President Donald Trump is trying to justify his decision to unleash National Guard troops on protesters in the Los Angeles area this weekend by describing them as violent "insurrectionists" hell-bent on destroying the city. It's a dishonest claim meant to delegitimize protest — and it foreshadows a more sinister power grab.
Trump preposterously claims that he saved L.A. from being "completely obliterated,"when in reality he has only increased tensions between protesters and the police and made the clashes more high-profile.
And Trump's attempts to describe the protesters as mounting a violent effort to overthrow the government ring hollow as the protests broadly are clearly dissenting against Trump's mass deportation campaign.
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