This story was originally published by Dermot Cole, Reporting from Alaska.
Rep. Nick Begich III made this sorry analysis of the unrest in Los Angeles, trying to justify President Trump’s effort to provoke more violence in the streets.
America First Begich the Third attached this to a photo circulated on Elon Musk’s social media platform that showed a clown on a dirt bike driving around a burning car while carrying a Mexican flag.
Begich the Third leaped to a ready list of thoughtless conclusions, praising Trump’s federal overreach.
“We are ending this disaster. America First,” says Begich, a guy who keeps showing he is the last to know.
Trump sent in troops over the objections of the governor of California, trying to incite violence, show he is a tough guy and make people forget about his many failures and his breakup with Elon. He is portraying protests as insurrection.
Even Begich the Third should understand this. Instead, Alaska’s congressman is cheering the spectacle that Trump hopes to turn into a crisis.
“The president and the men and women around him are acting with great ambition in this moment, and they are likely hoping to achieve three goals in one dramatic action,” writes Tom Nichols in The Atlantic today.
“First, they will turn America’s attention away from Trump’s many failures and inane feuds, and reestablish his campaign persona as a strongman who will brush aside the law if that’s what it takes to keep order in the streets,” says Nichols, one of the nation’s leading analysts of national security issues.
Second, the order shows that Trump feels free to use the military in any way he pleases. This is in line with Trump’s belief that he is free to use tariffs in any way he pleases.
“Trump sees the U.S. military as his personal honor guard and his private muscle. Those are his toy soldiers, and he’s going to get a show from his honor guard in a birthday parade next weekend. In the meantime, he’s going to flex that muscle, and prove that the officers and service members who will do whatever he orders are the real military. The rest are suckers and losers.”
Third, Trump may see personal benefit in the violence he encourages.
“Trump has the right to ‘federalize’ Guard forces, which is how they were deployed overseas in America’s various conflicts. He has never respected the traditions of American civil-military relations, which regard the domestic deployment of the military as an extreme measure to be avoided whenever possible. Using the Guard could be a devious tactic: He may be hoping to set neighbor against neighbor, so that the people called to duty return to their home and workplace with stories of violence and injuries.”
“In the longer run, Trump may be trying to create a national emergency that will enable him to exercise authoritarian control. (Such an emergency was a rationalization, for example, for the tariffs that he has mostly had to abandon.) He has for years been trying to desensitize the citizens of the United States to un-American ideas and unconstitutional actions.”
In the Alaska congressional delegation, the feckless duo of Begich and Sen. Dan Sullivan will go along with anything Trump does and prostrate themselves at every opportunity. Sen. Lisa Murkowski doesn’t. She is the one elected official in Alaska trying to stand up to Trump.
As Nichols points out, Trump is not unstoppable.
“Thwarting his authoritarianism will require restraint on the part of the public, some steely nerves on the part of state and local authorities, and vigilant action from national elected representatives, who should be stepping in to raise the alarm and to demand explanations about the president’s misuse of the military,” writes Nichols.
Dermot Cole has worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and author in Alaska for more than 40 years. Support his work here.
