In this thread I've written a lot about the importance of keeping track of what the regime says surrounding the fascist shitshow that is the Trumpenreich invasion of LA. Speaking frankly, I think everyone living in a capitalist police state should keep close track of what their "leaders" say at all times, but in this case it's important because the Trump regime uses propaganda to create space for action. In talking about and justifying their fascist activities, including the invasion of LA, regime officials frequently reveal a great deal about their methods of operation and future intentions.

To go deeper into what I mean by this sort of tea leaf reading and how it pertains to the Trump regime's statements about Los Angeles, let's take a look at this June 10th Guardian article discussing a very similar issue with some help from NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat:

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j…

‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention

"As a pretext to this action, the Trump administration had characterized the protests as a broader threat to the nation. On X, White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, called LA “occupied territory”. “We’ve been saying for years this is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see that now.”

Trump posted on Truth Social: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations – But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve.”

FBI director, Kash Patel, wrote on X that LA was “under siege by marauding criminals”.

If I'm being honest, this entire article is basically one huge "They Said It" post, so you'll forgive me for centering Trumpenreich official's comments over Ben-Ghiat's analysis. If you read on however, she confirms that the regime's language is designed to create an 'existential sense of fear," paint LA as a warzone, and justify putting soldiers in the streets to enforce Trump's fascist rule. Ben-Ghiat also points to a statement made by Trump's crusader fascist Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, for a perfect encapsulation of how this narrative building then translates to implied justification for very specific authoritarian regime actions.

"The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil,” Hegseth wrote. “A dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.”

Ben-Ghiat said Hegseth employed “the classic authoritarian thing, of setting up an excuse, which is that the internal enemy, illegal criminal aliens, is working together with an external enemy, the cartels and foreign terrorists, and using that to go after a third party, of protesters, regular people, who came out to show solidarity”.

All of which brings us to the same, familiar, gnawing question that defines so much of the second Trump era; are these guys fucking serious? As I mentioned elsewhere, the fact is a fascist regime really only gets one shot at going for the full Third Reich dictatorship experience; if Trump and his minions go for it, but fail, everyone who doesn't have SCOTUS-granted immunity from prosecution is probably fucked. Is Downmarket Mussolini willing to risk the tremendous power and privilege he has now to make himself the true master of all he surveys? I'm not sure anyone, even Trump's unofficial minister of nazi shit Stephen Miller, actually knows the answer to that question.

What I can tell you however, is what I told you earlier on this blog today; at some point the idea that Trump is just accidentally falling into all the steps he'd need to take to install a permanent fascist dictatorship in America, ceases to hold water. This guy is either the world's luckiest accidental authoritarian, or the Trump regime is planning to go the full nine yards and what we're talking about now is a question of courage, not will. Take a look at what this article quotes Miller as saying, and then tell me you're sure I'm wrong.

“Simply put, the government of the State of California aided, abetted and conspired to facilitate the invasion of the United States,” Stephen Miller wrote on X."

Folks, it's hard to say that the Trump regime is "preparing for war," when they've clearly already started one. But almost everything the regime does and says, especially in regards to the Los Angeles protests, strongly implies we haven't remotely hit rock bottom here. Trump is running out of shiny things to distract the public with and it's increasingly becoming clear the Trumpenreich is building a dictatorship brick by brick; you don't do that because you want to admire the shine on your Gestapo's riot helmets.

#Fascism #Trump #USPol #LA #InvasionOfLA #Propaganda #Dictatorship #StephenMiller

‘The language of authoritarianism’: how Trump and allies cast LA as a lawless city needing military intervention

As a pretext to sending in the national guard, the White House marked the Ice protests as a broader threat to the US

^{Tess Owen (The Guardian)}

In previous analysis, I wrote about my belief that the Trumpenreich's invasion of LA had established a repeatable legal, logistical, and political framework for transforming the National Guard and indeed the US military into the enforcement arm of a permanent fascist police state under at least the constant threat of martial law. Well, it turns out that I could have just waited a couple of days for the regime to say the quiet part out loud, because Pete Hegseth all but admitted that's precisely how this is going down in real time, during a Congressional oversight hearing on Capitol Hill.

commondreams.org/news/hegseth-…

Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'

"U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told members of Congress on Tuesday that he believes Immigration and Customs Enforcement "has the right to safely conduct operations in any state and any jurisdiction in the country."

