The Marines have landed. On Our Own Shores.
Trump dangerously stirs the boiling pot in Los Angeles.
June 9 2025 2:30 P.M.
By Marc Cooper
President Trump exercised a significant escalation in the Los Angeles conflict by ordering a detachment of 700 active duty U.S. Marines into the city.
Active duty troops are not permitted by law to engage on U.S. territory as it is a violation of the posse comitatus statute and would require prior invocation of the Insurrection Act, which he has not done.
It’s not clear yet what legal loophole Trump is using to deploy the Marines. Administration sources say they are being sent to “back up” the National Guard. They are their for show.
But nobody in Washington has yet to even define what the Guard’s role is or what exactly the rules of engagement are. We do know that Guard rifles are loaded with live ammunition but they have not been allowed to be chambered ( a one second process).
We also know the Guard is not trained for policing or crowd control. The Marines, even less so. They are trained strictly for armed combat and shooting to kill. Period.
In the coming hours, perhaps, we will get clarification on their precise role. Perhaps not.
Whatever that might be officially, politically they are being used by Trump as possibly deadly props in an unnecessary chest-beating show of force and intimidation. His acolytes are orgasmic over this move as the message being sent is that this authoritarian regime is becoming more aggressive and intends to quash even legal dissent with troops and guns. It’s a bonanza day fr American xenophobes, racists and admirers of military dictatorships.
This deployment is one step closer to Trump eventually declaring the Insurrection Act. I believe the chances of imposing that state of siege is now a three out of four possibility before the scheduled mid-terms that Trump and his MAGA allies in the states will try to torpedo. Last night, Sunday, saw an increase in protester violence as some windows were smashed, some stores looted and some small fires set in a confined part of downtown.
I’m not being an apologist for the vandalism but as somebody who spent my life in L.A. I can affirm this level of violence often happens after a Lakers game loss…or win and the LAPD is well-suited to contain.
Naturally, the pundits far from the mean streets of L.A. along with other professional pearl clutchers not confronted by militarized police, masked ICE thugs, National Guard and now battle-trained U.S. Marines will muse that Trump is merely reacting to the excesses of the protesters. and that they are playing into his hand and justifying the heightened repression — as if Trump has ever needed an excuse to act as strongman, bully, or dictator.
No question that a totally peaceful non-violent protest is more effective than one tinged by violence. But it is MAGA and Trump that have normalized political violence, supported it, incited it and pardoned it. And even the most organized, disciplined and peaceful mass protests almost always have a violent fringe because they attract many who simmer with rage.
It would also be better if we had a rational immigration policy, a disarmed ICE and that hard-working immigrants that are the engine of the SoCal economy, with or without documentation, were also normalized, not subjected to the relentless racist verbal slander spewing from the Asshole-in-Chief, and not hunted down by yahoo masked Federal Agents rumbling down the streets in armored carriers and tossing out flash bang grenades while they fantasize they are in Fallujah.
If you are currently mounting a high horse about kids waving Mexican flags and throwing rocks at the robocops confronting them, it’s time to dismount and keep the issue of political violence in perspective. As this regime moves daily closer to American fascism I suggest you raise the bar on what is acceptable or at least inevitable counter-violence.
Here is my earlier post today analyzing the topic of protester violence.
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A number of pertinent points, Marc. Somewhere else this morning, I commented that there is more violence after championship games. I was criticized for my rhetoric (I found it sad to see how poor of a reader my critic was.) and alleged homophobia because I alluded to the scene in “Animal House” where Kevin Bacon is bent over asking for another one! I guess I dated myself. I also informed him that I have two pieces of art made by a former student who is both gay and Latino. I also suggested that my critic follow your newsletter.
I am not into conspiracy theories, but I can't help but wonder if this administration hired some Jan 6ers cosplaying as Leos and protesters to start those fires and break those windows and exacerbate the confrontations. We've seen this before in BLM.