As the week begins, the systematic conspiracy to establish a presidential dictatorship in the United States is rapidly unfolding. In a calculated and ongoing coup d’etat, Donald Trump is creating an entirely new framework of class rule.
Developments in Los Angeles are a focal point of a nationwide operation. On Monday, the White House announced that it will send 700 US Marines—the branch of the US military historically associated with ruthless colonial oppression—into the country’s second-largest city. This follows Trump’s Saturday night order to federalize the California National Guard and deploy 2,000 troops under the pretext of protecting federal buildings, including the ICE prison, where immigrants rounded up last week are being detained.
The Marines are being deployed from the Twentynine Palms military base in the Mojave Desert, 140 miles east of LA. The Trump regime has also announced plans to double the number of National Guard troops to 4,000.
The deployment of active-duty Marines marks a major escalation in the effort to normalize the use of military force on American streets. It is a direct violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement. While Trump officials have repeatedly and absurdly referred to the protests in Los Angeles and other cities as an “insurrection,” they have so far refrained from invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. Instead, they are asserting the president’s supposed inherent authority to deploy troops within the United States.
Trump’s Saturday proclamation federalizing the National Guard makes no mention of Los Angeles or California. Instead, it instructs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to consult with “the governors of the states” and authorizes him to deploy “any other members of the regular Armed Forces” as needed to protect federal property—“in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.” In other words, unlimited numbers of troops in any location in the country.
A New York Times article published Monday quotes Kori Schake, from the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, who noted, “The Trump administration is test-driving a novel legal theory that you can circumvent the restrictions on domestic law enforcement by the American military.”
Today, Trump is scheduled to visit Fort Bragg, the massive Army base in North Carolina, to deliver remarks on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the US Army. This will be Trump’s first visit to the base since returning to office in January. He will be accompanied by Hegseth, one of the most fascistic figures in his administration who is helping to oversee the coup operations.
The events marking the anniversary will culminate in a massive military mobilization on the streets of Washington D.C., this Saturday, June 14, when more than 7,000 troops, backed by hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles, will take part in a parade coinciding with Trump’s 79th birthday. A convoy of tanks, transported by train, has already begun arriving in the nation’s capital.
The coincidence of Trump’s personal birthday celebration with the massive military parade is not incidental. Trump is seeking to establish what amounts to a Führerprinzip within the American military: a command structure rooted not in the Constitution or civilian oversight but in personal loyalty to him. The Army, in this framework, is presented as his army. In Nazi Germany, military officers were required to swear an oath not to the German constitution but directly to Adolf Hitler.
A new political framework is being established in America, in which the federal government operates outside any legal restraint, carrying out actions that are not only unprecedented in scope but brazenly illegal and unconstitutional. Those who criticize or oppose these actions—whether in political office, the courts, law firms, the media or through protests in the streets—will face the repressive power of the capitalist state.
The arrest of David Huerta, president of SEIU California—a union representing 700,000 largely Latino and immigrant service and public sector workers—reveals the essential class and fascistic character of the unfolding coup. Huerta was jailed over the weekend and released on $50,000 bail, facing felony charges for allegedly attempting to block the movement of an ICE vehicle. This is not merely a crackdown on immigrants or protesters but a drive to obliterate the democratic rights of the working class as a whole.
Yet despite this direct attack on a prominent union official, neither the SEIU nor the AFL-CIO called for mass protests, let alone strike action to demand Huerta’s release and the dropping of all charges. The AFL-CIO’s only official response has been to issue a pitiful appeal for its 14 million members to write letters to Congress. If the union bureaucrats will do nothing to defend one of their own, what can rank-and-file workers expect if they fall victim to Trump’s police-military assault?
Trump and his inner circle—Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel—constitute a fascist junta in the making.
But neither the Democratic Party nor the corporate media will state openly what is taking place. It is a coup—But they dare not speak its name, even as Trump calls for the arrest of prominent Democrats like California Governor Gavin Newsom for his supposed resistance.
The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, gave the response of dominant sections of the corporate oligarchy. In an editorial published Monday, the Post refused to identify Trump’s actions as a coup, instead blaming “both sides” for escalating tensions. While mildly criticizing Trump’s use of the Marines, the editorial justifies the use of federal force to “restore order,” defends the president’s legal authority to send troops into American cities and urges “unruly protesters to take the off-ramp.”
A relentless logic of escalation is now at work. The further Trump goes, the more he stakes his presidency—and his own political survival—on the success of the operation.
In this situation, the most abject and bankrupt policy would be to rely on the Democratic Party, the courts, or the trade union bureaucracy to take action to block Trump’s coup d’état.
Within Congress, there is no demand for Trump’s removal. The Democratic Party is doing nothing. The Democrats will not even say publicly what they all know privately: The events in Los Angeles represent a giant step toward the establishment of a presidential dictatorship. Their appeals are not directed to the working class but to Republican members of Congress—and even to officials within the Trump administration itself.
Governor Newsom, for his part, has responded to Trump’s threats to arrest him personally by pledging the deployment of 800 more police to the streets of Los Angeles, where they are presently engaged in a riot against protesters.
The onslaught now unfolding is the mechanism through which the ruling oligarchy intends to enforce its interests. The vast and ever-growing levels of social inequality in America are incompatible with democratic forms of rule. While immigrants are on the front lines of this assault, the attack is aimed at the entire working class.
There is growing opposition throughout the country to Trump’s unfolding coup. But as yet, it remains spontaneous and politically unorganized. This must change.
The working class, the vast majority of the population, has the power to stop it. As the statement of the Socialist Equality Party National Committee and the WSWS Editorial Board published yesterday explained, “The necessity of a general strike is becoming ever clearer—but such action will not emerge spontaneously. It must be prepared and led through the building of democratic, fighting organizations of the working class.”
Trump’s actions in Los Angeles have already provoked protest actions throughout the country and widespread anger among tens of millions of working people. What is necessary now is to give these growing mass sentiments a concrete and organized form.
We reiterate the call issued by the Socialist Equality Party and the WSWS: The initiative must come from below! Rank-and-file committees must be established in every factory, workplace and neighborhood to prepare the basis for mass resistance. Emergency meetings must be convened in plants, schools and offices across the country to organize collective action and build a powerful counteroffensive by the working class.