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    Violence is coming to define American political life | Stephen Marche

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    America reached its apex of self-parody shortly after 7pm on 14 June 2025. In that moment, the background band at Donald Trump’s military parade segued from Jump by Van Halen to Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival, just after the announcer explained that M777 howitzers are made out of titanium.Nobody, apparently, had considered the lyrics: “Some folks are born, made to wave the flag, they’re red, white and blue, and when the band plays Hail to the Chief, they point the cannon at you.” If this was some kind of surreptitious protest by the musicians, I salute them, but given the time and the place, sheer obliviousness is a better explanation. The crowd, pretty thin, did their best imitation of a cheer.The US clearly does not know how to do an authoritarian military parade. To be fair, they are just getting started. Authoritarian military parades are supposed to project invincible strength. They are supposed to make your own people impressed with the inhuman discipline of your troops, and to strike fear into your enemies at the capacity of your organization. In Trump’s parade, the soldiers resembled children forced to participate in a half-assed school play, trying to figure out how to avoid embarrassment as far as possible, and the military itself looked better suited to running a Kid Rock tour than a country’s defence.But do not confuse Trump’s debased parade with a joke or an innocent piece of entertainment. The Trump parade took place in the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a Minnesota state representative. While it was under way, security forces were firing teargas on protesters in Los Angeles.Violence is coming to define American political life – spectacular violence including the parade and real violence like the assassination of Hortman. Political destabilization is arriving far too quickly to be perceived in its entirety. So much is happening so fast that it’s impossible to keep track of the decline. Increasingly, the question is becoming: when are we going to start calling this what it is?When I published my book The Next Civil War in 2022, the US was very far from the threshold of what the experts at the Peace Research Institute Oslo defined as civil war, which is 1,000 combatant deaths a year. They defined civil conflict as a 1,000 combatant deaths a year, so the US already fits comfortably in that category. But the definitions of war and conflict never applied perfectly to the American reality, because it is so much bigger and so much more geographically diverse than other countries. As we start to see violence overtaking American political life, the transition is more like a sunset than a light switch. Every day violence becomes more and more settled as the means of US politics.The parade, and the “No Kings” counter-protests, were both distractions from the fact that American political life is moving away from discourse altogether. Don’t like what the senators of the other party are saying? Handcuff them. Don’t like protestors? Send in the marines. Don’t like the makeup of the House of Representatives in Minnesota? Kill the top Democrat. The political purpose of the parade, from Trump’s point of view, was to demonstrate his mastery of the means of violence. He needed to show, to the military and to the American people both, that he can make the army do what he tells it, and established traditions and the rule of law will not alter his will.But the primary effect of the parade was to demonstrate an immense weakness, in Trump and in the American people. It was a parade reminiscent of the most vacuous regimes in history. In 1977, Jean-Bédel Bokassa, the leader of the Central African Republic, declared himself emperor and indulged in a coronation that imitated the coronation of Napoleon I in immaculate detail. He even went so far as to use eight white Norman horses to pull the carriage, but the French horses were not used to the climate and several died. Trump’s parade felt like a lazier version of that.The spectre of defeat hovered over the entire celebration of supposed strength. The last time the US military threw a parade was 1991, which was the last time they triumphed over an opponent, the last time their war machine produced the results they had been attempting. The US has not won a war since then. But hey, if you can’t win a war, at least you can throw a parade.Except they couldn’t even throw a parade! The end of the show was almost too perfect. A frail Lee Greenwood, a country singer long past his “best before” date, sang God Bless America raggedly, lousily. “Our flag still stands for freedom,” he sang. “They can’t take that away.” O can’t they? Trump at the center fidgeted like a rich kid bored with his servants and toys. The whole business was like watching some sordid fairy tale: the unloved boy who everybody hated grew up to force the American people to throw him a birthday party and give him a flag. And then almost nobody came.What’s true of men is also true of countries: the more they need to show off how strong they are, the weaker they are. The weakness, rather than the strength, is terrifying. Whoever is so scared and so needy as to need that parade is capable of anything. That goes for Trump, and that goes for his country.

    Stephen Marche is the author of The Next Civil War More

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      Trump coveted a military spectacle but his parade proved underwhelming: ‘Just kind of lame’

