Is Trump's LA troop deployment about order or authoritarianism?

First the National Guard, now the Marines — President Donald Trump says deploying troops to California is about establishing law and order in the face of anti-ICE protests. His critics say the move is more reminiscent of strongman politics.

The showdown in Los Angeles represents a "perfect opportunity to fuse power, politics and spectacle" for an "unrestrained" Trump, said Axios. Trump is "edging closer" to invoking the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that offers him the "most extreme emergency powers available to a sitting president" to respond to the protests. "We're going to have troops everywhere, we're not going to let this happen to our country," he said. Critics say he's "manufacturing a crisis," said Axios. The deployment is an "unmistakable step toward authoritarianism," said California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D).

'Authoritarian overreach'

"This is what autocracy looks like," said Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times. Some of the protests against agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been "violent" and should be condemned as "immoral" and "counterproductive." But the idea that Trump is sending the National Guard and Marines to LA because "riots were spinning out of control" is "pure fantasy." Trump may be trying to pose as a "champion of law and order bringing criminal mobs to heel," which is why it's important for others to "denounce the administration's authoritarian overreach."

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Anti-ICE protesters "picked the wrong time to riot," said Dan McLaughlin at the National Review. Polls show the public likes border enforcement, although the same polls show people are "uneasy with how Trump is going about it." Trump benefits from casting the "other side of that debate as the aggressors" in the immigration debate. The president sees the LA demonstrations "against federal authority, and under foreign flags, as a gift." The protesters would have to be a "special kind of stupid to hand him that."

In today's media environment, law and order "must be carried out subtly," said conservative influencer Christopher F. Rufo in his Substack newsletter. One such possibility is to duplicate the administration's actions in Portland, Oregon, during the summer of 2020 and "dispatch unmarked vans" to follow "key agitators" and then "snatch them from the streets while the media are not looking." That would "create a strong precedent" for the rest of Trump's time in office.

Not backing down

The demonstrations are spilling out beyond Los Angeles to "New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and elsewhere," said NBC News. That may invite a broadened response from Trump. The presidential memorandum enabling the troop deployment is "in no way limited as to time or place," said Bill Kristol at The Bulwark. That suggests Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth can send troops "anywhere he wishes" within the U.S.

That expansive permission means observers should see LA as Trump's "first beachhead in a national campaign," said Edward Luce at the Financial Times. The president has already "trampled over more laws and ripped up more precedents" than his predecessors. So "do not expect Trump to back down."