Given that Hegseth and President Donald Trump have cast the National Guard and U.S. Marine deployments to Los Angeles as an effort to protect ICE personnel as they carry out the administration's mass deportation campaign, the Pentagon chief's testimony to lawmakers represented a justification for troop mobilizations to any part of the nation where protests against ICE are deemed a potential threat."

To completely understand what Trump's crusader Secretary of Defense is getting at here, you have to place it in the larger context of the regime's fascist mass deportation project, and the conditions which administration officials, including President Trump himself have outlined to "justify" escalation and additional military involvement. The rough process by which the regime is now actively conducting a fascist takeover of the broader American state at every level of government, looks a bit like this:

A) Send ICE Gestapo squads along with other federal agents to any city Trump regards as ideologically opposed to his fascist agenda, and begin kidnapping people and very publicly and aggressively violating civil rights.

B) Declare any protests or opposition to those nazi ICE raids and tactics, no matter how peaceful or lawful they may be, to be an insurrection and an attack on federal law enforcement. Use that attack, even if you have to make it up whole cloth, to justify commandeering a state's own National Guard to enforce Trump's rule militarily, while actively tasking them with protecting ICE Gestapo agents conducting raids; which conveniently gets around the legal restrictions that have previously prevented Trump from using the army to conduct ethno-nationalist immigration enforcement policies and mass deportations.

C) As Trump himself has proposed, respond to any "attack" (which again, we know they can just make up) on National Guard forces, by sending in the US Military and presumably invoking the Insurrection Act to place the targeted city under martial law and Trump's de facto command.

Please note that the only part of this outline that's still hypothetical is C; and while Trump hasn't actually done it yet, numerous powerful nazis in his administration have hinted that is the direction they're heading, including Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, Hegseth himself, Tom Homan, Pam Bondi, and Trump's press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who at least in theory speaks for the president. How many times do I have to share the Maya Angelou quote "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" in regards to Trump's fascist movement before the reality sinks in that these guys might not be capable of grasping as much power as they desire, but they abso-fucking-lutely mean to try regardless?

What we are looking at here is an arbitrarily deployable framework for a fascist police state enforced by a US military that answers only to Trump, which can be conjured up out of thin air and portably deployed around the country at will. The Swine Emperor is effectively announcing his immanent takeover of the entire country, by demonstrating on the streets of LA that he can instantly take over any given part of that country and unless local officials are prepared to fight the fucking National Guard and or US Army, there's sweet fuck all they can do about it; or at least, so the regime openly says.

Folks, I must confess that I am just as overwhelmed as you are trying to keep track of all the horrifying stories spewing out of the fascist Trumprenreich invasion of LA. But listening to the regime talk, watching Trump activate the California National guard to stop an insurrection we could all watch not happening on livestream, and seeing the LAPD gleefully join in with the nazis to argue stopping fascist ICE raids is a justification to revoke civil rights and engage in unconscionable security state violence, this doesn't sound like we're talking about a *hypothetical* fascist dictatorship anymore.

#Fascism #Trump #InvasionOfLA #LA #NationalGuard #InsurrectionAct #Dictatorship #PoliceState #ICE #LAPD

Hegseth Lays Out a Case for Troop Deployments in 'Any Jurisdiction in the Country'

"The standoff on the streets of Los Angeles," warned critics, "shows how truly eager Trump and his administration are to turn America's vast warmaking powers inward on the president's domestic foes."

^{jake-johnson (Common Dreams)}

#StateTerror
A brief guide for Americans

by #TimothySnyder

Yesterday the president defied a #SCOTUS ruling to return a man who was mistakenly sent to a gulag in another country, celebrated the suffering of this innocent person, & spoke of sending Americans to foreign #ConcentrationCamps.

This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, & it has to be identified as such to be stopped.

#law #Trump #tyranny #authoritarianism #autocracy #dictatorship
snyder.substack.com/p/state-te…

State Terror

^{Timothy Snyder (Thinking about...)}