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      On Saturday, as a crowd of thousands of people near the Washington Monument listened, a loudspeaker dramatically announced the names of America’s secretary of defense, vice-president and president. The final name received a modest roar that surely flushed the watching commander-in-chief with validation. With that, and with the boom of a 21-gun salute, the military parade that Donald Trump had coveted for years finally began.A protester, Nicky Sundt, kept a lonely and mostly silent vigil at the side of the road. She held a sign depicting a cartoon Trump brushing back his comb-over to reveal a swastika emblazoned on his forehead. The placard said “Save our democracy”. Standing near her – as a “counterprotest to the counterprotest to the protest, or something,” as one of them put it – a group of pro-Trump men held court. One was draped in an American flag. Another had a giant picture of Trump, in a crown, with the exhortation “Trump for king”.For the next couple of hours, in heat and occasional drizzle, spectators watched as the US army celebrated its 250th birthday – and, although he claims it is a coincidence, Trump’s 79th – with America’s largest and most controversial military parade in decades. Troops marched. Tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled. Helicopters clattered. Paratroopers plunged out of the overcast sky.Yet, for all of it, the parade was somehow neither the totalitarian North Korean spectacle that critics had grimly predicted, nor the triumph of Maga nationalism that Trump’s most diehard fans craved. It was just a parade – and a parade that was, for all its millions of dollars spent, controversy engendered, and exhausting security precautions, a little underwhelming.Since his first term, when he saw and was deeply impressed by a Bastille Day parade in Paris, Trump made no secret of his desire to hold a grand military review of his own. Military leaders, cognizant of the high costs and reputational issues of the idea, have in the past been resistant. Now, no longer.The event was not without problems, however. For one, the weather kept threatening to literally rain on the parade. For another, recent news developments have both distracted the world’s attention from the parade and cast an ugly pall on it.In California, national guardsmen and US marines have been deployed against the will of state authorities after Ice deportation raids have sparked widespread protests. In the Middle East, Israel’s attack on Iran has led to deadly retaliation. And early Saturday morning, an assassin impersonating a police officer shot two Democratic lawmakers and their families at their homes in Minnesota, killing a state representative and her husband and wounding a state senator and his wife.Trump’s plans for a military parade also sparked protests in many cities, including in Washington DC, where a few hundred gathered to chant, “Deportations, we say no / Now’s the time for Trump to go / Ice Gestapo, we say no / Now’s the time for Trump to go…”View image in fullscreenArmed with signs declaring “All hail Commander Bone Spur” (Trump was medically excused from serving in the Vietnam war) and “History is watching”, they marched to the White House. Trump’s attitude to the rule of law “is scary”, explained one marcher in her 20s, who asked to be identified only as Madison. “I would like to see Donald Trump impeached and imprisoned.”As she and the other leftists marched, a young man, bare chested and wearing a bucket hat, approached a demonstration marshal. He seemed confused. He wanted to know where the protest for the opposite point of view could be found.Downtown Washington was, in fact, thronged with people representing both points of view, and they could be distinguished, much of the time, on sight – with preppy attire and the occasional Maga accessory marking Trump’s fans, and Covid masks, dark clothing, and a general glower designating anti-Trumpers.The mood at the actual army parade was cordial enough, in part because the overwhelming majority of attendees seemed to be either Trump supporters, military families or mostly apolitical daytrippers who just wanted to see a parade. Yet the crowd was on the smaller side, given the magnitude of the event.Similarly, although the army’s marching went smoothly, the larger public event seemed less than well-planned. The garbage cans, few and far between, were overflowing. There weren’t enough exits. The only food source for thousands of people was a handful of food trucks with lines of 40 or 50 people waiting at each. Because the parade closed down blocks and blocks and there was a dearth of signs with clear directions, it was also extraordinarily difficult to find one’s way in or out.View image in fullscreenA secret service officer, trying to explain the general confusion, just sighed. “Nobody knows what’s going on.”A tent managed by a beverage company handed out room-temperature bottles of an energy drink, Phorm. The flavor, called Screamin’ Freedom, tasted like hard candies dissolved in water, and an advisory on the cans warned that they were not to be consumed by minors or pregnant women.Although the military has agreed to cover the estimated $25m to $45m price of the parade, including the costs of reinforcing streets to protect them against so much heavy machinery, residents of Washington have been less than thrilled. The parade’s attendees seemed to be tilted toward people who had traveled from suburban Virginia or Maryland or even further afield. At one point a young girl walked by wearing a Mennonite bonnet. It wasn’t quite Maga Woodstock, but it was close.Chelsea, a woman in her 30s wearing a Maga hat, came all the way from New Jersey. Asked what she thought of Trump’s decision to deploy the military in LA, she said, “You don’t have leadership in that state. The [Democratic politicians there] don’t seem to have a fire in them.” Trump, she argued, was taking a risk to try to help California out of a lawlessness created by the cowardice of its local politicians. This was a common sentiment.View image in fullscreenA group of women from Pennsylvania were sitting on the grass. One wore a red-white-and-blue blouse, the other a flag-printed dress. “Trump wants to keep us safe,” she said. “He’s not Hitler.”“Or a king!” one of her friends said. She defended Trump’s decision to ban transgender troops from the military, and complained that Biden had subjected the military to political correctness and DEI initiatives. “The military is not a social experiment.”A little over an hour into the parade, which was still going strong, the crowd was beginning to show some signs of restlessness. Even a few people in Maga hats appeared to be packing up their things and heading home. The first wave of hundreds of people slowly funneled through the gates, and past entrepreneurs hawking Maga gear and baseball caps with Ice written on them.A young man, asked what he thought of the parade, remarked that he was not impressed. He felt that Trump’s close association with the celebration had politicized it and “made a mockery” of the army, though it wasn’t the army’s fault.More to the point, he added, the event was “just kind of … lame”. More

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      Mass protests against Trump under way across US but violence and threats thwart some rallies – live

