How to Build a Dictatorship: One ICE Raid at a Time
ICE raids were just the beginning. The Trump regime’s real target isn't immigrants. It's democracy itself.
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”
—Frederick Douglass
The Trojan Horse Rolls Through LA
Thursday morning, ICE agents stormed into factories, warehouses, and neighborhoods across Los Angeles, arresting over a hundred people. By Friday evening, the city erupted into protest, thousands pouring into downtown streets. LAPD responded with tear gas and flash-bangs, declaring unlawful assemblies just before sunset.
By Saturday afternoon, Trump’s "border czar," Tom Homan, announced the federal government was taking control, activating 2,000 National Guard troops without the governor’s consent. Marines at Camp Pendleton went on high alert, ready, watching, waiting for orders. This wasn't simply a reaction. It was a rehearsal.
Let’s call it exactly what it is: preparation.
This isn’t immigration enforcement. Not really. Immigration is just the Trojan horse. It’s the perfect cover story, the moral panic they need to justify something far more sinister. The regime is building a military-police infrastructure it intends to use against all of us. Los Angeles is the first full-scale test of how quickly and effectively they can seize control.
In previous months, I've detailed how this unfolded step by step. In late May, I wrote "Memorial Day in the Age of Disappearance," where I revealed how migrants were forcibly disappeared, extrajudicially deported to proxy states from which they can't return or seek justice.
Weeks before that, in "You Are Next. Unless You Fight Now," I warned about the systematic dismantling of habeas corpus, the erosion of our most fundamental legal protections. Now, those grim predictions have become reality on the streets of Los Angeles.
Sunday brought another wave. National Guard forces guarded federal buildings, their trucks ominously idling downtown. Marines were placed on standby. By Monday, another 2,000 Guard troops were authorized, Marines officially activated and waiting for the next orders from Washington.
None of this was accidental. ICE knew exactly what it was doing when it launched these aggressive raids. They knew exactly how the community would react. Outrage and unrest were precisely what they needed to justify the militarized response they had meticulously planned. It's a self-reinforcing trap: provoke, crack down, escalate, and repeat. Each cycle normalizing another layer of authoritarian control.
LA today. Tomorrow, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta. Each rehearsal sharpens their tactics. Each crisis edges us closer to a state of permanent emergency. Ask yourself: how confident are you that the 2026 elections will even happen if this continues unchecked?
Maybe you think, “I'm safe. I'm not an immigrant. This isn’t my fight.” You're wrong. Every step, from the federalized Guard and the military detention centers to the renditions, was first tested on migrants. Now it’s aimed at your streets, your neighborhoods, your freedoms. The infrastructure they perfected against the immigrant community was always intended for broader use.
This isn’t hyperbole. It’s happening now. And history makes clear where this road leads.
We're at a crossroads. What’s happening in Los Angeles isn’t about niche immigrant rights. It’s about protecting American democracy itself. It's about whether we accept that martial law can be rehearsed openly, repeatedly, until the real emergency arrives and elections become a distant memory.
This isn’t their crisis.
It’s ours.
Now decide: are you watching, or are you acting?
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