The Fyre Festival of troop deployments. Not an invasion, rebellion, or even an insurrection. But it will cost taxpayers now $130 million+
But this is not about immigration policies. This is about the use of state power against the people of the United States, or at least the ones (Trump) doesn’t like. And now, potentially, it’s about the state doing violence against those people. Again: We have a president who said, “Next time, I’m not waiting,” and a defense secretary who refused to deny that he’d allow soldiers to shoot protesters.
If you’d somehow forgotten what Donald Trump said to top military aides in June 2020 about the people gathered in Washington’s Lafayette Park protesting the killing of George Floyd, now seems like a good time to remember.
Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in many interviews while promoting his book in 2022 that, during a White House meeting to discuss the protests, Trump turned to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and asked: “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Naturally, Esper and Milley were both aghast. But now fast-forward to this past January, and the confirmation hearing of current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. As fate would have it, Hegseth was among the National Guard troops deployed by Trump to quell those George Floyd protests. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii asked Hegseth about that day, and how he might handle a similar situation were he the Pentagon chief. Per The Washington Post at the time.
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Earlier this year I wrote about Stephen Miller's whole deal—how his privileged upbringing in Santa Monica was shaped from the beginning by the labor of Latin American immigrants, and how he experienced status anxiety when his family had to live among them. www.thenation.com/article/poli...
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— David Klion (@davidklion.bsky.social) Jun 10, 2025 at 9:11 AM
