■ Opinion
No Kings Day isn’t just a rally. It’s a declaration. That we will not be ruled by strongmen. That we do not recognize the Trump family as royalty. That we believe in the power of the people and the promise of our republic.
By Thom Hartmann
Trump wants blood.
The spectacle is the point. The helicopters. The uniforms. The rumble of armored personnel carriers down the boulevards of Los Angeles. The former president of the United States — now reinstalled in the White House through a judicial (Citizens United) and electoral (Musk’s money and X) sleight-of-hand that would make Orbán proud — is sending U.S. Marines into an American city.
Marines who are trained in killing people. Quickly, efficiently, ruthlessly. Not crowd control, not defending the Constitutional right to protest, not arresting and Mirandizing: just shedding blood. Blowing things up and killing people is what this most lethal fighting force in the world does so well. And Trump just sent them into our civilian streets.
At the same time, Donald Trump is presiding over the most openly corrupt regime in the history of this country.
He’s looting the treasury in broad daylight, giving away a $4 trillion tax cut to his billionaire donors and golf buddies, repealing clean air and water protections while wildfires torch the West and hurricanes batter the South, and inviting domestic terrorists into the halls of power. His family and cronies are raking in billions from foreign governments — from Saudi royals to Russian oligarchs to Chinese front companies — with not even a fig leaf of legality.
Meanwhile, he’s gutted the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit, turned DHS into a political police force, and is laying off scientists from NOAA and NASA because they keep insisting that the Earth is, in fact, burning from the poisons his fossil fuel billionaire friends sell.
And now, as his approval ratings begin to wobble and questions mount about his finances, his backroom deals, and his erratic behavior, he reaches for the oldest play in the authoritarian playbook: provoke unrest and then send in the troops.
As LA Mayor Karen Bass said:
“These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city.”
This is not new. Nixon tried it. Hitler perfected it. Mussolini reveled in it. Trump is following a script so old and worn that it should’ve been burned for kindling by now, but here we are again.
In the early 1970s, as opposition to the Vietnam War reached a boiling point, Richard Nixon didn’t try to calm the waters: he deliberately stirred them. He referred to student protesters as “communists” and “bums,” cheered on violent pro-government mobs like the one that beat peaceful demonstrators during the Hard Hat Riot in New York, and did everything he could to push the country into a cultural war fever.
Nixon’s goal was simple: make protest look like rebellion, make rebellion look like terrorism, and make himself look like the only one who could restore “law and order.”
He succeeded, for a while, and it even got him re-elected in 1972. But the price was Watergate, war crimes, and a generation’s trust in government flushed down the drain.
Now Trump, with Stephen Miller whispering fascist bedtime stories in his ear and Steve Bannon howling about civil war from the sidelines, is picking up where Nixon left off. But this time the stakes are even higher, and the intentions are even clearer.
Trump’s deployment of Marines to Los Angeles under the absurd claim of needing to “protect the public” from leftist “urban insurgents” is not about law enforcement. It’s about spectacle. It's about optics. It’s about setting the stage for something much darker.
Like Viktor Orbán in Hungary or Erdoğan in Turkey, Trump is using public protests as both scapegoat and smokescreen. The plan is to provoke confrontation, paint it as insurrection, and then invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, a 200-year-old law that allows a president to deploy the military domestically and override governors and mayors.
Once that happens, the road to full dictatorship is wide open.
Because the Insurrection Act suspends Posse Comitatus, the 1878 law that prevents the U.S. military from being used as a domestic police force. With a stroke of a pen, Trump can militarize every protest, shut down dissent, seize media infrastructure, or even delay — or “postpone” — elections on grounds of public disorder.
Think that’s far-fetched?
Trump has already floated the idea of suspending elections. He joked in 2020 about “twelve more years.” His allies in Congress and right-wing media are openly calling for him to stay in office “as long as necessary.” A majority of Republican voters now say they’d support postponing elections “in an emergency.” And who defines the emergency? Trump does.
The recent calls for the military to intervene aren’t about securing streets; they’re about testing the waters. If there’s not enough public backlash to sending Marines into Los Angeles, what’s next? Troops in Seattle? Chicago? Portland? Atlanta? Your town?
This is how democracies die: not with a bang, but with a series of flags, uniforms, and carefully orchestrated TV shots showing a president “taking control.”
— And while all this is happening, where’s the coverage of the $4 trillion tax giveaway to the morbidly rich?
— Where’s the outrage over the billions flowing into Trump’s money bins from foreign governments in violation of the Emoluments Clause?
— Where’s the investigation into the domestic terrorism unit Trump dismantled while neo-Nazis train in camps in Michigan and Florida?
