U.S. Marines deployed in Los Angeles

Trump has sent some 700 U.S. Marines into Los Angeles. He has also deployed thousands of National Guard troops, without the request of California governor Gavin Newsom. Both of these measures are without either precedent or legal/Constitutional basis. Newsom has brought a court challenge to the deployment of National Guard troops. Trump doesn’t care. It took two and a half months for Abrego Garcia to be sent back to the US after he was illegally deported to El Salvador. Even if Trump loses in court, it will probably take that long for any final ruling to be made and enforced.

Meanwhile, Trump’s orders are giving the local police the go-ahead for them to ramp up their repression. One protester explained to CNN how he came to be shot in the leg with a rubber bullet. He said he was walking down the street and a woman in front of him was shot. He yelled at the cop that that cop had just shot a woman. So the cop shot him too.

Even Wall St. Journal leery
Trump’s escalation is so great that even the Wall St. Journal editorial board is warning him – and they usually foam at the mouth against any protesters. They warn about, “risks for both sides… especially for the country…” They say, “Mr. Trump has largely solved the country’s most urgent immigration problem, which is closing the border to migrants using asylum claims to gain entry. Illegal border crossings have slowed to a trickle…” In other words, there is no need for these raids. The WSJ editorial board continues: “But the White House, led by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, wants to deport everyone here illegally. This means millions of people who arrived illegally but have since led law-abiding, productive lives. They have formed families and taken jobs that employers say they struggle to fill—in construction, hospitality, agriculture, healthcare, and much more.” They warn “when ICE acts in heavy-handed fashion, as its agents sometimes do. Some on the pro-migrant left will do the same, and that’s when things get ugly.” In other words, they actually put part of the blame for protesters “violence” on Trump! That is unprecedented for the WSJ editorial board.

Stephen Miller/overt white nationalist wing ascendant
As we will document in a coming article, these raids represent the ascendancy of the more openly and directly white nationalist wing of MAGA (Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon) over the more directly corporatist win (Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley venture capitalists). Among other things, this means more overt physical repression and violence. As Oaklandsocialist has explained time and again, during his first administration Trump had been somewhat restrained by people like General Mark Milley and even Bill Barr. Trump made sure to appoint pure loyalist sycophants this time. As we showed in our earlier article – “Capitalists experiencing buyers’ remorse” – some capitalists are tryting to restrain Trump, but as that article also showed, their actions are sporadic and unreliable at best.

Home pages of California Labor Federation and SEIU-SWW web sites. One would never know this crisis exists.

Where are the unions?
That is why an independent movement of the working class is so critical… which means the role of the only mass working class organizations in the U.S. – the unions. Yet to this very day, the unions are missing in action. Consider what is happening with David Huerta, head of SEIU-United Service Workers West. He was beaten up and then arrested by the LAPD for acting as an observer. An observer, not even a participant! Yet on their web site home page there is not a mention of what is happening in L.A., including the arrest of their leader. If you know what you’re looking for, and click on several succeeding pages, you can find a press release. Not an appeal to the members and to workers in general to get involved. A statement aimed at the same corporate media which has helped cover up the fact that these raids in LA are union busting. In that release they write “We are proud of President Huerta’s righteous participation as a community observer….” They conclude “Immigrant workers are essential to our society: feeding our nation, caring for our elders, cleaning our workplaces, and building our homes.”

The absence of any real leadership from the union bureaucracy has strengthened some of the more ultra-left

Fireworks thrown in LA ICE protest. What does this accomplish?

and adventurist tendencies on the left. Some – apparently a few – have resorted to throwing bottles and fire crackers at cops. Others have set self-driving cars on fire. What does that accomplish, other than make those individual feel good? It is not slowing down the deportations. Instead, it is giving cover to the most repressive tendencies of the entire capitalist state, Trump first and foremost. What is desperately needed is a serious turn to the unions, both the leadership and the rank and file. Explain how these raids in L.A. combine racism with union busting. Urge, implore, demand that the unions mobilize their membership and shut down Los Angeles. Also, turn to the immigrant agricultural workers to shut down agriculture through a strike in that sector. Oaklandsocialist explaiined that in this article. That is the way to set Trump and his white nationalist MAGA horde back on their heels.

Coming soon, the following articles:

• The background to how and why the unions came to respond to situations like this one as well as the background to the rise of the Stephen Miller wing of the Trump administration.
• Ukrainian trade union leader on how the situation in the US is perceived in Ukraine.
• Giorgios Mitralias on Israel’s genocidal war.

We urge you to subscribe to Oaklandsocialist to be sure not to miss these important articles. Subscriptions are free and your information will not be passed on to anybody else.

U.S. Marines deployed in Los Angeles