DC Edit | Cracks Widen in America As Trump on Destructive Path

There is a confrontation going on between US President Donald Trump’s hard line immigration agenda and the nation’s biggest state, ruled by Democrats, that does not augur well for the word “United” in the abbreviation, USA. Hundreds of people have been detained in Los Angeles even as the civil unrest has spread to many other cities, including in Republican-majority states, leading to arrests of demonstrators there, too.

The cracks in a polarised America are widening even as the National Guard and the Marines have been put on duty to tackle what is essentially a law and order problem. This is proving politically explosive as Trump had sent federal forces without extending the courtesy of consulting the affected state, and California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who is emerging as a leading contender to run for President, has taken the matter to court.

Sending troops in to curb domestic protests and riots must be considered every nation’s right, but Trump is doing it in a way that shows he has edged ahead in his authoritarian ways. Behind his reasoning is perhaps the fact that there is a resonance among voting Americans about the dangers of unchecked immigration across America’s southern land border, although immigrants have historically helped the US flourish as the world’s largest economy by lending their shoulders to the wheel for centuries.

It is incontestable that rioters should be brought to book and civil disturbances dealt with an iron hand if law and order is not to be sacrificed for arguments in favour of illegal economic immigrants looking for a better life. Active raids by the immigration authorities force ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on the most likely places of migrant gatherings may be inflaming the situation further with Trump determined to stop “invasion by a foreign enemy”, and dealing with protesters he describes as “animals”.

The clash between the liberals and the radical among the right is what is being highlighted here, aided in no mean measure by the symbolism of sending in federal enforcers though the violence in Los Angeles had been confined to downtown areas, where curfew was

clamped too. Federal overreach by Trump’s orders and his threats to use insurrection laws against protesters come in sharp contrast to what he did as President in pardoning January 6 rioters who did far worse like striking police officers on Capitol Hill.

Sending in federal forces is just another step in a chaotic second Trump term in which the “Don” has upended the rules of global trade with sweeping tariffs, hit schools of learning in hallowed universities like Harvard, run ducks and drakes with administration departments when his now-frenemy Elon Musk tried to run riot with downsizing, and pursued action against students and even those with valid visas with a viciousness not associated with American exceptionalism.

Autocratic is the word most often used to describe Trump though he appears to have done little homework before attempting radical reforms of the American system as frequent U- turns have shown up. But a hardline immigration policy is something he is bound to pursue as it has political profit written all over it. It drips with irony that an authoritarian who may be out to disrupt every democratic tradition still uses his actions to further the Republican hold on the electorate as 2026 looms when the midterms may be crucial for control of the Senate and the House.