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This is an adapted excerpt from the June 9 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
What is the most important story in the country right now?
In this moment, there is no question of what the United States is up against. The intentions of Donald Trump are not a mystery. There’s no suspense. There’s no ambiguity. We know exactly who he is and exactly what he wants. It’s as plain as day.
The most important story of our time is this one: What is this country going to allow him to do?
But the question we are contending with, the real black box, the real drama, the story that does need to be dug up and told in our country because it is as yet undecided, is this: Will he succeed? Will he get what he wants?
That question will be answered not by Trump or his actions, but by the people of this country. And so the most important story of our time is this one: What is this country going to allow him to do?
This is an attempted authoritarian overthrow of the United States Constitution and the U.S. government. This is the attempted imposition of a dictatorial regime. The question now is whether it will work. The answer won’t come from the White House; it will come from the streets, the courts, the states and in Congress. The strength of the movement against Trump is what will determine our fate as a country. Because what we’re seeing over and over again is that organizing against him works. Fighting him in court works. Pushing back works. Protesting in the streets works.
On Friday, large-scale protests broke out in Los Angeles over the administration’s militarized immigration raids. By Saturday, Trump was fulminating against those protests and announced he would federalize the National Guard, the first time a president has done that against the wishes of a state’s governor in 60 years. (When it was done 60 years ago, it was to protect protesters, not to threaten them with military force.)
The response of the American people to that move is exactly what you would expect: In Los Angeles, bigger protests than ever, and across the country, solidarity protests in Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Tampa, Florida; Raleigh, North Carolina; and in Washington, D.C., outside the Justice Department headquarters.
There is nothing California-specific about what is going on here. When Trump issued his order to federalize the National Guard this weekend, it was not specific to Los Angeles, and it was not specific to California; he could use that order to send National Guard troops anywhere.
On Monday, Trump took things a step further and announced he’s sending 700 Marines to Los Angeles. That is a portrait of weakness. That is what you get when you have a supposed leader who cannot figure out how to get the support of his people, and knows it. That is what you get when you have a weak and unpopular president, who sees the people against him and can’t defend his actions.
But, despite what Trump wants, the protests won’t stop. In fact, this coming Saturday, we will likely see the largest protests yet against Trump and his administration. As the president holds his military parade in Washington, people across the country are set to take part in what organizers are calling the “No Kings Day of Defiance.” More than 1,800 rallies are planned nationwide — peaceful, organized and united.
Trump already can’t handle the number of protests against him, and it’s about to increase exponentially. What we are seeing right now in California is a president panicking. Since polling began, we have never in the history of the U.S. presidency seen a president who is less popular than this one at this point in his presidency, and we have never seen a president less politically equipped than this one to turn that around.
What we are seeing right now in California is a president panicking.
Someone convinced Trump that attacking immigrants would work for him, that the American people would love it; that the crueler he was, the more political capital he would accrue. Instead, the opposite has happened: In town after town, school after school, city after city, it has run him into a wall — and he has no idea what to do.
Remember, in Trump’s first term, when he reportedly suggested nuking hurricanes to stop them from hitting the U.S.? Now in his second term, he’s trying the equivalent: Trump has no idea what to do with the sustained, growing, intractable and indomitable protest and opposition of the American people against him, so he’s decided to try to stop it by using the Army.
What we’re learning, now more than ever, is that the movement against Trump is unstoppable.
Allison Detzel contributed.
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