With Trump's military on Los Angeles streets, Tom Cotton's got his wish
Republican Senator Tom Cotton ought to be a happy MAGA-camper these days.
The rebar-right American lawmaker took a controversial turn as a writer in 2020, publishing a provocative opinion piece in The New York Times that caused quite the stir.
Cotton's column came to mind because it seems that US President Donald Trump may not only have read the missive, but snipped it out of the newspaper for safekeeping and future inspiration.
At the time, America was roiled by demonstrations in the raw residue of the murder of 46-year-old George Floyd – and the killing of other Black men and women – by police officers.
Most of the rallies across a seething country were peaceful. But, in some places, the combustible mixture of grief, anger and frustration, coupled with columns of charging police wielding batons, stun guns, and tear gas, erupted into running battles. There were also reports of isolated looting.
It was in this already incendiary context that Cotton lobbed his slightly more than 800-word grenade into the flammable mix – courtesy of America's so-called 'paper of record'.
Cotton trotted out the usual hyperbolic cliches, claiming that several American cities were confronting 'an orgy of violence,' had been 'plunged … into anarchy,' or 'descended into lawlessness' by 'bands' of 'nihilistic criminals [and] cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa'.
Grim, apocalyptic-sounding stuff.
Cotton's solution to the 'orgy of violence' was, of course, to invite even more violence.
'One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers,' Cotton wrote.
Citing precedent, history and the commander-in-chief's duty, Cotton argued that it was time for the president to send in the troops – the Marines, if necessary, as backup for the cops.
Cotton's pernicious prescription to 'restore order' in the face of a bourgeoning Black Lives Matter movement triggered a revolt at the Times and a sharp rebuke more broadly.
After first defending the decision to post Cotton's commentary, the Times did a careening volte face, insisting, belatedly, that it had not met the paper's editorial 'standards'.
James Bennet, the Times's opinion editor, resigned.
Trump watched the kerfuffle unfold, tweeting his support for the 'great senator' from Arkansas and his 'excellent Op-Ed'.
Five years later, it is clear that Trump has adopted Cotton's 'excellent Op-Ed' as his blunt blueprint to tame California and potentially other states where enlightened Americans are gathering to resist his brutish immigration raids and designs to use the military to suppress dissent.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has accused a 'deranged' president of orchestrating a 'military dragnet' across Los Angeles, America's second-largest city.
Beyond his rhetorical broadsides, Newsom has asked a federal judge to stop the Trump administration from using the National Guard and Marines to bolster immigration raids – arguing it would only fuel tensions.
Legality aside, Trump sent in the troops knowing that generations of Americans have long agreed with Senator Cotton – the use of 'overwhelming force' to 'keep the peace' is a patriotic act to protect the republic from an ever-changing cast of 'agitators' – citizen or not.
Newsom's claim that Trump's gambit amounts to 'the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial president' misses the blatant point.
The stubborn construction that Trump's edicts and conduct are the work of a 'mad' president, realising his 'dictatorial fantasies', absolves millions of like-minded Americans who approve of what their industrious leader is doing in Los Angeles and throughout the United States.
It is politically convenient and expedient for an ambitious politician considering running for president in 2028 to point an accusatory finger at one culprit, instead of a complicit nation.
Recent polls show that a good majority of Americans – largely Republicans – are cheering on Trump's draconian deportation orders since the alleged aim is, as Senator Cotton once wrote, 'to maintain public order and safety'.
I suspect that, despite the predictable 'outrage' given full and ample vent across a variety of cable news networks, which air their derivative pantomimes day and night, Trump's popularity on immigration will perk up.
It appears that a lot of Americans have preferred a performative 'tough guy' who enjoys putting on a good show of official power or exercising his First Amendment rights, despite the lethal consequences, over voices encouraging caution and restraint.
For evidence of this demonstrated fact, here is video of an appearance last April by Kyle Rittenhouse on the campus of Kent State University.
On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire, unprovoked, on Kent State students, killing four and wounding nine others during an anti-Vietnam War protest. That same National Guard is patrolling the restive streets of Los Angeles.
Rittenhouse was invited to speak not despite the university's grim history, but because of it.
His presence there was a deliberate provocation – an attempt to recast the memory of state-sanctioned violence not as a cautionary tale, but rather as a moment to be reinterpreted through the lens of righteous force and personal valour.
Rittenhouse is known – exclusively – for shooting three men, killing two of them, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020. A jury acquitted him of all charges, accepting his claim of self-defence.
The three men were part of a large crowd condemning police brutality – and all three were shot by a teenager who appointed himself, like Trump and Cotton, as guardian of the streets.
So, it is not surprising that Rittenhouse was embraced as a 'hero' by an enthusiastic, overflowing audience in a lecture hall.
This is the country Trump and Cotton understand well: where 'law and order' is preserved by theatrics and armed muscle, not fairness and temperance.
The applause for Rittenhouse and the polls girding Trump are not outliers – they are proof that the appetite for raw authority is deep and durable.
Trump has not hijacked America – he mirrors it.
Cotton's column, Rittenhouse's celebrity, the martial display – none of it is an aberration. It reflects an attitude that celebrates domination and obedience, endorsing aggression so long as it is draped in self-preservation or framed as 'defence'.
And far too many Americans are just fine with that.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.
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