How Many Divisions Gavin Newsom Has
Reflecting on the anti-ICE protests and what's coming
Donald Trump illegally deployed as of June 9, 2025, Task Force 51 in Downtown LA to assist firstly in immigration enforcement and secondly to repress any resistance from the local populace. TF 51, comprised of about 700 Marines and about 2000 further CA National Guards illegally nationalized, is currently engaged in both enforcement and repression activities alongside the LAPD, the LA Sheriffs, and a vast and wide array of additional local and state police.
The mobilization of the Marine Corps and the nationalization of the National Guard both violate the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, specifically. And they do, spectacularly! Soldiers are not supposed to do law enforcement on domestic territory (but they do on foreign soil, just a side note), and national guardsmen are only ever nationalized during a declared emergency or insurrection, neither of which have happened. Trump just unilaterally commanded soldiers (under the nominal authority of the governor, Gavin Newsom) to leave their barracks, march down to LA, and perform law enforcement activities. It's outrageous! And the first time since 1965 that this was done without a Governor's consent!
To be clear: Trump likely hasn't violated the spirit of the constitution, at least not how his buddies on the high courts would see it. He's violated the sticky norms and administrative procedures, yes, the specific texts of specific laws. But he is still commander in chief, and that alone (in his mind at least, and likely in the Supreme Court's) will be enough. Will Congress impeach? Of course not.
Laws no longer have any effect on Trump's calculus (any man who leads a failed self-coup should be seen as constitutionally incapable of following any other law!). His only form of restraint appears to be public and market backlash. For the latter first, they are spooked and braced, as Elon Musk put it, for a recession in the latter half of this year. Maybe it will stick and last, crippling Trump but maybe it won't. He's clearly betting it won't, and thus plows ahead.
As for popular resentment: we've seen protests against Trump 2.0 since January. They really picked up in April with the DOGE firings and further threats. Then as tariffs bit and Trump focused his energies abroad, May was a somewhat quiet month. It's been these protests against ICE that have really kicked up public resentment against Trump.
Let's be clear about one thing: the Los Angeles Counter-ICE Protests were huge but they do not yet compare to other anti-Trump protests we saw in Trump 1. And now 6 days into it, the energy definitely seems to be dying down. All of which to say, Trump going to preschools to kidnap kids, going to taquerias to kidnap chefs as they're prepping meals for the community, going to hospitals to kidnap 9 month pregnant women: all of that is going to prove massively unpopular. Should he repeat it in other Latino communities especially in the South, that will be the end of the Republican Party's recent inroads with Latinos for a generation.
But… no. I hate that statement, that statement above, of couching this in baseball, horse-race politics is so-cutesy gloss to what is genuinely a frightening, possibly epochal moment. It definitely is tragic, for the countless people and their loved ones being disappeared off our streets right now, by masked men in unmarked vans, wearing no uniforms. This is fascism! It is here! There may not well be another election and I do think that is worth considering.
On June 14, Trump is assembling thousands of soldiers in Washington DC, soldiers that have all been pre-screened for loyalty, for a military parade ostensibly for the Army's birthday, in reality for his own birthday, and possibly, just maybe, for something far more sinister. Congress is out of town this Saturday, as they are every Saturday.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of ICE paramilitaries are stationed across the country, backed up by national guardsmen and local police (more on that in a second). Trump and his goons have already threatened multiple times to arrest Gavin Newsom, and have in fact already arrested the mayor of Newark and a congressmember (likely test cases, all).
This could be it, folks. Trump has all the pieces lined up for a military coup. Loyal troops? Check. Congress out? Check. Paramilitaries? Check check check. Checkmate?
Or not. Maybe June 14 will just go down as yet another ruinously expensive and wasteful military parades in armed warfare's history. Maybe nothing happens at all! Maybe ICE does all their arrests, there are protests, there are rallies, and it really is all just horserace politics all over again. Trump up 2, Trump down 2 and we're back to the grand old megamagalopolis, one more week down, with millions poorer, deader, and angrier, with nothing to show for it. Or maybe: it really is the end of America, Americana, pax or not. The least civil of all wars…
Which brings us back, in turn, to Governor Gavin Newsom.
