In this moment, don't be afraid of Trump

Many immigrant families are rightly terrified. But the rest of us need stand up for them, and against Trump. He's dangerous, but he's also weak and overplays every time.

The best thing that California Governor Gavin Newsom did—certainly the best thing in the past few months, as his political posturing has been out of sync—was to tell Donald Trump this week to come and arrest him.

Faced with threats by Tom Homan, the so-called border czar, regarding Newsom’s rightful outrage about Trump federalizing California’s National Guard without Newsom’s request amid protests over immigration raids, Newsom made it clear he’s not afraid. He called Trump an “authoritarian” and said he was “unhinged.” He called him a liar and said he should “grow up.”

The response from the administration, thrown off guard, was muddled—and caused Trump to overplay further, which is always unpopular.

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Homan defensively backtracked—and then backtracked again. Trump, after Homan’s first backtrack, said, Homan “should” arrest Newsom. When a reporter asked what Newsom should be arrested for, Trump said, “for being elected” as governor.

It was both dumb and exceedingly threatening, exposing Trump as the dictator he is. And that’s exactly what we want the American people to see. Newsom stood up and Trump, unable to back down, went too far.

Polling shows the American people see the the LA raids and the bringing in of the military as massive overreach. And remember, Trump is worried about the mid-terms and the prospects for the GOP, worried about investigations by Democrats and even impeachment. He knows that he and the GOP are enormously unpopular, and that the ongoing decimation of the federal government and its agencies by Elon Musk and his flunkies has enraged people. Musk’s numbers are in the toilet and he’s now been banished in a public battle that played out for days.

Trump sees immigration as his only strong suit—even as the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia and others showed him losing support massively on the issue because people were being deported who were not criminals and were not getting due process—and he surely expected the LA raids to lift him up.

But Americans do not want to see families terrified—hard-working people who committed no crimes and are a part of the community—and they don’t want to see troops in the streets of U.S. cities.

A new Economist/YouGov poll shows Trump underwater in sending in the Marines, with people disapproving by double digits. Pollster G. Elliott Morris, looking at several polls, notes the LA actions look like they’re hurting Trump:

[T] his morning, we got the first batch of polling data on how people are feeling about the LA situation, and I think it's worth covering. Despite apparent conventional wisdom that the events would help Trump (and he is clearly looking for a fight, so probably agrees), the data show voters do not initially approve of his response, even if they don't approve of the protestors, either.

The point is: The default assumption that the LA protests help Trump seems thinly evidenced at this point. They may very well end up hurting him.

The abominable Stephen Miller is in charge of this operation—someone who’s an extremist and who doesn’t care about what the larger public might think—and no one has any control over him in the White House. He has Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on television, besides himself. These are all pretty horrifying and often incoherent people, certainly not reassuring to the American people.

The LA protests are a show of solidarity and defiance, as The American Prospect’s David Dayen wrote, and they’ve been largely peaceful even as corporate media and MAGA have focused on scattered acts of vandalism. Now there are protests across the country. When the California SEIU leader David Huerta was arrested during the LA protests for no apparent reason, union activists in cities across America organized demonstrations until he was released.

Now, on Saturday, we’ll have the “No Kings Day” protests, which will likely turn out millions of people in cities, small towns, and rural America, as we saw with the “Hands Off” protests a few months ago.

Trump is feeble and stumbling, a laughingstock to the world. His tariff madness is tanking the economy and causing instability. His battle with Musk was ludicrous and his threats against Musk for even contemplating supporting Democrats—not that any Democrat should take his help—revealed how lawless Trump is. It’s only when people stand up to Trump that he’s further revealed as extreme because he just can’t hide it, and it drives more people away from him.

Trump’s actions are a threat to democracy for sure. And the raids are terrifying for many immigrant families. But the rest of us must stand up for them and expose Trump further, as the American people continue to show their disapproval. We’ve got to keep exposing Trump’s brutality and the GOP’s undying loyalty to make sure the Republicans no longer retain power come the mid-term elections.