This week, when border czar Tom Homan threatened to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Trump got excited. He goaded Homan on, telling reporters, “I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great.” adding, “Gavin likes the publicity but I think it would be a great thing.”
While Trump brays about having a Democratic governor arrested, someone should tell him two can play that game. In the State of California, inciting public violence is a crime. Commonly known as inciting a riot, under California Penal Code (PC) 404.6 it is a crime to deliberately exacerbate violence by encouraging peaceful protesters to engage in violence. PC 404.6 states:
Anyone who with the intent to cause a riot does an act or engages in conduct urging a riot, or urges others to commit acts of force or violence, or the burning or destroying of property, and at a time and place and under circumstances that produce a clear and present and immediate danger of acts of violence or destroying of property, is guilty of incitement to riot.
Every law enforcement agency in the United States, including the FBI , knows that an excessive show of force will turn peaceful protesters into violent rioters, almost instantaneously. Recommended de-escalation methods are published on Trump’s DOJ website, no less.
When nationwide police standards are coupled with Newsom’s stern objections to the military’s presence and Trump’s ongoing obsession with martial law, there is no way to interpret Trump’s actions as anything other than deliberate provocation. Trump is trying to incite violence to serve his own political agenda in violation of California’s Penal Code, and should be arrested for same.
Nothing radicalizes citizens faster than being brutalized by state force
Whomever is advising Trump in LA knows that the quickest and surest way to radicalize any population is to use or display disproportionate force against unarmed people. A disproportionate government response to civic unrest predictably triggers anti-government sentiment and causes violence that feels like self-defense. Counterinsurgency experts know this, military advisors know this, every police chief in the nation knows this.
Every law enforcement organization in the US trains its officers to de-escalate—to diffuse violence rather than exacerbate it. The FBI acknowledges, through its Crisis Negotiation Unit, that de-escalation is “crucial in keeping police officers out of harm’s way…. anecdotal and impressionistic evidence clearly reflects that this methodical approach to managing crisis events has saved thousands.”
The FBI has provided de-escalation training to law enforcement agencies across the United States for the past 50 years, so it’s impossible that Trump, Hegseth, and Kash Patel, Trump’s FBI director, are unaware of it. Trump may have deliberately chosen unqualified clowns for his cabinet, but every one of them has attended enough rubber chicken conferences to know the importance of de-escalation.
By sending the military into LA for what started out as largely peaceful protests, Trump is doing the opposite of what his own police intelligence counsels. Newsom is hip to what Trump is doing and has made clear that Trump is putting the LA public, the police, and military members in harm’s way. As he and the mayor of LA keep telling Trump, who knew it already, heavy-handed violence from the government never pacifies dissent, it causes violence to explode exponentially, which is Trump’s plan.
Trump wants a police state in America to keep him in power
Trump has made no secret of his plan to recall thousands of American troops from overseas to station them instead on American soil. His goal, modeled after his fascist idol in Hungary, Viktor Orban, is to impose a police state under which the media, judges, and political opponents are silenced, imprisoned, or worse, for criticizing him. With tanks in the streets and Fox News propaganda running 24/7, Trump will be able to remain in office until he appoints Don Jr. his successor. Trump’s goal is to remain in power, which he has admitted, to insulate himself from legal accountability until he dies.
To that end, he has done everything in his power since returning to office to instigate violence on the streets, and not just in LA. So far he’s tried to incite riots by arresting a Black mayor, arresting Black members of Congress, arresting a sitting judge, kidnapping brown people on their way into work and sending migrants to foreign gulags without due process, all while filming and televising the cruelty as widely as possible.
Republicans are scared shitless or they’d stop this madman; their cowardice is on display before the rest of the world. Watch what a member of Canada’s parliament, Charlie Angus, just said in a formal statement about Trump’s conduct in LA. Offering solidarity and prayers for the people of California, Angus delivers a full-throated indictment of Trump’s police state, noting, “We’re not talking about creeping fascism here. This is full on police state tyranny from gangster president Donald Trump.”
In a fiery (and delicious) ten minute speech from the Canadian Parliament, Angus rages that a convicted felon and sexual predator dares to threaten Canada’s sovereignty. Angus urges his fellow Canadian lawmakers to block Trump from entry into Canada and to bar Trump’s scheduled attendance at the upcoming G7 conference.
California should withhold federal funds and arrest Trump
Newsom is correct to consider withholding federal taxes from a fascist president determined to defund states, universities, and organizations he doesn’t like. A state withholding federal taxes is unprecedented, except for a brief period during the Whiskey Rebellion when farmers in Pennsylvania refused to pay the whiskey tax. It’s also logistically complex because federal taxes are paid by employers and state residents directly. But what Trump is doing to destroy the nation is also unprecedented; 95% of his bogus Executive Orders are illegal.
The State of California is the nation’s biggest “donor state,” meaning it pays $83 billion more to the federal government every year than it receives — nearly three times as much as the next biggest “donor state.” In addition, California taxpayers contribute more than any other state to total federal taxes, according to IRS data. In FY 2023-24, California’s “total federal taxes were $806 billion — nearly twice as much as Texas, which contributed $417 billion, and more than twice the $384 billion New York contributed.” So whatever damage Trump hopes to inflict on California’s governor and state economy assuredly will ripple throughout the national economy.
Newsom, acknowledging that what Trump is doing to California is “pure theater” should take his own advice. He can start with serious talk about withholding money from Washington, and about having Trump arrested. Even though a sitting president can’t be prosecuted while in office, they are not immune from arrest or criminal charges or prosecution after leaving office. There’s at least one precedent – President Ulysses S. Grant was brought into custody for a speeding through a national park.
The point isn’t sending Trump to prison, where he’d be today if not for the Federalists he installed on the Supreme Court. The point is fighting Trump’s theater fire with theater fire. Trump has cast himself as the strongman star of his own fascist reality show, but he’s not the only official with the power to have people arrested for breaking the law.
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her columns are found @ Alternet, Chicago Tribune, Howey Political Report, Indiana Democrats’ Kernel of Truth, Inside Indiana Business, MSN, Out South Florida, Raw Story, Salon, Smart News, South Florida Gay News, State Affairs and Windy City Times. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.