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      NBC News reports that a driver hit at least four “No Kings” demonstrators in San Francisco several hours ago. They reportedly suffered “non life-threatening injuries.”The driver, who has yet to be identified, fled but was ultimately detained, according to the outlet. Authorities are investigating the event as a “as a possible intentional act,” NBC News said, citing three sources.The hit-and-run unfolded shortly after 12 p.m. local time.Thousands of people showed up to Minnesota’s state capitol Saturday afternoon, a show of strength after shootings targeted two state lawmakers, killing one legislator and her husband.Crowds stretched for blocks, with protesters carrying signs that said “no kings,” “I thought this was America,” “chinga la migra,” “Ice belongs in my horchata, not in my city,” and “nobody paid us to be here.” American flags dotted the rally, as did Palestine flags.On the main stage, organizers mentioned the tragedy, saying how it strengthened their resolve and underscored the importance of gathering together.Perry McGowan carried a sign with the names of the two lawmakers, Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman, and a red heart. Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in a shooting. Hoffman and his wife were gravely injured.Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said he’s optimistic Hoffman and his wife will survive. Officials said they believe the shootings were politically motivated. The suspect, Vance Boelter, remains at large.McGowan arrived this morning after news broke about the shootings. He attended a protest near his house earlier today, and then came to the capitol to rally with a larger crowd.State police and the governor warned people to avoid demonstrations after the shootings out of an abundance of caution, but McGowan said safety concerns wouldn’t keep him away. “We all know, for Americans, that democracy doesn’t come with a guarantee of safety, and that you fight for that kind of thing,” he said.“We are all affected by not just by political violence, but all violence in our lives. And there’s way too much of it – way too much gun violence, way too much television hate, way too much inhumanity to your neighbors, and we need to push back on that and to contribute civility to our common good.”The Guardian’s Tom Silverstone, who is in Washington DC, has spoken with protesters who are demonstrating against Trump’s military parade. One protester compared Trump to North Korea’s despotic leader, saying: “He wants to be like Kim Jong Un.” NBC News reports that a driver hit at least four “No Kings” demonstrators in San Francisco several hours ago. They reportedly suffered “non life-threatening injuries.”The driver, who has yet to be identified, fled but was ultimately detained, according to the outlet. Authorities are investigating the event as a “as a possible intentional act,” NBC News said, citing three sources.The hit-and-run unfolded shortly after 12 p.m. local time.We’re starting to see some numbers trickle in for protest attendance.New York City police said that 25,000 marched down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, according to NBC News. In Philadelphia, the crowd totaled 80,000 at its peak, the outlet said.Los Angeles has seen more than 20,000 demonstrators, authorities said. San Diego officials said that “20k +” demonstrators gathered downtown.Protesters in San Diego have largely left the downtown area, police said, but the events were peaceful and as of an hour ago, there were “no arrests.”Lois Beckett, reporting from LA, spotted signs that incorporated pop culture references in protest of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.Some of the many anti-Trump and anti-Ice signs in LA specifically call out Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller has been known for anti-immigrant rhetoric since his time as a student at Santa Monica high school, Beckett reports.One of the signs called Miller “Santa Monica’s Disgrace”. Another called him “Miller Low Life”.Not long ago in Philadelphia, near the steps of the Museum of Art, the Georgia state representative Ruwa Romman spoke about a need to push back on authoritarianism. She said that the crackdown on protesters and illegal detention demonstrated a “re-emergence of fascism, because we have seen a lot of this before. Nothing happening today is new.”She was there to remind herself and the public that they weren’t alone, she said. “Everything that we see around us is a choice,” Romman said. “And it is a choice that we can make differently. My fury comes from the reality that the people who make the world better are actively choosing not to.”Opposition to the administration works, she said. The Trump administration, who “ripped families apart”, she said, has shifted who they are targeting for deportation due to protest.“Right now is the moment to insist on our rights. Right now is the moment to push back on anyone, anyone who attempts to normalize this in any way,” Romman said. “Now is the time to loudly remind those around us, as close as they are and as far as they are, that none of this is normal.”She encouraged the public to consider their role in three things: their community, local politics, and taking care of themselves. Romman implored people to support their food banks and to build a support system, to get involved in school board hearings, and to pace themselves as they protest.“Too many people want to silence people like us,” Romman said. “But now is the time to stand up to them and say, you will not make us cower in fear.”At the “No Kings” protest in downtown Los Angeles, the mood was “playful and energetic”, the Guardian’s Lois Beckett reports. Los Angeles police, as well as the national guard, have remained mostly out of site.“As the crowd repeatedly chants: ‘Ice out of LA,’ many protesters are carrying variations on ‘Fuck Ice’ signs, including multiple versions of the already-popular: ‘I like my horchata warm because Fuck Ice,’” Beckett says.Another sign includes: “I like my America like I like my wine … no ice” and the simple: “Warm margaritas because Fuck Ice.”Several hours before Donald Trump’s military parade was to start, about 300 people marched to the White House in protest of his policies.The demonstration, planned by the group Refuse Fascism, was separate from the No Kings protests being organized nationwide, which did not plan an event in the capital.Protesters were escorted by police through downtown Washington DC, chanting: “Fascist America, we say no! Now’s the time for Trump to go!” They carried signs reading: “No to Trump’s fascist military parade” and “If you don’t want criminals in the country, don’t elect them!”Army veteran Chris Yeazel was among the protesters, and said he came out in reaction to Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles, and to his speech to army soldiers at Fort Bragg, which has been criticized for its partisan tone.“America does not do military parades like this,” said Yeazel, 40, who served in Iraq. “Everything is just authoritarianism. He’s try to create chaos and become a dictator.”Of the decision to hold the protest, he said: “this is the nation’s capital. This is exactly where we need to protest.”While “No Kings” protests at Georgia’s capitol unfolded without police confronting demonstrators, police dispersed a protest with smoke and tear gas in a suburban neighborhood that is home to a high concentration of Hispanic residents.At least 5,000 people arrived to Liberty Plaza in Atlanta, and another 5,000 in Tucker, near a large shopping mall on LaVista Road, filling the parking lot. Many marchers in Tucker were drawn by posts by Indivisible and 50501, two activist groups organizing the rally. The march concluded without arrest or confrontation with police.This was not the case on Chamblee Tucker Road a couple of miles away, where DeKalb County Police and the Georgia State Patrol dispersed protesters with tear gas and smoke grenades. The area around Chamblee Tucker Road and I-285 northeast of Atlanta has a large Latino population, reflected in the relatively youthful and ethnically diverse composition of demonstrators there.Police similarly broke up demonstrations in Brookhaven earlier this week, with six arrests made on Buford Highway, an area famed for its immigrant community here. Protesters were demonstrating against recent ICE arrests in the community.Texas officials said they have “identified a credible threat toward state lawmakers planning to attend” a “No Kings” demonstration at the state capitol Saturday, the Associated Press reports.Texas department of public safety officers closed the capitol building and nearby grounds, requiring the public to evacuate. The protest is expected to start in approximately two hours, but the grounds are still closed. Some officers have told people to stay away.Ericka Miller, a spokesperson for Texas’s department of public safety, did not say when or whether the area would reopen. Miller did not provide any more information about the threat, saying it remained under investigation, per AP.