— Where’s the climate report that was buried?
— Where are the Epstein files?
— Where’s the fury over his push to gut Medicaid and privatize our social safety net?
The answer: they’re all buried beneath a pile of riot gear and tear gas canisters.
This is the playbook. Distract, divide, and dominate.
Hitler provoked street clashes with pro-democracy protestors with his brown shirts starting street brawls, then used the Reichstag fire as the excuse to seize emergency powers. Mussolini’s Blackshirts beat and murdered union organizers to manufacture a crisis, then demanded — and got — martial law. Marcos in the Philippines used student protests to declare martial law and cancel elections: I was working in that country the week he fled to Hawaii. Erdoğa used unrest in Gezi Park to round up journalists, rewrite the Turkish constitution, and jail his political rivals.
This is the playbook. Distract, divide, and dominate. Hitler provoked street clashes with pro-democracy protestors with his brown shirts starting street brawls, then used the Reichstag fire as the excuse to seize emergency powers.
It’s not just history. It’s prophecy.
Trump has studied these men, either directly or through his cadre of enablers and strategists. Steve Bannon once said he admired Lenin because he wanted to “destroy the state.” Stephen Miller has been pushing for suspension of habeas corpus. Trump himself tried to deploy the military in 2020 during the George Floyd protests but was held back — barely — by Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Esper’s gone now. In his place? Loyalists.
So what do we do?
We do the one thing that autocrats have never figured out how to fully suppress: we show up.
We take to the streets, not in violent defiance but in peaceful, defiant unity. We reclaim the tools of democracy — voice, presence, solidarity — and we make it clear that we see what he’s doing and we are not going to let it stand.
That’s why this coming Saturday matters more than ever.
We take to the streets, not in violent defiance but in peaceful, defiant unity. We reclaim the tools of democracy — voice, presence, solidarity — and we make it clear that we see what he’s doing and we are not going to let it stand.
No Kings Day isn’t just a rally. It’s a declaration. That we will not be ruled by strongmen. That we do not recognize the Trump family as royalty. That we believe in the power of the people and the promise of our republic.
That no matter how much bloodshed Trump tries to provoke, he will not succeed.
Because when you stand in a crowd of thousands, arm-in-arm with your neighbors, flags flying not in fear but in resistance, you remind the would-be tyrant of something he desperately wants to forget: we outnumber him.
We always have. We just need to show up.
Now is the moment to make it clear that the deep ocean, recognized by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as the common heritage of humankind, cannot be seized by those with the deepest pockets or the best-connected lobbyists.
By Sushma Raman,John Hocevar
Protesters with a banner take part in the Blue March (Marche Bleue) on the Promenade des Anglais ahead of the United Nations Ocean Conference (Unoc 3), in the french riviera city of Nice, south-eastern France on June 7, 2025. The third edition of the United Nations Ocean Conference (Unoc 3) opens on June 9, 2025, in Nice, where many hope to see money and other concrete actions to protect marine life in polluted, overheated and overfished oceans.
(Photo by Valery Hache/AFP via Getty Images)
Our planet’s oceans remain one of the last global commons—a shared resource that supports countless species, regulates our climate, and feeds billions of people. However, for over 50 years, we have witnessed their destruction from the combined impacts of industrial fishing, plastic pollution, and climate change. Now, incredibly but predictably, President Trump is exacerbating this crisis, signing a slew of Executive Actions that prioritize corporate profit over the long-term health of this vital resource.
As we commemorate the 23rd annual World Oceans Day, it is critical that we remember just how helpful some of the protective actions we have taken have been. The global moratorium on commercial whaling brought the great whales back from the edge of extinction. Marine sanctuaries have allowed fish populations to recover in once-depleted fisheries. Bans on dumping have prevented millions of tons of toxic waste from poisoning our seas. These wins are proof that when governments commit to science-driven solutions, underpinned by social, economic, and environmental justice, progress is not only possible, it is inevitable.
The next opportunity for bold action is fast approaching, with governments this week convening at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France. As the US retreats from leadership on ocean protection, the international community is poised to make decisions that could have lasting benefits or far-reaching consequences. Governments must unite behind science, uphold international law, and take bold, collective action to defend the rights and futures of coastal communities and chart a sustainable course for life on Earth.
