For those concerned about President Donald Trump and his authoritarian-style agenda, the last few days have been, at a minimum, unsettling.
In recent months, federal officials, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, have engaged in overly aggressive and legally dubious tactics while executing the White House's deportation agenda, sparking a predictable public backlash. As NBC News reported, it was against this backdrop that ICE officers on Friday carried out raids in three locations across the Los Angeles region, where dozens of people were taken into custody. California Gov. Gavin Newsom condemned the raids, calling them "chaotic federal sweeps" that aimed to fill an "arbitrary arrest quota," and protests soon followed.
The next day Trump announced that he was calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell the protests, ignoring the objections of the state's Democratic governor. Last year, while serving as South Dakota's Republican governor, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that if President Joe Biden tried to federalize National Guard troops, it would constitute a "direct attack on states' rights" and spark a "war" between Washington and GOP-led state governments. Over the weekend, however, Noem took the opposite position. Around the same time, by way of his social media platform, Trump proceeded to celebrate the "great job" National Guard troops did in Los Angeles before the troops actually arrived, which was bizarre but consistent with the incumbent president's general approach to reality.
This is a preview of Steve Benen's latest article. Read the full article here.
