​Trump Has Once Again Leapt Beyond The Norms of Any Civilized Country

Protests are spreading across the USA against heavy-handed action by the Trump administration to stamp out “illegal immigration” into the country. Donald Trump has activated more than 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines, over the objections of Los Angeles and California state leaders.

Trump credited his action as preventing a “great City” from “burning to the ground.” He repeatedly signaled his willingness to invoke the Insurrection Act if protests continue to escalate.

For his part, California Governor Gavin Newsome has asked the courts to put an emergency stop to the U.S. military helping enforce the work of the Immigration & Enforcement (ICE) agents. The judge in the case is to rule on Thursday.

The protests in Los Angeles and other US cities, including Chicago, New York City, Denver, Atlanta, Austin, San Antonio, and Las Vegas, coincide with “No Kings” rallies, in the country, events designed to ridicule President Trump’s seeming desire to rule like a King rather than respect the norms of a constitutional democracy.

This Against the Flow blog has already commented on the dictatorial tendencies of Trump regime and its determination to stamp out any sort of
dissent.

Trump has repeatedly referred to the protesters as “insurrectionists” and “violent insurrectionist mobs,” and his rhetoric intensified on Tuesday as he said the protests amount to an “invasion” that threatens U.S. “sovereignty” and that he will never allow “an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.”
 
For Canadians, Trump’s use of the word sovereignty is chilling, given his constant references to Canada as the 51st state, and the covetous eye he has also cast toward the Panama Canal, Greenland and the Gulf of Mexico (which Trump would rename the Gulf of America).
 
The Posse Comitatus Act in the U.S. restricts the use of federal armed forces to uphold domestic laws on state territory without that state's consent. However, there are exceptions, such as the Insurrection Act which allows a President to deploy the military to suppress an insurrection or rebellion in a state, even without the state's consent. 
 
This obviously accounts for President Trump’s insistence on pumping up the seriousness of the unrest in Los Angeles to draw on the Insurrection Act to justify his heavy-handed approach. Despite his status as the second oldest president in U.S. history, it is no secret that Trump aspires to remain in power well after this, his second, constitutionally permitted, term in office.
 
According to a poll published this week by Newsweek magazine, Donald Trump’s approval rating has recently taken a plunge. The latest J.L. Partners/Daily Mail poll, conducted on June 6 found that 47 percent of respondents approve of the president's job performance, while 53 percent disapprove, giving him a net approval rating of -6 points. Trump has enjoyed astonishingly high approval ratings since the November 2024 presidential election after winning by a landslide.
 
Trump loyalists claim that the President won the election on the strength of his response to immigration on the “Southern Border.”
 
Since that election, Democrats in the US have remained quiet about Trump’s policies. However, that has begun to change.

Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Californian, sharply criticized President Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles without state approval. The veteran Democratic leader questioned why Trump refused a similar deployment during the January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill riot. Trump has pardoned most of those rioters.

In a frosty exchange this week with Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded to questions regarding concerns over the "double standard" of Trump’s deployment of the National Guard for the widespread demonstrations against ICE enforcement in Los Angeles compared to the January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol.

The Senator from Connecticut asked Hegseth during a Senate subcommittee hearing, "Do you believe it was the right decision (not) to deploy the National Guard on January 6 (2021)?"
Hegseth dodged that one, replying: "All I know it's the right decision to deploy the National Guard to defend ICE agents in defense of the execution of their jobs."

Rather than viewing immigrants to the USA (or to Canada, for that matter) as invaders from a “foreign enemy” as Trump would have us believe, Canadian Journalist Doug Saunders of the Toronto Globe and Mail argues that we should embrace their diversity.

Adolf Hitler spoke of the Jews as “subhuman” and Trump is treating these migrants from the far-flung countries south of us, as “sub-human” as well, no better than animals to be shackled and herded on airplanes by ICE agents for trips to inhuman jails in Third World countries.

In his book, Arrival City, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Saunders, argues that instead of fearing overcrowded cities peopled by immigrants and newcomers, we should embrace their diversity and their economic and cultural vitality. For Saunders, Los Angeles is the archetypal arrival city.
 
Saunders argues that rather than fearing overcrowding, arrival cities like Los Angeles or Toronto have greater opportunity for bustling small business activity and a better chance for economic advancement. Even in Charlotte County, N.B., immigrants are the backbone of many businesses because newcomers are often ready and willing to work.
 
Put simply, Saunders advises “welcome the newcomers!”
 
Regretfully, Donald Trump may be beyond the point where he can accept the “Great Migration” north as a positive phenomenon for humanity and the United States of America.
 
Of course, not all things can be rosy from the Great Migration. But they can be better for those arriving and those welcoming newcomers.