Dems raise fears over Trump's authoritarian turn as 700 Marines arrive in LA - National & International News - TUE 10Jun2025 -

Dems raise fears over Trump’s authoritarian turn as 700 Marines arrive in LA.

Fentanyl deaths way down among young people, but will this trend survive Trump’s cuts?

LA ICE protests continue as 700 Marines arrive

About 700 US Marines have arrived in Los Angeles to work alongside over 4,000 members of California National Guard set to be deployed there. Like the National Guard, the Marines’ mission is not to engage in law enforcement activities, but to protect federal buildings and agents as they continue their immigration raids and rounding up migrants for deportation.

Protests that have raged in the city since the end of last week have continued. Yesterday evening, there were some instances of looting. However, the numbers of protesters overall have increased, as well as the numbers of individual demonstrations. The overwhelming majority of protesters and demonstrations have been entirely peaceful.

Despite the Trump administration emphasizing isolated incidents of violence and looting, the picture in LA is nowhere near as chaotic and deadly as was the case in 1992 during the Rodney King riots. This was the last time California’s National Guard was deployed in the state under the authority of the President.

The LAPD is a massive and highly militarized police force in its own right, and is more than capable of with the protests and isolated instances of looting and vandalism on their own. However, they say they are still getting little cooperation from ICE, as the agency continues their raids which inevitably provoke protests. This has left LAPD perpetually on the back foot when responding to emerging situations. This leaves no opportunity for de-escalation and increases the risks to both officers and the public.

Nevertheless, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military deployment in California would last 60 days and cost about $134 million. California has sued to halt the deployments.

Authoritarian turn- Trump using military as “personal police force”, Dems say

However, there is growing alarm about the Trump’s increasingly authoritarian tactics. Democrats in California, in Washington, and across the country have raised fears that Trump’s deployment standing military personnel, and threats to arrest California’s elected officials, betray a desire for Trump to seize greater powers of enforcement across the country.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, has accused Trump of using the military as his “personal police force”. He told NPR, “The situation was not ‘out-of-control’. It was not to the point where there was, you know, widespread violence. Local law enforcement clearly had the ability to handle what was in front of them. It’s not even really debatable”.

“So why,” Smith asks, “did the president choose to bring in troops in a situation where it was not necessary?”. Smith charges that Trump, “wanted to use the military as sort of his personal police force”. In doing so, Smith says he has created, “an incredibly dangerous situation”.

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta agrees that the situation in LA did not rise to the level which would justify Trump’s use of the military, particularly over the objections of the state’s governor Gavin Newsom. Bonta says that for that to be the case, there would have to be a full-on insurrection or rebellion, or an active invasion of enemy forces. There is nothing to indicate that either is occurring in Los Angeles. Other experts agree with Bonta’s assessment.

If any Republicans have any qualms or misgivings about Trump testing the limits of his powers to use the military on American soil, for now at least, “they are keeping it to themselves,” as Rep. Smith put it, likely out of fear of retaliation from Trump. Many Democrats are equally hesitant for fear of being seen taking sides on the immigration issue, or fears of being accused of condoning scattered instances of violence by protesters, vandals and looters.

What does Trump want?

Rep. Smith pointed out that Trump has an interest in emphasizing the immigration issue at this moment. Recent polling shows that while Trump’s numbers are slipping in other key areas, including the economy, he still has slim-majority support for his immigration policy. It’s impossible to predict whether that level of support will survive the image of uniformed military facing off against fellow citizens in the streets of our country’s second largest city.

The unrest in LA has also overshadowed recent accusations from erstwhile Trump ally Elon Musk that Trump’s name appears in the unreleased Epstein files. The immigration crackdown that led to the protests occurred only a couple of days after Musk raised the allegations on Twitter.

Another possibility is that this is a dry run for Trump’s strategy for cracking down on nationwide protests set to take place on June 14. On that day, Trump will be having a massive military parade through the streets of Washington DC. The parade is supposed to mark both flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army. It also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday.

More ICE related protests are gearing up in other cities across the country. LA may be the first but not the last city to serve as a testing ground for Trump’s “personal police force”.

Fentanyl deaths way down among young people, but will this trend survive Trump’s cuts?

In 2021, which marked the height of the fentanyl crisis, the US saw over 31,000 people under the age of 35 dying from drug overdoses. In 2024, that number had dropped to roughly 16,690, a decrease of just over 46%. This improvement has outpaced the overall reduction in drug deaths among the US population, which saw just a 27% drop in fatal overdoses across all age groups over the same period.

Experts have not pinpointed any calls for this drop in deaths, but there could be a combination of factors at work. Firstly, the drug Narcan, which can help reverse what would otherwise be a fatal overdose, is now much more widely available.

Secondly, there appears to be a trend of fewer young people engaging in risky substance use overall, after a high during the pandemic. Experts have also questioned whether the drop in overdose deaths is the result of the carnage of opioid deaths in recent decades. Many of those who were most at risk of overdosing due to lifestyle factors may have already fallen victim to previous waves of deaths.

More frontline addiction help and outreach available in communities thanks to federal initiatives under the Biden administration. The Trump administration wants to cut many of the programs that make these efforts possible. Health workers worry that these cuts could reverse the downward trend of overdose deaths among young people and the overall population.