“DPS has a duty to protect the people and property of Texas and is continuously monitoring events occurring today and their impact on public safety across the state,” Miller said.Minnesota’s congressional delegation has spoken out about the killing of state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, early this morning. State senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot, but are expected to survive; officials said the incidents appeared to be politically motivated attacks.“Today we speak with one voice to express our outrage, grief, and condemnation of this horrible attack on public servants. There is no place in our democracy for politically motivated violence,” the delegation said in a statement. “We are praying for John and Yvette’s recovery and we grieve the loss of Melissa and Mark with their family, colleagues, and Minnesotans across the state. We are grateful for law enforcement’s swift response to the situation and continued efforts.”From PhiladelphiaMajor and Rusty Jackson, who said that they were appalled by the past five months of Trump’s presidency, were among those demonstrating in Philadelphia today. Major, 71, said that he was there to protest everything that Trump has done over the past several decades, “including not letting Black people rent his apartments in New York, and arresting people for no reason just because they’re people of color”.It was important for Rusty, 70, to show up to express her concern about threats to democracy. “If you don’t stand up and make your voices heard, then change won’t happen,” she said. “What he’s doing is shredding our constitution, our government.”As an honorably discharged air force veteran who served in the Vietnam war, Major said, the military parade hit close to home: “Being a veteran during the Vietnam era, I know a couple of guys who died in combat to fight for the things that Trump is destroying now.”Rusty saw Trump’s decision to allow billionaire Elon Musk to head the so-called “department of government efficiency” as potentially illegal.Major said: “He’s our elected president, but I don’t respect him as a viable president. Period.”Although Minnesota officials urged protesters to stay home after a state lawmaker and her husband were killed in a shooting early this morning, thousands arrived at the state capitol for a “No Kings” demonstration Saturday afternoon.The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports that there have been signs recognizing the murder of state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and honoring them, at the protest in St Paul. State senator John Hoffman and his wife were also shot early this morning.Minnesota governor Tim Walz said that Hortman and her husband had been killed in what appeared to be a “politically motivated assassination”. He described the attack on Hoffman and his wife as “an act of targeted political violence”. Walz also said he was “cautiously optimistic” Hoffman and his wife would survive.One speaker at the St Paul rally said they recognized authorities’ warning but told the crowd: “We have to stand up in the face of evil.”Despite Donald Trump’s vow to use the military to “liberate” Los Angeles from street protesters, the 700 marines dispatched on his orders to the city of angels were nowhere to be seen downtown or at any of the other LA-area demonstrations on Saturday.A line of about 15 national guard members stood in camouflage uniforms at the top of a flight of steps at the main entrance to city hall, facing a crowd of several thousand people gathered in a large park across the street. A line of metal barriers at the bottom of the steps kept the closest demonstrators at least 25ft (7 metres) away.A few blocks to the east, California national guard members were seen patrolling the federal courthouse and detention center, the scene of last Sunday’s first big street protest, which was called after Trump deployed the guard without the consent of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Overall, the security presence downtown was light, with police cruisers parked several blocks from the protest and a single Los Angeles police department helicopter patrolling the skies. Highway patrol cruisers blocked a handful of freeway exits but traffic otherwise flowed normally.The federal courthouse and federal office building, which saw tense standoffs this week between demonstrators and police firing flash-bangs and foam rubber bullets, were secured with nothing more than yellow police tape.The only detachment of marines spotted in LA since Friday has been at a federal office building 10 miles away in West LA, where no protests are scheduled.In an early morning news briefing, the LA police chief, Jim McDonnell, said he was working with his law enforcement partners to safeguard people’s right to protest and to keep them safe. “Let me be very, very clear,” he said. “If you’re here in Los Angeles today to make your voice heard through peaceful demonstrations, we are here to protect you.” No federal officials attended the briefing.Melissa Hellmann, who’s on the ground in Philadelphia, spoke with protesters who came out to support immigrants – and to voice their opposition to Trump. Hellmann reports:
      Shortly after 12.30pm, thousands of people poured out of Philadelphia’s Love Park. Though it was a relatively quiet march, a line of police with bikes stood across the street from the park. In the slight drizzle, people held umbrellas and signs that said “Dump Trump, melt Ice”.
      Victor, a 56-year-old chef originally from Argentina, held a hand-painted sign that depicted President Donald Trump as a pig, with “Oink” painted atop his image in large letters. Victor was gifted the sign from another protester during a rally outside Philadelphia’s city hall when Trump was first elected in 2016.
      He arrived in the US from Argentina as a child and watched his parents work hard to make a better living for their family. “Other people have the right to work hard and make a life for themselves when they come from a country where they can’t do that or are facing political oppression or are desperate,” he said. “This is supposed to be the land of opportunity and a land built on immigrants.”
      He was disappointed by the military parade happening 123 miles (200km) away in Washington DC. “It’s a perverse show of power unnecessarily,” Victor said, adding that he hopes that the opposing protests in other states will catalyze elected officials to take notice of the public’s dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. “For the most part, the administration is pushing forth an agenda,” Victor said, “and people have been asleep at the wheel.”
      Marching near him, 67-year-old Margaret Grace waved an American flag. “The secret-police aspect of this is terrifying,” Grace said, referring to the plainclothes Ice agents detaining people in public, “even to an old white lady like myself”.
      While Grace was uncertain that today’s protest would bring forth significant change, she was hopeful that it would inspire more peaceful protests where people expressed dissatisfaction with the Trump administration. The past five months of his presidency, she said, had been marked by “chaos and that’s how he does things. Throws out some crazy stuff, sees what sticks and then backtracks.”
      As hundreds of thousands are expected to participate in “No Kings” rallies across the US today, demonstrators have also convened near President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in South Florida.The Washington Post reports that more than 1000 protesters walked across the causeway from West Palm Beach toward Mar-a-Lago on Saturday morning. They chanted “USA!” and displayed American flags, as well as signs that read “No Kings.” Police stopped the group approximately 900 ft from Mar-a-Lago. The dozens of officers, from local and state departments, stood in a line across the sidewalk, to prevent them from getting any closer, the newspaper said.The protesters turned around, and walked back to West Palm Beach. There was a mere “handful” of Trump supporters, according to The Post.Photos on social media show the protest.