Ratify the Global Ocean Treaty
The first important decision is ratifying the Global Ocean Treaty, the only legal tool that can establish marine protected areas in international waters outside of the Southern Ocean. Despite covering roughly 75% of Earth’s surface and its indispensable role in supporting life on Earth, only 2.7% of the ocean is fully or highly protected from human activities. That drops to a mere 0.9% for the high seas. The Treaty’s “30 by 30” target, adopted as part of the Kunming-Montreal GlobalBiodiversity Framework in 2022, aims to change that by increasing protection to at least 30% by 2030–the minimum scientists have stated is needed for marine ecosystems to recover and biodiversity to thrive.
Internationally, time is running out. The Treaty must be ratified this year to meet the 2030 deadline.
There is no way to meet this target without the Global Ocean Treaty. To succeed, this protection must extend across both national and international waters. Domestically, countries must protect at least 30% of their national waters, ban unsustainable extractive industries, and ensure that local and Indigenous communities are central to marine conservation planning and decision-making processes.
Internationally, time is running out. The Treaty must be ratified this year to meet the 2030 deadline. However, while 60 ratifications are needed for it to take effect, only 31 countries have taken that step so far. Governments must act swiftly in the coming months to ratify the treaty and keep the 30 by 30 target within reach–before it’s too late.
Stop Deep Sea Mining
The Trump Administration’s rogue push to unilaterally launch deep sea mining in international waters has been widely condemned by several state actors, including UNOC co-host France, along with China and the European Commission as a threat to multilateral cooperation and the United Nations. Alongside concerns about the ecological damage deep sea mining would cause, governments, civil society organizations, and Pacific Indigenous rights groups have also cautioned that it could trigger a reckless race to exploit the seabed.
Scientists have also debunked the industry’s claims that deep sea minerals are necessary for a green energy transition and have warned that mining the deep ocean could cause irreversible ecological harm on a vast scale. The economic case is no more substantial, as extraction and processing costs remain prohibitively high, and demand from key sectors, such as automotive and technology is limited. The so-called “energy security” rationale—invoked amid rising tensions with China—is similarly baseless and being aggressively promoted by the very corporations that would profit most.
The oceans are a shared resource. They are our planet’s life support system. But they are being damaged at a rate faster than we can save them for the benefit of a few.
With less than a month until the Council of the regulatory body, the International Seabed Authority (ISA) convenes in July, governments must go beyond words. They must reaffirm the centrality of the United Nations and international law in governing this global commons and vote to enact a moratorium. Thirty-three countries have already called for a moratorium, ban, or pause on deep sea mining. Leaders gathering in Nice should build on this momentum by clearly voicing their support.
Now is the moment to make it clear that the deep ocean, recognized by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as the common heritage of humankind, cannot be seized by those with the deepest pockets or the best-connected lobbyists. Instead, the international community must ensure that any decisions regarding the future of the seabed are guided by science, equity, and multilateralism, rather than haste or corporate pressure.
Support a Strong Global Plastics Treaty
Our oceans are drowning in plastic-but this crisis extends far beyond littered beaches. It is a growing ecological and public health emergency that stretches from the depths of the ocean floor to our dinner plates, from the polluted bodies of sea creatures to our bloodstream and the bodies of newborn children. No matter where we live or even how much money we have, we rely on clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and nutritious food to eat. Today, all of these things are contaminated by toxic chemicals and microplastics.
Yet while governments continue to profess support for ocean protection, their continued failure to address the root cause–unchecked plastic production–serves only to protect the profits of fossil fuel and petrochemical giants, not the health of marine ecosystems or the millions of people suffering the consequences of this plastic pollution.
While governments continue to profess support for ocean protection, their continued failure to address the root cause–unchecked plastic production–serves only to protect the profits of fossil fuel and petrochemical giants, not the health of marine ecosystems.
As the final major gathering of relevant delegates and ministers before the resumed Global Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC-5.2), in August, UNOC presents a critical opportunity to change course. Delegates must issue a strong ministerial declaration on the Global Plastic Treaty that commits to cutting plastic production, ending single-use plastic, and prioritizing public health, environmental justice, and protection of our ocean.
The oceans are a shared resource. They are our planet’s life support system. But they are being damaged at a rate faster than we can save them for the benefit of a few.
While the scale of the threat is daunting, our history reminds us that we are not powerless.
This week's UN Ocean Conference in Nice, France, and the critical UN meetings later this Summer, offer governments a crucial chance to protect the hard-won gains and reverse the damages that have been made. Whether they seize it will determine the future of the world’s largest—and most essential—commons.
It is increasingly clear that the real threat lies not with the person crossing a border, working a warehouse shift, or marching in the street—but with the structure that enriches itself by sowing division and suppressing dissent.
