Trump and his loyalists crave actual martial law. DHS head Kristi Noem has — out loud! — threatened to “liberate” Californians from the democracy they currently enjoy in the state of California. Plenty of idiots and idiot newscasters continue to pretend Los Angeles is under siege when, in reality, protests against ICE have been limited to few blocks in the nation’s largest city by area (contiguous US only, you pedants) and second most populated.
The sending of National Guard troops to “support” ICE raids was pretty much illegal, no matter what Trump might say about the Alien Enemies Act or his desire to treat protected First Amendment activity like an insurrection. It was also entirely performative. The state of California did not request this assistance and local LA law enforcement had already made it clear they had whatever little bit of “violent protesting” under control, which also included all the times LA cops generated violence, rather than merely responded to it.
Nevertheless, the National Guard responded to the president’s directive. Troops were sent to Los Angeles with no real sense of purpose. And also nowhere to sleep or spend their mostly inactive days, as early photos of the deployment clearly showed. For awhile, they weren’t even getting paid because the shoot-first administration wanted to get its show of force on the ground, allowing the actual logistics to remain on the back burner until the populace was sufficiently cowed.
The external backlash began immediately. So did the internal backlash, as Shawn Hubler’s conversations with National Guard troops demonstrates. While they were hailed as heroes for their response to California wildfires earlier this year (something the National Guard is actually prepared to do), troops are facing public ridicule for being the most visible face of Trump’s martial law experimentation.
Protesters jeer the troops as they guard federal office buildings. Commuters curse the behemoth convoys clogging freeways. Family members grill members with questions about whether they really have to obey federal orders.
What happens when you stay enlisted long enough to become the villain against your will?
“They gave Disneyland tickets to the people who worked in the wildfires,” one soldier said. “Nobody’s handing out Disneyland tickets now.”
The National Guard is a branch of the military, which makes simply quitting a luxury that’s out of reach of most volunteers. And the government’s general desire to display a unified front, that hides turmoil barely obscured by official statements, means the troops quoted in this report can’t actually identify themselves or even those enforcing the orders.
While six troops (out of the 3,000 sent to Los Angeles) is too small a sample size to extrapolate widespread disgruntlement, it’s safe to assume a lot of troops aren’t happy they’re being asked to play the villain in furtherance of a goal many are, at the very least, ambivalent about, if not actually opposed to: an untargeted deportation program that seeks to eject as many non-whites from the nation as is humanly possible. Hence the need for more humans, especially humans that already have guns and aren’t allowed to reject reassignment.
Here’s how things are going in this administration’s undeclared war on Los Angeles:
Several said they had raised objections themselves or knew someone who objected, either because they did not want to be involved in immigration crackdowns or felt the Trump administration had put them on the streets for what they described as a “fake mission.”
[…]
At least 105 members of the deployment sought counseling from behavioral health officers, and at least one company commander and one battalion commander who objected to the mission were reassigned to work unrelated to the mobilization, the Guard officers said. Some troops became so disgruntled that there were several reports of soldiers defecating in Humvees and showers at the Southern California base where the troops are stationed, prompting tightened bathroom security.
I do like the fact that shitting in Humvees somehow resulted in “tightened bathroom security.” That sounds like exactly the sort of galaxy brain thinking that might be deployed by officials and officers who are wholly supportive of sending troops to help with deportation just because the president doesn’t like Governor Gavin Newsom. Or maybe it just means troops will be tasked with installing Port-a-Potty latches on Humvee door handles to inform other troops as to which vehicles are currently “OCCUPIED.”
If morale is that low, be thankful your problems are largely limited to unexpected defecation options. For many of those whose enlistment is nearing its end, they’ll soon be free to use their own restrooms and go to work without being blamed for the actions of a rogue president. (Unfortunately, they’ll probably still have to buy their own Disneyland tickets.)
The California National Guard had 72 soldiers whose enlistment was set to expire during the deployment. Of those 72, at least two have now left the Guard and 55 others have indicated that they will not extend their service, according to the office of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is fighting Mr. Trump’s deployment in court.
The military already has a serious retention problem it’s been unable to solve since the last time the draft was implemented. This isn’t going to make things any better. I can guarantee no one got into the military hoping one day they’d be deployed to engage in a war against their fellow Americans. While plenty of troops may not be happy with the places they’ve been deployed over the years, it was never because it put them in the position of potentially having to harm or kill Americans or even immigrants to this country.
The people getting out now are just the leading edge — the early adopters who have the opportunity to do so. More will be leaving and most likely won’t be replaced by anyone you’d actually trust with a uniform and gun. You can’t just wait this presidency out because there’s absolutely no guarantee Trump will be replaced by anyone less authoritarian-leaning. And that’s if he leaves at all, something else that isn’t exactly guaranteed at this point.
We’re all feeling this, but at least someone in charge is willing to say it out loud, even if they won’t put their name on it:
“The moral injuries of this operation, I think, will be enduring,” one of the two Guard officials said. “This is not what the military of our country was designed to do, at all.”
Let’s hope the moral injuries are sufficient to stop what’s happening here. The other options are far, far worse, especially when the most powerful man in the world is clearly trying to provoke a situation that would justify him ordering military members to engage in violence against the people populating the country they serve.