Why Trump wants to turn America violent - Alternet.org
By: Robert Reich (Alternet. org)
most tinhorn dictators and their henchmen usually end up the same way in the end ...
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The man who launched an attempted coup on the United States in 2020 and instigated an insurrection at the Capitol that resulted in five deaths now claims that people in Los Angeles are launching an insurrection. They're not.
Yesterday, the Pentagon activated 700 Marines out of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, to join the 4,000 federalized National Guard's military occupation of parts of Los Angeles.
Trump doesn't give a damn whether the troops are necessary. Nor does he care how many people are injured or even killed in his raid on Los Angeles. The show of military force is the point. It gives him the appearance of power.
Like any bully, Trump is fundamentally a coward. Humiliated by China, Harvard, the Supreme Court, Elon Musk, and the federal courts, Trump has launched a war inside America on vulnerable people inside America, in a place — California — most of whose inhabitants loathe him.
All of this was manufactured by Trump. It was and is his creation. The frightful specter of federally controlled troops in American streets has historically signaled a social crisis — forcing integration in Arkansas, protecting civil rights marchers in Alabama. But Trump is sending the military to Los Angeles at a time when state and local officials say there is no need.
Let's be clear: Trump and his lackeys want blood in the streets. They have been planning for it. "Looking really bad in L.A.," Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after midnight Sunday night. "BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!"
The bully-in-chief has appointed a bunch of tin-pot bullies to every position of lethal force in the federal government — and is now activating them.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristy Noam is a Trump stooge seemingly without understanding of the U.S. Constitution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears willing to go along with whatever Trump wants. Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller is a maniacal xenophobe. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is a brain-dead Trump sycophant. Border czar Tom Homan is a toady who has not ruled out arresting California's leaders if they obstruct federal law enforcement.
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The central struggle of civilization has always been to stop brutality. Unless we prevent the stronger from attacking or exploiting the weaker, none of us is safe.
A civil society is the opposite of what Trump seeks. A civil society doesn't allow the strong to brutalize the weak. It moves as far as possible away from brutality.
Every time the stronger brutalize the weaker — whether it's Trump and his flunkies bullying immigrants and the state of California, white supremacists bullying Black and Latino people, giant corporations bullying customers with high prices, the wealthy bullying the public to get giant tax cuts, Elon Musk bullying poor people by cutting programs they depend on, police bullying poor Black people, powerful men bullying women through sexual harassment, politicians building their power by bullying racial or ethnic minorities, Netanyahu wiping out Palestinians in Gaza, Putin trying to take over Ukraine — it's fundamentally the same playbook: Stoke fear. Exploit desperation. Suspend the rule of law. Fan brutality.
Unless the bullies are stopped, an entire society — even the world — can descend into chaos.
Our duty is to stop brutality. Our responsibility is to hold the powerful accountable. Our challenge is to stand up to abuses of power. Our moral obligation is to protect the vulnerable.
This week and through Saturday, protest but please do it peacefully. Do not be provoked into violence. Take videos of any brutality Trump's agents are wreaking, to show the rest of America and the world. Be smart. Be careful.
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from this point forward, it's time to start making lists of trump's collaborators ...
Trump knows his MAGA sheep would follow him off a cliff, so he has no real incentive to act like a decent person.
Nor will his sheep complain about him leading the most corrupt administration in US history.
He wants to provoke the public into an "insurrection" (a real one, not an imaginary one) so the he can order federal troops to fire on the American public. And then the real fun begins because that will allow him to declare martial law and postpone or even cancel any elections.
I would rather die than live in a fascist dictarship of the likes trmp and MAGA want to subject me to