By Peter Bloom
A protester holds a sign reading: "ICE: Out Of Our Communities" as burning Waymo cars line the street on June 08, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Tensions in the city remain high after the Trump administration called in the National Guard against the wishes of city leaders following two days of clashes with police during a series of immigration raids.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The crackle of tear gas canisters and the rumble of tactical boots on asphalt echoed through Los Angeles this week as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), backed by federal agents and U.S. Marines, descended upon protestors decrying a sweeping series of immigration raids. What began as a protest against ICE quickly exploded into a broader protest. Progressive community members of all types flooded intersections, blocked freeways, and surrounded detention centers in a show of mass resistance. Federal forces responded with mass arrests, tear gas, and brute force—but the crowds didn’t disperse. They stayed. They returned. They grew.
The targets of the raids revealed the intent. ICE didn’t go after exploitative bosses or the companies violating labor laws. Instead, they rounded up garment workers, day laborers, and food delivery drivers—those whose labor keeps the city alive but whose status makes them vulnerable. Meanwhile, as Congress quietly pushed forward legislation providing major tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy, the manufactured “immigration emergency” shifted public attention away from growing inequality and back toward fear and division. The raids were less about enforcement than they were about distraction—shaping a narrative, channeling anger, and justifying control.
But this time, the usual script isn’t working. Instead of dividing people, the spectacle has clarified the real lines of conflict. Communities once siloed by race, language, or status are joining together—seeing the true threat not in each other but in those who profit from their separation. Warehouse unions, immigrant rights groups, tenant associations, and progressive local officials are increasingly aligned. A shared understanding is taking hold: the enemy is not the worker next to you—it is the elite profiting from your instability.
The movement taking shape in LA is not just a response to injustice. It is the beginning of something more ambitious: a challenge to the foundational myths of American political life.
This is also a stark illustration of the imperial boomerang in motion: the tools of empire—surveillance, militarized policing, psychological control—returning home. What was once deployed to suppress resistance abroad is now turned inward. But rather than subdue, this backlash is catalyzing a broader awakening. The brutality in Los Angeles has illuminated the deeper architecture of repression, drawing new political lines that unite across race, status, and geography. From LA to Gaza, the common thread is clear: state violence serves elite power, and the response from below is no longer fragmented. It is building into a global resistance that sees through the old divisions and names its adversary plainly—oligarchy.
Oligarchic Backlash and the Authoritarian-Financial Complex
President Trump’s activation of the National Guard under Title 10 and his readiness to deploy Marines from Camp Pendleton was never about public safety. It was a choreographed assertion of power meant to produce fear and reaffirm control. Helicopters circled. Tactical units patrolled neighborhoods. Cable news cycled images of property damage while ignoring the scenes of solidarity unfolding at the ground level.
This is how the authoritarian-financial complex operates—a system in which political repression and economic extraction are not separate but interdependent. Moments of unrest become business opportunities: more riot gear, more surveillance contracts, more privatized detention. Each crackdown funds the next. Each protest becomes another justification to expand the reach of state and corporate power.
Nowhere, perhaps, is the fusion of political repression and economic opportunism more blatant than in the machinery of immigration enforcement. The so-called “immigration crisis” has become a lucrative engine for private interests, with for profit prison companies expanding detention capacity well beyond ICE’s funded limits. The recent spike to over 48,000 detainees—far exceeding official capacity—is not a logistical error; it’s a business model. These companies are not just building prisons, they are lobbying for policies that fill them. Trump’s push to detain 100,000 people, coupled with doubled arrest quotas for ICE agents, has created an insatiable demand for space, surveillance, and services. Private contractors now profit not only from detention but from the entire apparatus of deportation—transportation, medical care, legal processing, and data collection—embedding their profit margins deep into the logic of state violence.
This financialization of immigration control explains why enforcement is not designed to succeed, but to persist. The spectacle of militarized raids and mass detentions serves a dual function: it energizes a political base while funneling billions in public money to politically connected firms. It’s no coincidence that watchdog agencies overseeing detention conditions were recently gutted, just as complaints of medical neglect and overcrowding mount. Nor is it accidental that local police forces, through programs like 287(g), are being deputized into ICE’s mission—blurring the line between civil enforcement and criminal policing, eroding community trust, and diverting resources from genuine public safety. This is not about border security; it’s about embedding a permanent state of exception, where fear and control are monetized, and immigrant lives are raw material for profit.
In Los Angeles, this convergence was unmistakable. While federal agents arrested undocumented workers, not one exploitative employer faced charges. The very actors enabling and profiting from illegal labor practices were shielded. The crackdown revealed the true purpose of enforcement: to preserve a system of racialized labor and elite impunity. But instead of breaking public resolve, the repression fueled it. Community leaders who might once have stood apart are now strategizing together. City council members are now publicly calling Trump’s actions “purposefully inflammatory”. The backlash is becoming organized—and political.
