I can’t say that Trump has thought out an end game in California. but if there were one, what would it be? Because, thinking or not, Trump is likely to go there eventually.
From what I can see from the other coast, the revolt against military occupation going on in Los Angeles is escalating. I would have advised the Angelenos to not react to the Guard at all. As Tom Nichols wrote in The Atlantic, Trump is using the Guard as bait.
By militarizing the situation in L.A., Trump is goading Americans more generally to take him on in the streets of their own cities, thus enabling his attacks on their constitutional freedoms. As I’ve listened to him and his advisers over the past several days, they seem almost eager for public violence that would justify the use of armed force against Americans.
He’s been eager for such a confrontation for awhile. I believe he wanted it in his first term, but then he had people around him who had the sense to say no. Now he’s got the likes of Pete Hegseth.
During the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump was furious at what he saw as the fecklessness of military leaders determined to thwart his attempts to use deadly force against protesters. He’s learned his lesson: This time, he has installed a hapless sycophant at the Pentagon who is itching to execute the boss’s orders.
He thinks sending troops to put down lefties makes him cool. But there’s more to this than just confronting protesters. Trump has a beef with the whole state of California, remember.
Philip Bump writes in WaPo that Trump is going to war with California the same way he’s going to war with Harvard.
What’s important to remember about the fracture that emerged in Los Angeles over the weekend is that it came shortly after reports that President Donald Trump was seeking to block California from receiving certain federal funding. His team, The Post reported, was “asking federal employees to develop rationales for the funding cuts” — perhaps looking at conflicts with his executive orders about cutting costs or ending diversity initiatives.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) responded by noting that the state contributes far more in federal taxes than it receives in services. But the point wasn’t really the money. The point was that the Trump administration wanted to bring California to heel, precisely as it had sought to bring elite universities to heel, similarly by contriving reasons the government might strip funding. The methodology was the same because the intent was the same: inflict pain on an entity that Trump viewed as hostile to his presidency.
So Trump wants to bring California “to heel.” What would that look like? What would make Trump happy with California? Whatever that is, I don’t think deploying some National Guard is going to make it happen. That’s just a first step.
I believe he wants escalation. And the escalation won’t stop with California. Because ultimately what Trump craves is to turn the nation and then the world into a perfect reflection of himself. He wants no disagreement with his beliefs, no doubts of his superior judgment of all things. And just as he wants control of Harvard — he’s seeking “input” into hiring, admissions, and eventually curriculum — he will want control of California and every other city or state he feels is a threat to his authority.. And the Constitution doesn’t give him that.
Robert Reich writes that we are witnessing the first stages of a Trump police state. At The Atlantic, David Frum goes even further.
If Trump can incite disturbances in blue states before the midterm elections, he can assert emergency powers to impose federal control over the voting process, which is to say his control. Or he might suspend voting until, in his opinion, order has been restored. Either way, blue-state seats could be rendered vacant for some time.
Trump hasn’t yet trotted out the Insurrection Act, which he wanted to use in his first term but got no cooperation from most of his staff. He could declare phony emergencies and insurrections everywhere there are majorities of Democratic voters and send in the troops.
And it wouldn’t completely surprise me if he were to try to revoke California’s statehood so that it reverts to being a federal territory. Then he can personally dismiss the entire state government and run the state any way he likes. That’s the only “end game” that would give Trump the victory he wants.
I doubt it’s possible for Trump to feel genuine contentment about anything. If you gave him absolute control over the galaxy he’d still crave more, because that craving is coming from a bottomless hole within himself. There is no filling it. That’s why he’s not going to stop until something stops him. Let’s hope that something involves the due process of law and the Constitution.
Update: Trump has added a Marine battalion to the National Guard in LA. The Guard in LA. haven’t been provided beds or food.
State troops sent to Los Angeles by the Trump administration, without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, were expected to sleep on floors or outdoors, a source told the Chronicle.
— San Francisco Chronicle (@sfchronicle.com) June 9, 2025 at 2:45 PM
And the escalation won’t stop with California. Because ultimately what Trump craves is to turn the nation and then the world into a perfect reflection of himself. He wants no disagreement with his beliefs, no doubts of his superior judgment of all things.
