There are two disastrously wrong ways to read the news from Los Angeles right now, and the rest of America over the next few days. The first is to believe that there is actually anything resembling an insurrection underway. The second is to believe that the Trump administration’s response to the nonexistent insurrection is simply cynical politics, an attempt to gain Donald Trump a few points in the polls.

What we’re actually seeing is much worse: An attempt to end politics as we know it, to deploy force to suppress dissent. Not eventually, but right now.

On the first point: No, LA isn’t a city in chaos, wracked by devastating riots requiring military intervention.

LA knows what real chaos looks like. The Rodney King riots in 1992 killed 63 people, injured thousands, and involved widespread looting and arson. Nothing like that is happening now. When heavily armed ICE agents arrested workers who may or may not have been legal residents but were definitely not threats by any stretch of the imagination, they set off demonstrations — which was clearly their intention. But while there were, inevitably, some relatively minor acts of violence, the demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful — and nothing local law enforcement couldn’t handle. The chief of the Los Angeles Police Department issued a statement practically pleading with the Feds to stay out of the situation:

The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively.

Of course, Trump ignored that plea. He federalized part of California’s National Guard despite the opposition of the governor — something that hasn’t happened since 1965, when Lyndon Johnson mobilized part of the Alabama National Guard, basically to protect civil rights protestors. And Trump sent in some Marines, too, which would be completely crazy if the goal was to defuse tension and prevent violence. After all, the mission of the Marines, what they’re trained to do, is to deliver deadly violence.

It's easy to see how this could spin out of control. Which is, of course, what Trump is hoping for.

But why does Trump want chaos? Many pundits and, I’m sorry to say, all too many Democrats assume that performative cruelty, both in the form of those ICE arrests and in roughing up demonstrators, will work to Trump’s political advantage. After all, isn’t immigration one of the few issues on which he polls positively? Doesn’t acting tough make him look strong?

For what it’s worth, that’s not what the available polling says. According to YouGov, pluralities of Americans disapprove of the deployment of both the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles. According to Quinnipiac, 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s policies on deportations, while only 40 percent approve.

The poll analyst G Elliott Morris, who recently talked with Greg Sargent, summarized some more detailed polling, and found that

The only real part of [Trump’s] agenda that’s popular in immigration is deporting convicted violent criminals—so you get about 87 percent support for deporting those people. That one makes sense. And basically everyone else, Americans say, Don’t deport them.

And for those who don’t trust polls, Democrats keep beating expectations, often by very large margins, in special elections.

So have Trump and his advisers simply misjudged the politics here? No. The militarized response to the LA demonstrations and Trump’s warning that anyone protesting his military birthday parade (which millions probably will) will be “met with heavy force” aren’t about moving the poll numbers. They’re all about rejecting the idea that Americans have a right to oppose Trump policies. In the same interview Morris says it’s

part of his destruction of mutual tolerance for the party system, which is classic authoritarianism. And that’s it. That’s the motivation, and everything else circles around that.

In a follow-up note on Bluesky, Morris — who is hardly a wild-eyed radical — added this:

If Trump gets away with this, he will absolutely do the same thing during the 2026 & 2028 elections. He will manufacture unrest just like in LA and send federal troops to every major city as a way to intimidate voters and decrease turnout. Functional end to fair elex.

And Trump’s highly partisan speech to the troops at Fort Bragg — a name change the administration pretends is to honor a World War II hero, but is obviously a reversion to the old practice of naming forts after Confederate generals, that is, traitors — was a naked attempt to coopt the military in his tyrannical project.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, gets it. I’ve never had strong views about Newsom, one way or the other, but this line from his big speech Tuesday was what everyone who cares about this nation should be saying right now:

Democracy is under assault right before our eyes, this moment we have feared has arrived. He’s taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding fathers’ historic project: three coequal branches of independent government.

If you’re a pundit who thinks that this is over the top, you’re part of the problem (and you have been wrong every step of the way.) If you’re a Democrat who wants to ignore the ongoing assault on democracy so we can talk about Medicaid — important as it is — you’re hiding your head in the sand.

This is the moment. Everything is on the line, right now.