Anti-Oligarchic Backlash
The tactics on display in LA were not improvised. They were imported—from battlefields, occupied zones, and foreign policy handbooks. For decades, the U.S. honed its techniques of control overseas. Now, the same playbook—complete with unmarked vehicles, psychological warfare, and militarized response teams—is being applied domestically. This is the imperial boomerang: tactics of colonial dominance turned inward.
But as with foreign occupations, brute force rarely produces lasting submission. Instead, it deepens opposition. In LA, it is catalyzing an unprecedented alignment. Labor unions are holding joint press conferences with immigration organizers. Neighborhood coalitions are coordinating transportation and legal aid for arrestees. Local politicians are being forced to publicly clarify their loyalties: will they support their constituents, or will they remain silent in the face of elite-led repression?
Street actions are converging with union demands, tenant struggles, and local policy fights. Coalitions are being built not around identity alone, but around material interest and shared opposition to oligarchic control.
Mayor Karen Bass’s denunciation of the federal intervention sharpened the political meaning of the crackdown. Framing Los Angeles as a "test case" for the erosion of local authority, Bass exposed the authoritarian logic at work: not the restoration of order, but the imposition of federal dominance through manufactured crisis. Bass’s warning cuts through the noise: Los Angeles wasn’t descending into chaos—it was pushed. The ICE raids didn’t restore order; they shattered it, unleashing fear across communities, including among legal residents. This wasn’t enforcement—it was the imperial boomerang in action. Tactics honed abroad to control foreign populations are now being used at home to fracture civic life and neutralize dissent. Under the guise of national security, federal power bypassed local authority, transforming the city into a living laboratory for domination.
Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision to sue the Trump administration marks an even sharp escalation in the standoff, transforming the crisis into a battle over who holds real authority in a democratic society. By calling the federal deployment of the National Guard “illegal” and “unconstitutional,” Newsom exposed the move as a naked power grab—an attempt to override state control and impose federal force without consent. His defiance was visceral: “Arrest me,” he dared Trump’s border czar. This isn’t just legal pushback—it’s political resistance at the highest level, signaling that California won’t quietly submit to Washington’s manufactured chaos.
The backlash in Los Angeles is not isolated. Across the country, cities like San Francisco have become flashpoints for parallel demonstrations, where thousands marched peacefully in solidarity with immigrant communities and in defiance of federal raids. The widespread mobilizations—from San Francisco’s Mission District to streets in New York, Atlanta, and Seattle—underscore that this is not merely a local crisis but a national awakening. What is unfolding is a geographically diffuse yet politically unified resistance to the authoritarian-financial complex—one that links neighborhoods, cities, and struggles under a shared call for justice and accountability.
More profoundly, this moment is giving rise to a new sense of political identity. An identity not based on citizenship or party, but on a shared understanding of how power operates. It is increasingly clear that the real threat lies not with the person crossing a border, working a warehouse shift, or marching in the street—but with the structure that enriches itself by sowing division and suppressing dissent. The very tools of imperial control that were meant to fragment and subdue are now forging a unified opposition—turning the boomerang's trajectory from division into solidarity, from repression into resistance against the oligarchy itself.
Reclaiming Democratic Power
The movement taking shape in LA is not just a response to injustice. It is the beginning of something more ambitious: a challenge to the foundational myths of American political life. People are beginning to realize that democracy, as it has been practiced, too often serves as a tool of preservation—not transformation. But this moment is shifting that understanding.
The bipartisan oligarchy is cracking, and a new political line is emerging—between those who serve concentrated power and those who challenge it.
As political theorist Camila Vergara argues, real democracy must be plebeian—built from below, driven by those excluded from traditional power. In LA, that principle is being tested. Street actions are converging with union demands, tenant struggles, and local policy fights. Coalitions are being built not around identity alone, but around material interest and shared opposition to oligarchic control.
This uprising is also forcing a reckoning within the Democratic Party. For too long, party leaders have paid lip service to justice while quietly enabling enforcement budgets and border expansion. Now, protestors are demanding clarity: who are you with? Those who remain silent risk political irrelevance. The bipartisan oligarchy is cracking, and a new political line is emerging—between those who serve concentrated power and those who challenge it.
A new democratic force is awakening. And it is not going back to sleep.
The administration's shock troops are not going over after criminals, but rather hard-working people nationwide simply going about their lives as valued members of their communities.
By Chuck Idelson
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Original show date June 10, 2025
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