      Thousands of people have begun demonstrating across the US as part of the “No Kings” protests. Millions are expected to turn up for events against the Trump administration at roughly 2,000 sites nationwide.

      A Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota and her husband were killed, and another Democratic state lawmaker and his wife were shot, in the early hours of Saturday.

      Police are searching for the suspected gunman. The Associated Press is reporting the shooter is a 57-year-old man.

      Minnesota police are urging people to avoid “No Kings” demonstrations in the state after flyers for the protests were found in the suspect’s vehicle.

      Both Democrats and Republicans were quick to condemn the violence in Minnesota, with Donald Trump saying in a statement “such horrific violence will not be tolerated”.
      Protests are still getting under way across the US.And later, Trump will attend a military parade to mark the 250th anniversary of the US army – which happens to coincide with his 79th birthday.Back to Los Angeles for a moment – my colleagues on the west coast have been tirelessly covering the LA Ice protests all week. As Andrew pointed out, the flags in LA have become a major component of the protests and the back-and-forth between demonstrators and the Trump administration.But what do they really mean?My colleague Robert Mackey unpacked the meaning of the foreign flags at the LA protests. In brief:
      Observers with a more nuanced understanding of the Los Angeles communities being targeted in these raids, and of the nation’s history as a refuge for immigrants, suggest that the flags are not intended to signal allegiance to any foreign government but rather to signal solidarity with immigrants from those places and, for Americans with roots in those countries, to express pride in their heritage.
      You can read more about the foreign flags in Robert’s explainer:Law enforcement officials are searching for a 57-year-old man suspected of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, officials told the Associated Press (AP).Two people familiar with the matter identified the suspect being sought to the AP as Vance Boelter. The people could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. More

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      How US cities have long planned for a Trump-led escalation against protests

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      The White House’s escalating response to street protests echoes talk before Donald Trump’s inauguration of forcibly quelling resistance in urban America. Those plans are now the present.After the use of federalized national guard units and marines in response to protests in Los Angeles, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) plans to deploy Swat-style special response teams to Seattle, Philadelphia, northern Virginia, New York and Chicago – cities led by Democrats that have long been the target of Trump’s invective – before expected protests this weekend, according to reports by NBC and others.The militarization on the streets and in immigration raids dramatically marks the places the administration wants to punish dissent.Late last month, the Department of Homeland Security also posted a list of jurisdictions it said were noncompliant with federal law regarding immigration enforcement. These “sanctuary jurisdictions” included entire states like California and New York, and an expansive list of counties and municipalities ranging from the metropolis of Los Angeles to tiny Hooker county, Nebraska, with a population of about 700.The list appeared to closely match the Detainer Acceptance Tracker, an internal document of Ice that identifies “limited and non-cooperative institutions”. The tracker declares a jurisdiction out of “compliance” if its local jail wouldn’t continue to hold a prisoner set for release when Ice had issued a detention notice, or wouldn’t give Ice what it considers adequate warning when that prisoner had a release pending.The list perplexed and infuriated state and local officials. Cities like Athens in Georgia or Memphis in Tennessee face strong state prohibitions against the adoption of immigration sanctuary policies. After an outcry, DHS withdrew the list, but it telegraphed the administration’s targets for increased immigration enforcement.Days later, Ice began aggressive raids.Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, was asked last month why the administration wasn’t arresting the leaders of so-called sanctuary cities. Homan smirked. “Wait till you see what’s coming,” he replied.Cities have long been planning their responses to a Trump-led crackdown.Seattle’s government has pledged to resist cooperation with Ice and the city has a history of strident public protest. Its leadership has been unambiguous about where they stand.“At some point, I will probably go to jail and be in prison because we have an administration that has threatened to jail politicians … and has threatened to jail a governor,” newly appointed Seattle police chief Shon Barnes told the city council this week at his confirmation hearing. “I will do everything in my power to protect anyone in Seattle from anyone who comes to this city with the intention to hurt them or inhibit their first amendment rights.”Barnes’s prediction connects with a pair of executive orders Trump issued on 28 April calling on DHS to identify and defund sanctuary cities and increase immigration enforcement by driving military equipment into local police officers’ hands. One of the orders contains a provision that calls on the attorney general to “prioritize prosecution” of officials who “willfully and unlawfully direct the obstruction of criminal law” including by trying to stop law enforcement officers from carrying out these “duties”.View image in fullscreenPhiladelphia district attorney Larry Krasner, long a firebrand figure in city politics, carefully asked for peaceful protest, and pledged to uphold the rule of law as the city manages public demonstrations. But he described the use of federal troops as a provocation, and Trump as a wannabe dictator and criminal.“The notion that we’re actually going to talk to somebody like that in a way that is reasonable makes no sense because we all know what he’s actually up to,” he said at a press conference Thursday. “What he’s actually up to is setting up a military overthrow of the United States, and he’s doing it like every wannabe dictator and successful dictator has done in the past, which is that you have to scare the population and convince them that there’s a bonafide emergency when there isn’t.”The Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson called for “constitutional policing” as both upgunned Ice units and protesters descend on the city this weekend. In a press conference Wednesday, Johnson said he believes his city has been targeted by the administration and by conservatives for policies perceived to be supportive of illegal immigration, specifically noting how Texas governor Greg Abbott trafficked immigrants to the city as a political stunt.“I will say that it is clear that there is more intentionality around the Trump’s administration to attack Democratically-run cities,” Johnson said. “This president’s desire to not only militarize and criminalize, but his commitment to drive chaos, is something that I’ve said from the very beginning is not only reckless but it’s incomprehensible, quite frankly. So, we’re going to protect people’s right to assemble while also ensuring that Chicagoans can get through their day-to-day.”Just as city leaders have been anticipating a crackdown, Trump administration leaders have been expecting people to respond.In speeches made to private groups in 2023 and 2024, Russell Vought – one of the main architects of Project 2025 and current chief of the office of management and budget – argued for the use of the Insurrection Act to use the military to put down protests he predicted would emerge from administration policies.“We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say: ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do,’” he said.The Center for Renewing America, a Christian conservative thinktank founded by Vought, also argued in a policy brief in 2024 that the president has sweeping authority to use the military as a tool for immigration enforcement, and called on a future president Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.Trump campaigned on a pledge to use the military to assist in immigration enforcement.View image in fullscreen“I can see myself using the National Guard and, if necessary, I’d have to go a step further,” he told Time magazine. “We have to do whatever we have to do to stop the problem we have.”In that interview, Trump lambasted “Democratic-run cities” for failing to address “migrant crime”, arguing that the use of the military would be justified in these places. “I’ve used the National Guard in Minneapolis. And if I didn’t use it, I don’t think you’d have Minneapolis standing right now, because it was really bad,” he said. “But I think in terms of the National Guard. But if I thought things were getting out of control, I would have no problem using the military, per se.”The Posse Comitatus Act has been widely understood to prohibit troops from engaging in domestic law enforcement functions targeting civilians without the invocation of the Insurrection Act. But Trump claimed that undocumented immigrants should be considered “invaders” and not civilians for purposes of that law.The US district court judge Charles R Breyer rebuked the Trump administration late Thursday for its activation of national guard units in California, and for its broader argument that decisions made by the president about how to use the military lay beyond judicial review. The 36-page order required Trump to return control of the units to the state governor, Gavin Newsom, by noon Friday.An appellate panel of the ninth circuit court put Breyer’s ruling on hold late Thursday evening, leaving Trump’s use of the military in cities in a state of legal limbo for now. But Breyer’s ruling notes that Trump’s assertion that protests constitute a threat of rebellion does not justify national guard activation, and declares that failing to work with the governor violates the law.Contrast this with how conservative states with large progressive cities are approaching protests this weekend. The Texas governor Greg Abbott has already activated national guard units, with 5,000 troops being sent to manage “No Kings Day” protests across the state.In Georgia, a protest Wednesday on Buford Highway in Brookhaven – the heart of metro Atlanta’s immigrant community – ended in teargas and six arrests, with charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting a peace officer.“In Georgia, if you engage in violence for the purpose of changing public policy, you can be charged with Domestic Terrorism,” wrote the Georgia attorney general, Chris Carr, on Thursday. “So, for those trying to make their weekend plans, the bottom line is this – we will defend the right to peacefully protest, and we will not hesitate to bring Domestic Terrorism charges for those who earn it. We are not California or New York. We are Georgia. We don’t make excuses for criminals here. We prosecute them.”Progressive leaders of American cities on the edge right now are matching the tone of this rhetoric.“What we have seen in Los Angeles is really not about immigration,” Johnson said in Chicago. “This is not about policy. This is about power. We have a tyrant in the White House who has a complete disregard for our constitution and the dismissing of our democracy.” More