Hasan Piker, darling of the populist Left, journalist supreme, commentator elite, and man with large biceps yet tiny head, yelped on his June 10, 2025 stream that Gavin Newsom needed to do more, insinuating he desired a more martial response. Indeed, I and many others sympathize with this. Not that we many harbor any Reb’ sympathies, we're stars and bars (til the stars and bars bleed crimson, at least, and definitely ‘afores we plead fealty to the anti-constitutional brown brigades currently illegally occupying the White House with their Orange stench!) through and through.
But we have to wonder, as residents and denizens of our beloved state (flawed and marred by hypocrisy though she be, with our soil thicked-thin in the blood of martyred Indigenous), and furthermore joined by many others beyond our craggy borders who wish to live in a system of constitutional laws and orders, as peoples who are violently aghast at jack-booted thugs tearing up our pavement and our families, if there is not an ounce of courage in the good Governor's bosom?
But that raises a question, and I think it gets to the heart of why Mr Newsom has responded in the way that he has. For he has let loose a cannonade of speeches and declarations. At this moment, the local court clerks of Sacramento and Los Angeles find their desks besieged with lawsuit after lawsuit, denouncing and decrying the military invasion of downtown LA. As for actual men though, men with guns? He has sent none, for he has none.
The question! How many divisions does Gavin Newsom have? The sad answer: not a one. Not just a division, I mean, no man whatsoever. The Pope has the Swiss Guard at least, and in true desperation tens of thousands of the surrounding Catholic faithful would die with but a command from his Papal Eminence. Newsom does not have a single, solitary soldier in the whole of his massive province. A king without an army is perhaps no king at all!
If Gavin Newsom ordered tomorrow, today, any time, that he considered (as he perhaps ought to anyways) any ICE detention to be unlawful kidnappings, that the national guard was hereby instead ordered to detain ICE agents, what would happen next? Realistically, ICE and DHS would move to immediately arrest Newsom and the military, as would be smart for them, would sit it out at best. At worst, they'd march with ICE to Sacramento to arrest the governor. After all, the officer corps, given a choice between keeping their careers and lives, versus an uncertain outcome with an unpopular Democratic governor, would choose, perhaps as many as 90%, to do the former.
Local police and the CHP would be no help either. Beyond their clear far right allegiances, they'd quickly do the math, squad car by squad car, department by department, that they cannot resist the federal government. So, what then? Private security? Mercenaries? Hah! No one, not a man, is willing to die for Gavin Newsom, in perhaps the entire state.
Which is a shame, not because Gavin Newsom is worth dying for (least of all him!) but that the cause of resisting a fascist takeover most certainly is. So, I'd like to give some free advice to Mr Newsom and his team.
The premise is simple. Right now Gavin Newsom has no cards. Trump could have him arrested and shot tomorrow just as surely as he wipes his nose. So to prevent that from happening, you have to set a little something up. Maybe you use it offensively, maybe it’s just a Chekov's gun on the counter, making Trump ponder when it will go off. It never hurts to be prepared, either way.
So here's what you do. Have the State Legislature pass a law placing the governor in command of a State Rapid Emergency Force (ostensibly to deal with natural disasters). The goal would be to raise 30,000 volunteers in the first few weeks and 300,000 in total by Winter 2025-2026. The volunteers will not be an official militia or military (preventing their nationalization), and instead will be private subcontractors. Salaries (high-paid, full benefits) and equipment (modern drones, light arms, AA, AT, and light mechanized) to be sourced by NGOs and private donors as well as state matching funds. Training will come from veterans of the many global wars currently raging.
Then, when ICE starts deporting people again, when Trump starts threatening your arrest, anyone's unconstitutional arrest, you have something up your sleeve other than just meek lawsuits and speeches. Either way, the choice is yours.