A president toys with overturning democracy

Opinion

‘Democracy is next. Democracy is under assault,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom warned on Tuesday night in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions in the Los Angeles protests.

Demonstrations began last week in that city after Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided several city locations to arrest people allegedly involved in illegal immigration to the United States and other violations. Trump has ordered in the National Guard and the military in response.

For those of us who are a certain vintage, news of the unrest in Los Angeles brought up a lot of memories. Who can forget the hours of live television coverage over almost a week in 1992 as the world watched Los Angeles erupt in riots following the acquittal of four police officers for the beating of Rodney King. People died, more were injured and there was billions of dollars in property damage. The carnage was brought into everyone’s living room, as television stations disrupted their regular programming to provide up-to-the-minute coverage.

Today’s protests are not the same, yet because of what they represent, we should be paying close attention.

Here’s why. What is happening in Los Angeles is not only egregiously hypocritical, it’s also the death of the fundamentals of democracy.

First, some perspective. In 1992, then-president George Bush called in the National Guard to help quell protesters at the request of the Los Angeles mayor and the California governor. He invoked the Insurrection Act.

Last Friday, protests began in Los Angeles, in protest to immigration raids targeting undocumented workers. These demonstrations were called peaceful for the most part by LAPD. Even the city’s mayor downplayed the vandalism, vowing that those who did cause damage would be prosecuted.

Saturday, Trump deployed 4,000 members of the National Guard to the city. Rather than using the Insurrection Act, Trump used a provision that allows the National Guard to be called in by the president in situations where authorities can’t execute the country’s laws. However, this provision also specifies that the order must be issued through the governor of the state.

This is an overstep. Not one person has been killed. The protests have been limited to a small area in the city of Los Angeles. There has been no widespread damage to buildings or homes, although on Tuesday some looting was reported. More importantly, the governor of California did not ask for the National Guard to be called upon.

California’s attorney general announced Monday that the state is suing both Trump and his defence secretary for the deployment of the National Guard. Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a news release: “Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The president is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends. Federalizing the California National Guard is an abuse of the president’s authority under the law — and not one we take lightly. We’re asking a court to put a stop to the unlawful, unprecedented order.”

On Tuesday, Trump ordered 700 marines to be deployed, ostensibly to protect federal buildings. This, at a cost of about US$134 million, during a time of cutbacks at all levels of national spending.

Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a curfew for a portion of the city’s downtown to keep a lid on the situation citing vandalism and looting. Bass has suggested the city is at a tipping point. One wonders if Trump’s actions have only added gasoline to the fire.

Not one to dial down the rhetoric, Trump suggested he may consider invoking the Insurrection Act, similar to Bush in 1992. It’s one of the most extreme emergency powers available to a U.S. president.

He also called the protesters “animals” and “a foreign enemy” later in a speech.

This is the same president who in his second day in office, pardoned the individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol Hill building in Washington D.C. and commuted the sentences for 14 individuals convicted or otherwise charged with engaging in the separate seditious conspiracies.

The hypocrisy is staggering.

The current protests in Los Angeles share some similarities with the 1992 riots and as they continue, they may become more disruptive and more violent. However, their importance suggests that we should be paying attention to them.

What we’re seeing play out is the demise of democracy where the rule of law, the right to protest and the sovereignty of state power is overturned by the agenda of an all too-powerful leader.

Shannon Sampert is a political scientist. shannon@mediadiva.