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      Trump is deeply obsessed with US history – but he has learned all the wrong lessons from it | David Reynolds

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      Today the US army will parade in style along the National Mall in Washington DC to celebrate its 250th anniversary. This also just happens to be the 79th birthday of President Donald J Trump. As commander-in-chief, he will take the salute from a viewing platform on Constitution Avenue.But this is not a mere vanity project, as some critics have claimed. History really matters to the US’s 47th president. One of Trump’s last acts before reluctantly leaving the White House in January 2021 was to publish a report by his “1776 Commission”, created to “restore understanding of the greatness of the American Founding”. Deliberately, the commissioners included few university historians because universities were described as often being “hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship that combine to generate in students and in the broader culture at the very least disdain and at worst outright hatred for this country”.The 1776 Commission demanded a return to truly “patriotic education”, declaring: “We must resolve to teach future generations of Americans an accurate history of our country so that we all learn and cherish our founding principles once again. We must renew the pride and gratitude we have for this incredible nation that we are blessed to call home.”In this spirit, on 2 May this year, the president posted that he was renaming 8 May and 11 November respectively as “Victory Day for World War II and Victory Day for World War I” because “we won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance”, and it was time for the US to “start celebrating our victories again!”The parade on 14 June is also intended to raise the curtain on a spectacular nationwide celebration of the 250th anniversary of US independence, extending right across the country and culminating on 4 July 2026. According to the White House website, one feature will be a video history series that “tells the remarkable story of American Independence. It will highlight the stories of the crucial characters and events that resulted in a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world and establishing the greatest republic ever to exist.”History on parade, indeed. As is often the case, Trump does start with a valid point. After he witnessed the extravaganza of Bastille Day in 2017, where French and American troops marched down the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the centenary of the US’s entry into the first world war, he was determined to stage a parade of his own. So what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t countries be proud of their past?OK (if you don’t mind the cost). But pride should be rooted in honesty, especially when Nato in Europe is engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine against Vladimir Putin, a systematic falsifier of history. And if we’re trying to be honest, world wars aren’t like the World Series with one country trumping all the others and winning almost single-handedly.Take the second world war. On 3 May this year, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev dismissed Trump’s claims as “pretentious nonsense”, asserting that “Victory Day is ours and it is 9 May. So it was, so it is, so it will always be!” Medvedev is now an obedient Putinist, but he and other Russians rightly point to their huge losses in 1941-45 – roughly 27 million people. Stated differently, in the three years from June 1941 to June 1944, between Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the D-day landings in Normandy, more than 90% of the German army’s battle casualties (killed, wounded, missing and prisoners) were inflicted by the Red Army. That puts Alamein and Tunis, Anzio and the liberation of Rome into a different perspective.View image in fullscreenYet Americans can rightly say that they were in a league of their own as a “superpower” – a word coined in 1944 to signify “great power and great mobility of power”. Their huge C-47 transport planes and the B-17 and B-24 bombers allowed the US to wage war right across the world. Their modern fleets of aircraft carriers, built to avenge Pearl Harbor, island-hopped across the Pacific to Japan itself. The Pacific war ended with the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or consider the speed of the remarkable breakout from Normandy that enabled allied armies to liberate Brussels on 3 September 1944, occupying positions they had not expected to reach until May 1945. When an astonished Winston Churchill asked how the GIs were being fed and supplied, US general Omar Bradley said he was running trucks up to the front “bumper to bumper, 24 hours a day”. Ford delivered the goods.But Britain also played a crucial part in victory. Had our embattled island gone the same way as Scandinavia, France and the Low Countries in the summer of 1940, Hitler would have thrown all his resources against the Soviet Union, while Roosevelt’s US would probably have turned in on itself and concentrated on defending the western hemisphere. Instead, a combination of Churchillian leadership, modern fighters linked to the new Chain Home system of radar and the courage of the RAF pilots managed to keep Hitler at bay. Eventually, Britain became the essential supply base and launchpad for the liberation of Hitler’s Fortress Europe.And so in 1944-45, the allied armies converged on Germany from east, west and south. Of course, it was an unholy alliance, animated by divergent aims and values. But the extermination of nazism was a goal all the allies shared.With this in mind, let’s glance back to the US’s most important victory: independence. Yes, this was in large measure a David v Goliath story of “a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world”. The US’s independence was indeed testimony to George Washington’s leadership and his troops’ courage and resilience (reinforced by his insistence on inoculation against the smallpox epidemic). But this was also a world war as the British empire battled against its global foes. Crucially, by the 1780s Britain lost naval supremacy because (unusually) three rival seapowers had combined against it: France, Spain and the Dutch. It was blockade by the French fleet that forced Lord Cornwallis’s historic surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and British acceptance of American independence.The purpose of historical research is to set events in context, not to boost national pride. The story of the US’s founding, like that of Hitler’s defeat, reminds us that allies matter – in the past, the present and the future. That should not be forgotten when history goes on parade.

