Monash University Media Release
Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to protest Donald Trump’s Presidency at No King’s Day gathering across the US this weekend. Associate Professor Ben Wellings explains that, while Trump doesn’t really want to be King, his path to autocracy, via chaos like calling the National Guard to quell the Los Angeles anti-immigration protests, is actually a highly strategic plan.
Why President Trump doesn’t want to be King of the United States
“Hundreds of protests will occur on the same day across the United States, under the banner of “No Kings”. It’s not clear that Trump wants to be a king like George III, but he certainly does seem to admire autocrats. His ideal model of leadership is closer to that of Russia’s Vladamir Putin, Türkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Sure, they conduct elections, but these are effectively held only to endorse the incumbent leader. Illiberal democracy is the goal.”
Nationalism and the response to the Californian protests
“If it all seems terribly chaotic, that’s because it is. Indeed, the chaos is the point. It’s part of a deliberate plan to create confusion and to stoke the outrage, in order to provide cover for the enactment of a reactionary vision of the American nation. This is nowhere clearer than in Trump’s decision to deploy first the National Guard and then the Marines to quell the protests over the forced removal of undocumented immigrants. The president is thus employing heavy-handed measures to put down the very unrest that his draconian actions have incited.”
What is happening in the US is not chaos, it’s strategic
“The sequence of decisions taken by Trump in Los Angeles are all designed to reinforce a particular narrative: that the MAGA movement is in power; that resistance will not be countenanced, not even from a state as large and wealthy as California; that only the president can bring calm to the chaos – even if that chaos is a consequence of his government’s actions. Sometimes in politics, it looks good to solve a problem that you yourself created and that serves your own interests.”
See also: Why Gavin Newsom should be the Democrats’ next big bet
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So its noon on Sunday AEST here on the south coast of NSW. I’ve just been watching ABCNews and Insiders.
Specifically on the LA, California protest demonstrations and the Trump birthday pageant (oh sorry Army anniversary) in Washington DC.
A protester said ‘Families are being broken up. We are not illegal. And no human should ever be illegal, Donald Trump’.
ICE should be abolished. Its agents should be prosecuted.
Trumps resignation should be demanded. Along with VP JD Vance, House Speaker Mike Johson (Republican), President pro tempore of the US Senate and Secretary of State (for foreign affairs) Marco Rubio (Repuplican). As you can see in this order of succession, there is no opportunity to have a chief executive replacement who is not a Republican, MAGA type, until the 2028 election.
Impeachment? Virtually impossible with the manifest laziness, gutlessness and cowardice of the US Congress.
The autocracy continues to unfold and consilidate.
The Federal Court Judge was quite clear that what Trump was doing in LA was unconstitutional and control of the National Guard must be returned to State control. As anticipated Trump has appealed to the full Federal Court who will hear the issue on Tuesday.
What comes of this hearing will be critical to state’s rights in the US and the extent to which this new monarch can ride roughshod over state’s governors.
The initial judgement was well reasoned and persuasive and should stand but it may be that if it goes against Trump he will seek another stay and take it to the Supreme Court and that would be another delay.
Trump has been fighting courts all his career and knows that delays frequently act in his favour – he knows how to play the legal system and of course the lawyers love him as an eternal litigant (using public money of course).