Ex-Trump insider Lev Parnas over the weekend noted the situation surrounding the Los Angeles protests, saying “the clock is ticking” as Trump has “troops in the streets, tanks on standby, and plans to crush the resistance.”
“I know a lot of you woke up this morning in shock—staring at the footage out of Los Angeles, asking yourselves: How could this happen? Is this real? Is this really happening in the United States of America? But let me be clear, folks—this is real. It is happening. And I need you to know that my sources deep inside Trump World have been warning me that what we witnessed overnight was no isolated event. It’s part of something much bigger. And what I have to tell you today is chilling,” he wrote.
“Yesterday, when Donald Trump deployed over 2,000 federal troops into Los Angeles under the justification of ‘restoring order,’ most headlines ran with it like it was some isolated act of retaliation—just another example of Trump punishing blue states. And yes, part of this is personal. Make no mistake: this is revenge against California, against Governor Gavin Newsom, and against Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. But it’s not just about settling scores.”
According to Parnas, in reality, “This is about control.”
“What happened yesterday in Los Angeles was a test run—a dry rehearsal for something much, much bigger. I’ve been hearing from multiple trusted insiders that Trump’s inner circle—particularly Pete Hegseth and some of the more radicalized loyalists embedded at the Pentagon—are actively drafting operational plans for the mass mobilizations expected on June 14th,” he added. “This isn’t just about Trump’s birthday. This isn’t just about another vanity parade. This is about shutting down resistance.”
Parnas added that Trump “fears the American people rising up on June 14th, in all 50 states, with signs that say No Kings—with voices that remind the world that we are still a democracy.”
“That’s why he’s pushing for tanks. That’s why he wants the biggest military display America has seen since the Cold War. Because he wants the optics of power. He wants to smother the story before it even begins. He wants his parade to dominate the headlines, not the marchers in the streets fighting for democracy,” he said. “But I need you to understand this: According to my sources, there are discussions happening right now—within Trump’s most trusted circle—about invoking martial law if the protests ‘get out of hand.’ They’re looking for any excuse. Any video. Any act of violence. Any disruption. That’s all they need to justify a crackdown.”
He then warned people not to fall for a trap being set by Trump associates.
“And it gets worse. What I’m being told is that Trump allies—including elements connected to Proud Boys, III Percenters, and other far-right militia networks—are planning to infiltrate the June 14th protests. Not to support them. To sabotage them. Their goal? Create chaos. Spark confrontation. Trigger a response from law enforcement. And then hand Trump the justification he needs to clamp down,” Parnas wrote. “Let me say this loud and clear: We cannot give them that excuse.”
Parnas went on to encourage peace, and told protesters to “stay vigilant.”
The plan is pretty fucking obvious, you don’t need an insider to tell you what someone who signposts their every amateur fascist move, will do.
Apparently you do. I was getting downvoted all weekend for saying that violent resistance was a trap. Maybe it’ll make a difference coming from someone with Trump’s playbook.
Violent resistance is inevitable in the conditions that have been purposefully curated to induce violent resistance so… yes you are right.
Also it is a very late stage of this coup of democracy here so… im not gonna waste too much breath on it, just focus on effective nonviolent resistance.
Sure, but if we take to violence with less than 1% of our population, we’ll just lose numbers and scare people from future protests. Our largest protest was only 1.5% at 5M nationwide, and that included a lot of elderly people who wouldn’t join in a fight.
The goal remains increasing our numbers. Talk to people in person, your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends who don’t follow politics. The days of not discussing politics in polite society are over.
You don’t need violence per se, as much as the threat of it. Take the 2014 Maidan protests; the cops were happy to set up a sniper corridor along the planned peaceful march route and cut down unarmed protestors. That night the protestors announced they’d be coming back tomorrow, only all of them armed with guns. Cops today might be militarized, but that’s nothing in the face of 90,000 people with guns, and they know it, so they miraculously found somewhere else to be the next day and nobody got shot.
Agreed. You don’t threaten ICE with a handful of people throwing rocks and M80s. That excites them. You threaten them with a large group of people they’re incapable of controlling.