      David Reynolds’s most recent book is Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him. He co-hosts the Creating History podcast More

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      Trump’s insurrection routine: fuel violence, spawn chaos, shrug off the law | Sidney Blumenthal

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      Donald Trump’s stages of insurrection have passed from trying to suppress one that didn’t exist, to creating one himself, to generating a local incident he falsely depicts as a national emergency. In every case, whether he inflates himself into the strongman putting down an insurrection or acts as the instigator-in-chief, his routine has been to foster violence, spawn chaos and show contempt for the law.In his first term, Trump reportedly asked the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?” Trump was agitated about protesters in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. On 1 June, Trump ordered the US Park police to clear the park. Some charged on horses into the crowd. Trump emerged after the teargas wafted away to walk through the park, ordering Milley to accompany him, and stood in front of St John’s Church on the other side to display a Bible upside down.Milley felt he had been badly used and exercised poor judgment in marching with Trump. “I should not have been there,” he said. “My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.” A day later, the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, held a news conference to oppose publicly the use of the military for law enforcement and any invocation of the Insurrection Act. Trump was furious with Milley and Esper. He was determined to have a pliable military, generals and a secretary of defense to do his bidding, whatever it might be.Then, Trump staged an insurrection in a vain last attempt to prevent the ballots of the electoral college from being counted that would make Joe Biden the elected president. While Trump’s mob on 6 January chanted, “Hang Mike Pence!” the vice-president hunkered down in the basement garage of the besieged Capitol, where he made the call for the national guard that Trump refused to give as he gleefully watched for hours on TV the followers he had organized and incited batter police and threaten the lives of members of the Congress.On the day of his inauguration to his second term, Trump granted clemency to nearly 1,600 insurrectionists convicted or charged in the 6 January attack. At least 600 were charged with assaulting or obstructing the police, at least 170 were charged with using a deadly weapon, and about 150 were charged with theft or destruction of government property. Trump granted commutations to 14 members of extremist militia groups convicted of or charged with seditious conspiracy to overthrow the US government.Now, Trump is toying with invoking the Insurrection Act to put down a supposed rebellion in Los Angeles. But his application of the act would be a belated attempt to cover his unlawful nationalization of the California national guard and deployment of marines to Los Angeles in response to a conflict that his administration has itself provoked.In late May, Stephen Miller, Trump’s fanatical deputy chief of staff in charge of his immigration policy, called a meeting of leaders of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to berate them for failing to pile up the statistics he demanded of deported immigrants. Restraint and the law were to be cast aside in their new wave of raids, which hit a flashpoint in LA.“Federal agents make warrantless arrests,” reported the Wall Street Journal. “Masked agents take people into custody without identifying themselves. Plainclothes agents in at least a dozen cities have arrested migrants who showed up to their court hearings. And across the US, people suspected of being in the country illegally are disappearing into the federal detention system without notice to families or lawyers, according to attorneys, witnesses and officials.”Miller ordered Ice agents to target Home Depot, where construction workers, many of them immigrants, go to purchase materials. On 6 June, masked Ice agents swooped down on a store in LA, arresting more than 40 people. Meanwhile, Ice agents raided a garment factory of a company called Ambience Apparel and placed at least a dozen people in vans.Soon, there was a demonstration at the downtown federal building where they were detained. Several Waymo robotaxis were burned within a four-block area near the relatively sparsely populated downtown. But the LAPD appeared to have the situation quickly under control, until Trump unilaterally federalized the national guard, whose presence prompted further demonstrations. One contingent of soldiers was sent to guard the federal building miles away in Westwood, an upscale neighborhood by the UCLA campus, where they were nuisances to people going shopping and to restaurants. Trump declared he would send in 700 marines.On 10 June, the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, filed a complaint on behalf of the state seeking a restraining order in federal court against Trump and the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth. “To put it bluntly,” it stated, “there is no invasion or rebellion in Los Angeles; there is civil unrest that is no different from episodes that regularly occur in communities throughout the country, and that is capable of being contained by state and local authorities working together.”“All of this was unlawful,” wrote Bonta of the administration’s actions. Trump’s use of the guard was in violation of the law that requires an order to be issued through the governor. Trump’s deployment of marines was “likewise unlawful”, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the US armed forces for civilian law enforcement. “These unlawful deployments have already proven to be a deeply inflammatory and unnecessary provocation, anathema to our laws limiting the use federal forces for law enforcement, rather than a means of restoring calm.”Ironically, the Posse Comitatus Act was instrumental in the demise of Reconstruction. US troops stationed in the south after the civil war were forbidden from enforcing the law to protect Black civil rights. The Ku Klux Klan and other white terrorist organizations seized control of state governments, disenfranchised Black people and imposed Jim Crow segregation. In 1957, Dwight Eisenhower, then president, circumvented the Posse Comitatus Act by invoking the Insurrection Act; he used federal forces to implement the supreme court’s desegregation ruling in Brown v Board of Education to integrate Little Rock Central high school.As a further irony, Trump had been indicted by the special prosecutor Jack Smith under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 for his actions leading to the January 6 insurrection. Count four read: “From on or about November 14, 2020, through on or about January 20, 2021, in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, the Defendant, DONALD J. TRUMP, did knowingly combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with co-conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States – that is, the right to vote, and to have one’s vote counted.”Trump evaded justice through a series of delaying actions by the conservative majority of the supreme court that culminated in its ruling for “absolute” presidential immunity for “official acts”. He was allowed to run out the clock and never held to account. If Trump’s trial had proceeded on the original charges as scheduled on 6 March 2024, he would have undoubtedly found guilty and eliminated as a presidential candidate.On 10 June, Trump appeared before soldiers at Fort Liberty in North Carolina in anticipation of the Washington military parade he ordered for 14 June, opportunistically using the 250th anniversary of the US army (really the continental army) to celebrate his 79th birthday, “a big day,” he said. “We want to show off a bit.”Soldiers of the 82nd airborne division were screened for attendance at Trump’s rally based on their political support and physical appearance. “If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don’t want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out,” read a note sent by the command, according to Military.com. “No fat soldiers,” said one message.A pop-up store for 365 Campaign of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which sells Trump merchandise, was set up on the base for the Trump visit. Aside from the usual Maga gear, it sells T-shirts reading: “When I Die Don’t Let Me Vote Democrat”, “I’m Voting for the Convicted Felon”, and a false credit card that reads, “White Privilege Card: Trumps Everything”. Send in the marines, but first send them to the Maga merch store.In violation of longstanding military policy on discipline, the selected troops cheered Trump’s sneers and jeers. He announced he had renamed the fort to Fort Bragg, in honor of Braxton Bragg, a confederate general and large slaveowner notable for his defeats and bad temper and disliked by his officers. “Can you believe they changed that name in the last administration for a little bit?” he said.He told the troops that they were to fight a war within the US against “a foreign enemy”, “defending our republic itself”, in California, where there was “a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country”.Trump spontaneously invented a conspiracy theory on the spot. “The best money can buy, somebody is financing it,” he claimed, “and we’re going to find out through Pam Bondi and Department of Justice, who it is.”He complained to the soldiers that the election of 2020 was “rigged and stolen”. Then, he swiveled to talk about George Washington: “Has anybody heard of him?” Then, he attacked Biden, “never the sharpest bulb”, or perhaps the brightest knife. Twice, Trump said he would “liberate” Los Angeles, and promised that after that the Republican Congress would pass his “big, beautiful bill”, his budget stalled in the Senate. “They call it one big, beautiful bill. So, that’s good and that’s what it is.” And then he rambled about the JD Vance-Tim Walz vice-presidential debate, and how some “ladies”, “beautiful, wonderful women”, followed him to “138 rallies”, and on. Along the way, he praised his new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Daniel Caine, who Trump insists on calling “Razin Caine”.The next day, 11 June, Caine appeared before the Senate appropriations committee, and was questioned by Hawaii’s Democratic senator, Brian Schatz, whether the events in LA show the US is “being invaded by a foreign nation”. “At this point in time,” replied the general, “I don’t see any foreign, state-sponsored folks invading.”As Caine was testifying, the Department of Homeland Security posted a cartoon of Uncle Sam hammering up a sign: “Help Your Country…And Yourself…” Then, in capital letters: “REPORT ALL FOREIGN INVADERS.” Which was followed by the telephone number for Ice.

      Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of The Court of History podcast More

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      Has Trump turned the US into a police state? – podcast

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      Archive: CBS News, AP, ABC 7 Chicago, ABC News, FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, FOX 11 LA, NBC News, PBS Newshour
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      Trump keeps national guards in LA for now as appeals court puts brakes on ban

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      An appeals court has temporarily returned control of California’s national guard to Donald Trump, just hours after a federal judge ruled the president’s use of the guards to suppress protests in Los Angeles was illegal and banned it.The 9th US Circuit court of appeals order means Trump retains command of the guards for now and can continue to use them to respond to protests against his immigration crackdown. The court could later decide against his control.It’s a temporary victory for Trump in back-and-forth court decisions on who should control the security force, an issue that has pitted California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, against the president and angered Democrats, who see the deployment as an abuse of power.The three-judge panel that paused the ruling included two judges appointed by Trump in his first term. The other is a judge appointed by Joe Biden. The panel said it would hold a hearing on Tuesday to consider the merits of the order from District Judge Charles Breyer from earlier in the day.Breyer ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and both violated the 10th amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.In issuing a temporary restraining order against Trump, Breyer found the president had failed to show there was a “rebellion” in Los Angeles that required him to federalize the guard and failed to comply with the procedural steps to notify the governor.“His actions were illegal – both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States constitution. He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor,” Breyer wrote.The request for the injunction is part of a lawsuit filed by the state of California challenging Trump’s move to call up more than 4,000 national guard troops and about 700 active-duty marines based in Twentynine Palms, California, over Newsom’s objections.Beryer’s decision came after a hearing in federal district court in San Francisco where the justice department argued Trump had the sole and unreviewable power to decide whether there was a “rebellion” that needed federal intervention.Breyer rejected both arguments in his sweeping 36-page opinion, effectively rebuking the justice department for trying to suggest the conditions to take control of the guard had been met as long as Trump had decided himself that was the case.“The president’s discretion in what to do next does not mean that the president can unilaterally and without judicial review declare that a vacancy exists in order to fill it. That is classic ipse dixit,” Breyer wrote, adding that the definition of rebellion had clearly not been met.The temporary restraining order did not touch on Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, moving to deploy the marines, in large part because the justice department told the judge they were only being used to protect federal buildings and personnel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUsing the military for protective purposes, Breyer suggested at the hearing, would not be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law prohibiting the use of troops to engage in law enforcement activities on domestic soil.Trump has been suggesting the idea of deploying troops against Americans since his first term, when some Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 turned violent. He opted against doing so at the time, but has since expressed regret to advisers that he did not punish them more aggressively.Notably, during a campaign rally in 2023, Trump vowed to respond more forcefully if elected to a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in,” he said of the president’s usual role in deciding whether to send in the military. “The next time, I’m not waiting.”The Associated Press contributed reporting. More