It’s more fundamental than that. It’s about power. He wants absolute power, to literally rule the world. So does Musk. All competing power centers must be vanquished. Liberal states are only the more obvious competitors for power, and so they’re the obvious places to start, in Trump’s quest to be King of the Earth.
He could care less how much damage he does. Worst case he just hops in his plane and flees the country. That’s his real end game, his out, if his primary aim is thwarted.
The tragedy is that California is very vulnerable. It won’t be decimated like Mississippi, but things will get tough there for a lot of people, especially if Mother Nature kicks in.
My friend from another star system says that since the human race has chosen donnie and his behavior, they are seriously considering blocking the human race onto the earth. I told him that I agree. Go ahead and blame me.
There's Trump, the idiot egomaniac and there's Trump, the product of users like Miller and Musk. Yeah, nobody seems to survive Trump, Look at the My Pillow Guy, who imploded in Trump's orbit. But they pour in like moths to a flame.
They want power and they know that in the end the only way they can keep it if by force. The FBI, ICE, and the federal police can't do it. A lot of state and metro police forces have made it clear. They will not be subsidiaries of federal law enforcement, especially to oppress citizens whose crime is believing in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
So how much will the USSC allow? If they set limits that Trump blows through, how much will the military deny Trump?
The orange overlords want to rub your nose in it and have you admit that the New Deal, the environmental movement, the good government movement, city planning, civil rights etc. were wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sheesh, I grew up in a very strict Christian household and hold the same values and beliefs as my ancestors have for 500 years and, once again, I suspect that my religious group will be waterboarded until we deny that serving Christ though charity is the path to salvation. I am a sinner because I believe that it is as difficult for a rich person to get into haven as getting a camel though the eye of a needle.
"He wants no disagreement with his beliefs"
That is it exactly, he like a spoiled child can never have enough. Getting elected president is not enough he wants to be king, he wants everyone to wear the magat hat. His fragile drug addled brain cannot process the fact that much of the country vehemently disagrees with him so he is going to create a crisis and then crush it with military force. The man just can't help himself, he fucking mentally deranged. So the end game is violence in every major city and a police state. It's coming and Hegseth will make sure it's good and bloody!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19dP84Q4Qus
Is this just a trail run for martial law?
I would one-up you on that. The desire is to insight a civil war situation where he can kill opposition leaders with impunity and imprison their old guard. They are weaklings and mental midgets so they have to appear strong through cruelty.
You know, I saw someone point out that most "civil war situations are nothing like the US Civil War to bring the traitors, who were defending slavery, back into the union.
(Sorry: I think LawyersGunsMoneyblog got me started on "treason in defense of slavery" as the proper descriptor for the Civil War.)
Where was I? Right: few civil wars are *shooting* wars.
What most civil wars are like, imagine if one political party (in a two party system) would excuse any crime made by members of the same party, but would demand investigations, including completely baseless criminal investigations, into members of the other party.
So, the US would be in that kind of civil war, a "cold civil war" if, for example, the Biden family were hounded over stupid BS, like, unfiled taxes, after all taxes had been paid, for example.
And if, say, oh, Trump had tried to hatch a plan, where fake electors would perjure themselves, claiming to be valid electors, okay, and the Republican Party was planning to deliberately throw the election to Trump, but Mike Pence showed up, and refused to be taken away by his secret service detail, so, the count went as the states various electors actually voted, okay…
…and if the Republicans just blew that off, while screaming "BIDEN CRIME FAMILY!" all over the place, if that were true, then, the US would be in a cold civil war, no question of doubt. You couldn't ask for a better historical microscope to place the question under. Eff yeah, we're already in a civil war.
ANYWAY – sorry for the lecture. I do agree with your main point: Trump does want to instigate a *hot* civil war, a shooting war, that he thinks he'll win, because most of the troops are Republicans.
But really: I think if some historians, in the future, placed the start of the US Cold Civil War past 2020, every other historian would laugh at them behind their backs, and throw spitballs at them in homeroom.
Metaphorically speaking, of course, but please, do not underestimate the petty childishness, and childish pettiness, of historians, before you count out spitballs!
