of being elected.  (Heather Cox Richardson makes this point.)

Now it's the day before No Kings day, the military parade in Washington.  Now there's sudden warfare in the Middle East which seems to be only beginning.  So yet another fear realized: the bumblers of Chaos faced with a real life international crisis.  So who knows what Friday will bring, and what Saturday (with ominous not entirely metaphorical thunderstorms forecast for DC)  will look like.   

Meeting This Moment

 

This moment is fluid and fast-moving, but its immediate dimensions are consequential enough to be seriously alarming.  

This moment can be seen as beginning with some aggressive raids and indiscriminate roundups of working people by purported ICE agents in Los Angeles on Friday June 6 and coming to some definition on or immediately after Saturday June 14, when a burlesque Hitler/Mussolini/Stalin-style military parade demanded by Boss Chaos is scheduled in Washington while mass protests are scheduled just about everywhere else in the United States.  

What makes it a moment--a crucial and defining moment-- is Chaos seizing control of the California National Guard and deploying several thousands in the LA area, both to police protest areas and to accompany ICE raids with shows of massive and armed force, as well as attempting to involve active military in domestic affairs with a detachment of US Marines.  This began effectively on June 9 and 10.  

This is the aspect of the Hitler playbook that is most feared.  And it literally was part of Hitler's playbook for seizing dictatorial powers, as described in an Atlantic article behind their paywall: manufacture a crisis and respond to it with military force.  

Such an attempt by Boss Chaos was implicit from the beginning, though there were questions about whether and how he could achieve it.  First, could he find within the various federal agencies with police and military capabilities a reliable Secret Police, loyal only to him?  After insulating himself with extreme and clueless loyalists in all the key positions (Defense, Homeland Security, etc.), getting better control of all means of communication and information, and neutralizing if not destroying any watchdog or justice agencies (especially with equally corrupt lapdogs atop Department of Justice), he found or forged just such a Secret Police in ICE and the Homeland Security Investigative service.  

When it came time to involve the military (beginning with the quasi-military National Guard, but quickly moving to the regular forces) could he control them, even when what he demanded that they do is clearly against the Constitution, other laws, ethical practices and the military's own codes?  So far the answer seems to be yes, with a few reports of dissent.  (But he fired most of the potential dissenters first.)  

So far, the National Guard is aiding the immigration roundups without a peep, Chaos turned an address to the military at Fort Bragg into a political rally and there was no dissension from top brass about this obvious violation of their code.  Though at this moment the Marines in LA have no orders, so far there's no pushback there.  There's been some embarrassment expressed about the military parade, but so far nothing else.

So all this makes for a very dangerous situation, mostly because it is likely just the beginning.

Apart from local opposition, largely spontaneous with some organized by labor unions, the national day of opposition was being organized by so far little known figures in very new organizations, who nevertheless carried off at least two previous days of demonstrations across the country.  Joined by other organizations--100 or more--they promised the largest single day of protest in probably thousands of locations on June 14, while the Chaos parade was wasting some $50 million in tearing up the streets of Washington.  

As for leadership in opposition, so far the most public and inspiring voices were Rachel Maddow, Bruce Springsteen and Steven Colbert.  But in one long interview on MSNBC on Monday, California Governor Gavin Newsom did what few political leaders have done effectively: he was real.  And he was real angry.  Some of that intensity survived in his TV address on Tuesday, though the political smoothness also returned. But at the end of it he seemed to be calling for peaceful but massive demonstrations and dissent. 

Newsom appears to be one of those who believes that the Chaos long game involves destroying the power of state governments to oppose him, partly by controlling its own affairs.  With a captive Congress, the federal bureaucracy in shambles, and at best a timid Supreme Court, and the opposition party in apparent leaderless disarray, the states appear to be the final institutional bulwark.   

Some court intervention this week might be possible, and unforeseen events could intervene, but otherwise things are building towards Saturday, with increasing stakes and danger.  Will there be a million, or millions of people who actually show up to protest, given the open intimidation by the bully with the army?  Though there are no No King demos scheduled in Washington itself, could there be protest anyway with unsanctioned activities that either provoke or simply get a violent response?

Whatever happens, there will be more millions of Americans (not to mention a lot of eyes around the world) who will not be directly involved.  This will be the first major test case of what gets through as credible information in this peculiar media age, different from any in a hundred years or more.  

In the era of mass media there were widely credible outlets, eventually with widely shared ethics, and trusted sources of news or of corrections to misinformation.  Wire services brought information from elsewhere to local newspapers, and radio and television news brought reports and then pictures into homes everywhere.  There were decades when I could watch how the three networks covered a particular story, and see where they agreed and where they differed, along with weekly newsmagazines, wire service reports and commentaries by respected observers.  So in a time of perilous events, there was widely shared and commonly held information, with political and ideological beliefs to the side.

We are about to see how much of that survived.  Back then it wasn't always instantaneous--especially when it involved dissent and protests.  It took awhile for even the now revered March on Washington in 1962 to achieve its now widely held story.  

Granted, that today's traditional media has engaged in traditional sensationalization (claiming that LA is "on fire" when nothing burned but a couple of self-driving cars), and has not shown a lot of courage in resisting Chaos intimidation. But now both the immediate and sustained view of what happens is fractured by manipulated and deliberately mislabeled video, doctored photos and false reports, circulated on social media.  

It's happening now in regards to events in LA, with footage of previous violent protests mislabeled as video from this week.  While actual photos obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle of unaccommodated National Guard troops sleeping on floors are called fake news. 

 How far the algorithm-driven ideological distortion of reality has come to dominate and perhaps destroy any common picture of what actually happens may also be answered soon.  How does democracy survive without commonly accepted truth, especially with weakened or seized supporting institutions?  That's another question that may be addressed in this moment.

As some have pointed out (particularly Lawrence O'Donnell in his brilliant June 9 hour), the timing of this militarized dictatorship manufactured crisis is also a huge distraction from newsmaking events that Chaos doesn't want in the forefront, such as his recent media mud-wrestling sessions with Musk, and his budget of cruelty and devastation.  We're all just starting to feel the effects of his tariffs, in gaps on shelves, disrupted supply chains and unpredictable delivery times as well as higher prices.  He sure doesn't want us thinking about that.