Trump’s Attack on Los Angeles Meets the Resistance

ByBill Gallegos

Last week, the mass deportation campaign Trump promised, the centerpiece of his presidential bid, hit LA hard. ICE launched a series of raids centered at downtown workplaces and snatched up some of the hard-working people who fuel LA’s economy — including food service workers from local restaurants. Do you really need to be armed to the teeth and wearing a bulletproof vest to detain someone with a table fork and an apron?!

When the people of LA protested the brutal attack on their friends and neighbors, Donald Trump ordered 700 Marines to the City of Angels, on top of the 2,000 National Guard troops previously deployed — supposedly to quell violence. But the protests are largely peaceful, and the massive military presence is performative, a spectacle — as was his “birthday party” military parade. These made-for-TV events are designed to project strength and incite terror.

This isn’t only about ethnic cleansing. It’s the front line of an assault on the remnants of US democracy — an assault that will not end with deportations. Trump is testing how far he can go in challenging the rule of law. He’s testing whether the US military is willing to carry out any order that he, the “king,” issues.

It helps that the spectacle of invading Los Angeles deflects attention from the destructive impact of the “TACO” or “Trump Always Chickens Out” tariff policy on the US and global economy and his recent feud with narcissistic billionaire Elon Musk.

But it’s not working. This racist campaign has sparked a broad and diverse resistance movement. While the current situation is fraught with challenges, it’s also triggering an expanding anti-fascist united front against Trump and MAGA.

We can build and consolidate our unity, develop a strategy that embraces a broad and creative range of tactics and enables us to leverage our strengths against our enemy’s weaknesses — weakness made evident when he uses a tank to kill a mouse. When people demonstrate that the show of force doesn’t scare them but instead multiplies their ranks, they show that right can “trump” might.

Trump and much of the media are calling Los Angeles a war zone. That’s usual Trump hyperbole, but if it’s a war, it’s one launched by a racist despot acting in the interests of billionaires — and it’s not a war he can win. Trump faces a broad and diverse movement of peaceful, creative and militant resistance led largely by workers of color who are mostly women — the vibrant heart of LA’s economy and its growing labor movement.

Watch out, Trump, we’re coming for you, without guns and wearing the simple aprons of workers! ¡Sí Se Puede!

Bill Gallegos is the former executive director of Communities for a Better Environment (a California environmental justice organization), a longtime Chicano activist, and a member of the editorial board of The Nation.