Interesting. Also frightening to use even a cold war framework for analysis. I think there is quite the divide which republicans will not voice about their party. Those who still adhere to the quest for a 'holy' cause with civility and those (MAGA) types where the end justifies any means and refuse to play by any rules of war hot or cold.
At present do not the states of Russia and Isreal resemble MAGA type states? In the sense that even hot wars need not adhere to international standards. States who employ flagrant terror tactics, of course, closely resemble MAGA type states in their disregard for rules in any type of engagement.
My fear is that the weirdos have already won. I do not see any push-back that does not enhance the GOP story-line because, no matter the right and wrongs, most Americans are not going to threaten their boat payments to ensure trans or immigrant rights and the wingers always loop back to those topics. Housing, heath policy, broad economic success topics are are trumped by panic and media driven narratives about bathrooms and evil illegals. This civil ware will be known as treason to protect southern white people's feelings.
This excess of power is expensive and is at the expense of the federal government which is operating at a deficit. More borrowed money for troops that are not needed except in what seems an alternate and fabricated reality held by the Autocracy. The 3B bill increases the federal government's borrowing ability and funding for these excesses. The excesses will stop if the funding if and when the funding is stopped for nonsense like this.
The world bank is reporting the worlds bleaker future. From the NYT today:
This is a problem. Now is not the time to waste money at the federal level. Now is also not the time to borrow expensive money. Now is the time to fix self – inflicted economic problems due to nonsensical trade wars and excessive scapegoating.
The world economy will also have problems, but our country will be the hardest hit the world bank predicts. Stagflation is not a word anyone wants to hear, and this data forebodes the stagflation word getting way too popular. Denial and/or messenger shooting is folly. The chances the current Autocracy responds correctly is near zero it seems. The ship of state is in a state of peril, not from civil unrest but from the course it has taken. A reactionary path to a fictional place called Great Again charted by a Cult led by a stumbling Mad Man.
Goal: Confederate States of America.
Out here in rural red state hell world the "family values" people say that they lost the last one but are gonna win this one.
Outcome: Jim Crow laws reinstated.
All I can reply is what the orange thought leaders say: "It is what it is."
Blue states will have no authority to object, much less resist but "state's rights" will empower institutional racism. Problem: not even this USSC will endorse overt racism even at the state level.
Perhaps the Supremes would wave the no-no finger, but I don't think a lot of states would comply. There are legalistc work-arounds that will be found… these are the people who click on the "one weird trick to cure…." ads and enjoy cruelty theater.
There are two goals:
– get Newsom to bow to King Donnie. Gavin has vowed "Never!"
– like a bully pushing through barriers, use Los Angeles as a pilot project for ramming the military down our civilian throats. If he can get away with it in LA, he'll roll it out to the rest of the country.
Will the supine Supreme Court stop King Donnie, the monster they made?
Was watching Fox "News" at the gym. Endless loops of Waymo cars on fire (I think five of them were destroyed). LA is way bigger than a few Waymo cars, but for the fear addicts watching Fox, it's armageddon.
Will Gavin, Karen Bass and the other Democrats find a unified and powerful voice to seize the narrative and turn it against F47? The first step in effectively fighting the bully. Hint: the whole stupid exercise of sending in the Natl Guard and Marines is costing hundreds of $millions, to say nothing of King Donnie's upcoming Victory Parade, is a starting point.
Y'all forgetting the most obvious driving factor: Pervert Hoover's total failure at everything else. The Big Beautiful Bill is DOA, the "Mass Deportations" haven't been Mass at all, the Tariff scheme has gone all TACO, DOGE is a bust, his approval ratings are dwindling away. This is all a distraction from the an administration that's already a disaster and has nowhere to go.
STOP TALKING ABOUT "DISTRACTION." It makes me crazy. DESPLOYING TROOPS IS NOT A DISTRACTION. It's the tip of the speer to declare more emergencies and put blue cities and states under martial law. Trump wants to shut down the 2026 midterms so he can keep control of Congress. See Oliver Willis, There are no distractions in war, only fronts.
The most important thing right now is to do everything possible to stop the reconciliation bill.