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When Donald Trump deployed more than 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines into Los Angeles earlier this month, he did so without the consent of California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Mayor Karen Bass.
Not only that, but Trump’s justification — that LA is “war zone” under siege by “foreign invaders” — is a preposterous lie. The suspected undocumented immigrants that masked ICE agents are rounding up at Home Depot don’t have weapons of mass destruction, and Californians certainly aren’t greeting Trump’s army as liberators.
As unpopular as the MAGA occupation of LA may be, it appears to be the template Trump plans to inflict upon other blue cities. Last Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed in LA that “we are staying here to liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into this city.” (Watch below.)
Then, on Sunday, Trump declared war on Democratic cities in blue states that won’t go along with his authoritarian program.
“I want ICE, Border Patrol, and our Great and Patriotic Law Enforcement Officers, to FOCUS on our crime ridden and deadly Inner Cities, and those places where Sanctuary Cities play such a big role,” he wrote.
Not so long ago, Republicans would have condemned the White House’s designs as a gross violation of states’ rights — the long-held conservative insistence that political power should reside with individual states and not the federal government.
Indeed, early last year, the Biden administration was in a standoff with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who’d lawlessly usurped the federal government’s border enforcement authority. Texas strung up razor wire and buoys across a section of the southern border, which left migrants, including children, with lacerations and open wounds. Eventually, a narrow Supreme Court majority allowed the Border Patrol to cut through the wire, but Abbott ignored this ruling, declaring an “invasion” that gave Texas the right to “defend itself.”
Aside from Vermont’s Phil Scott, every Republican governor in the country publicly supported Abbott thumbing his nose at the federal government. This included then-South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who proclaimed that if “Joe Biden federalizes the National Guard, that would be a direct attack on states' rights.”
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Now, as secretary of homeland security, Noem is enabling Trump’s authoritarian overreach. She even reportedly asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to order the military to detain and arrest “lawbreakers” (that is, civilian protesters), a direct federal intervention in local law enforcement matters.
This is more than just blatant hypocrisy. Republicans act as if government exists only to advance their own interests, and they dismiss any law or court ruling that hinders their far-right agenda. “States’ rights,” along with any other principle they claim to value under a Democratic president, is just a convenient cudgel.
Quite simply, Republicans don’t think Democrats and the governments they run have any rights they are bound to respect.
The mad king
Although there is natural tension between state and federal governments regarding immigration enforcement, the second Trump administration has gone far beyond border security when imposing its will at the state level. Trump, with full GOP support, has embraced federal supremacy as he governs like a mad king.
When Barack Obama was in the White House, the term “imperial presidency” became a rallying cry for Republicans who insisted he’d overstepped his constitutional authority, mainly because he acted like he was the duly elected commander in chief. But predictably, Republican states’ rights stalwarts are silent when Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from Democratic-run states that don’t obey his often lawless commands.
