Today marks another page ripped straight out of fascist history. Those familiar with Mussolini know he promoted state violence not primarily to maintain order, but to protect his own political instruments deployed to intimidate opposition.
Trump is clearly inverting state protection, just as Mussolini would.
Instead of the state protecting citizens from violent groups, the state protects the violent groups from citizens. Mussolini used the army and police to shield the Blackshirts as they attacked socialists, trade unionists, and political opponents. Trump today announced deploying troops to protect ICE operations (which have been conducting aggressive raids) from protesters.
Of course the tactic is based on abuse patterns, which are known well by those allegedly on the Epstein list of abusers. Victims of aggression are labeled as the aggressors, to strip away protections.
…people have kicked tear gas canisters back at them. […] Court documents also show federal officers have been impacted by their own use of chemical munitions. In one case, a person knocked loose an officer’s gas mask, causing the officer to “suck in a large amount of OC spray and pepperball dust.” The agent later vomited and dry-heaved for half an hour.
Mussolini chaos agents were presented by him as defenders of order against “Bolshevik chaos,” just as Trump falsely frames federal agents attacking protesters as him handling “domestic terrorists”. Local officials meanwhile describe Portland as “safe and calm” with declining protests, even during violent federal escalations.
Lawmakers cited recent incidents, including the detention of a father outside his child’s preschool and a wildland firefighter who was arrested while battling fires in the Olympic National Forest. They also pointed to a statistic… that 65% of people detained by ICE had no criminal convictions.
Mussolini normalized the use of state power against political opposition. Similarly, Trump is regularly deploying troops to multiple politically targeted cities – Los Angeles, Washington D.C., and Portland despite clear local opposition and questionable legal authority.
As an aside, the economics of militancy also are terrible. In 2020 Trump spent almost 10X more on troops to police a court house than it would have cost to improve the space itself.
The estimated cost of the federal action in Portland was $12.3 million, according to the report. Damage to Mark O. Hatfield United States Courthouse in Portland was about $1.6 million.
That was the kind of lesson from back in 2020, which in theory could itself prevent a repeat through basic fiscal responsibility. It shows how wasteful federal militancy can be, begging the real motives.
Mussolini circumvented logic of parliamentary processes. Trump is also proceeding without proper congressional notification or local consent, with Pentagon officials reportedly surprised by the deployment announcement. Mussolini loved to announce faits accomplis that his subordinates had to scramble to implement, symptomatic of how he would force the center of attention onto himself by being chaotic and unreliable. It turns leadership upside down by destroying direction and purpose, shifting everyone into excessive, unsustainable whimsy that by design only a few could survive.
The headline news, in other words, is describing America experiencing 1930s Italy and the actual mechanics of how democratic institutions are dismantled from within by fascism.
A state apparatus is obviously weaponized to protect the ruling party’s enforcement mechanisms and criminalizing all resistance. This is a textbook case of authoritarian progression presented by MAGA. Knowing about violent and chaotic descent of Italian life under the shadow of Mussolini (let alone Somalia under Siad Barre) is essential for understanding the pattern.
What makes it particularly dangerous is that Americans infamously lack historical literacy to the point that they think Nazism boldly on display is proof of healthy freedom.
People are looking for Blues Brothers simplistic depictions of goose-stepping soldiers marching around with swastikas waving, instead of recognizing far more dangerous rhetoric about invasion, gradual institutional capture and political targeting with state violence. Look at Italy on this chart:
The mechanics of using troops to protect violent political enforcement agents in ICE while criminalizing resistance, all bypassing normal governance through unitary executive chaos, are… unmistakable five-alarm sirens telling you that authoritarian consolidation in America happening right now and fast.