That’s pretty impressive, is there an article I can read about this?
There’s a really good documentary on it called “Winter on Fire”. The full thing is available on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w
The calls for violent revolt also tend to feel very scripted and forced. And nanosecond reply times as well the moment anyone advocate to not take the bait.
We know what the fascist playbook is. Fascists always use the same playbook.
He wants to declare martial law and then have the military kill all dissenters.
Same as what happened with Hitler
Same with Stalin
Same with Mao
Same with Mussolini
Same with Netanyahu
Same with Trump
Exactly. If we are non-violent, we are not a domestic threat. The military will not attack us. ICE, however, are unhinged deputized insurrectionists and white supremacists on ego trips.
You are incredibly naive if you think they can’t manufacture an excuse no matter how docile we are.
I’m fully aware. This was from the other night in LA.
https://files.catbox.moe/01bkj4.mov
I’m saying not to incite violence because it will reduce numbers to incarceration and fear of unsafe protest conditions, while providing the footage they need to call us ‘domestic terrorists.’
The military just shot an Australian reporter who was live reporting and non-violent.
The military just shot an Australian reporter who was live reporting and non-violent.
And a British reporter.
And arrested a CNN reporter while he was live on the air.
Yup. That happened yesterday. It was an LAPD officer. They’re no better than ICE. You won’t see military personnel, like National Guard, fire on a reporter.
This whole article reads like https://theonion.com/protesters-urged-not-to-give-trump-administration-pretext-for-what-it-already-doing/
They’re going to use ANY excuse to do this. They’re literally advertising that they’re going to use instigators to make sure they get the videos they need to do what they’re going to do anyways
These things aren’t won with peaceful protesting alone. We need both mass peaceful action and targeted violence.
They’re going to suppress us as if we did both anyways, might as well make progress.
There’s no need to go as far back as Tank Man when there are lots of cases where US pigs actually ran over protesters and got paid vacation. And they have bigger tanks than those old Type 59s lol
Oh for sure. Here are two from just this weekend. One was on horseback.
I’m posting for the standing up to the tanks that traitor trump is threatening
Just one human and no crowd.
The uncropped photo is more impressive and has a lot more impact IMO.
What’s our alternative? Roll over and let the fascists take over?
Peaceful resistance and outreach until we have the numbers. A small violent resistance will be incarcerated, dissuading people from protest out of fear for their safety, and play into the narrative that we are domestic threats justifying the Insurrection Act. It’s exactly how the Reichstag Fire emboldened Hitler against the communists.
Isn’t this post taking about how peaceful protests are going to be used as cover by bad actors to make violent protests?
So, no violent protests. No peaceful protests. What’s left to us?
I think the message was “be prepared to de-escalate provocations during protests”
I suppose I can see that. Aside from the advice elsewhere in this page to “just sit down,” is there any general advice on how to do that?
I don’t know
Fortunately
but maybe “yet”…I Ducked https://activisthandbook.org/wellbeing/deescalation maybe one of the sources would be helpful?
EDIT: purely what I (from my chair) think might work: (of course, don’t step outside your own boundaries, safety etc)
- address the provocateur - to redirect the emotions from the police, so situationally it’s not their place to respond anymore
- be calm and try to address that this is not the way we want to protest. “I understand that you are angry. I am too. But this is not the way we can change things, violence is not the answer…” - to dissipate the anger put out by the provocateur so it’s not picked up by non-provocateurs
- probably if those will be organized, they will be moving in packs and pairs, so when you address one guy, another one will try to pick up the anger. That’s why it’s important that many of protesters are aware that provocations might be taking place and be ready to back you up with calming down
EDIT2:
- if you are successful they will be trying to trigger you. Be mindful of your tone and body language - your role is not to convince them, but to affect the mood around you. We are social creatures, the point is to not get to the point of a pack of angry wolves
- remember that they don’t have to be a provocateur, they might be just a protester that is that angry at the situation. Be respectful, don’t get into accusation/blame game
- remember that provocateurs don’t have to be bald burly men
The IWW used to have members pull security to route out planted agent provocateurs that were starting shit in mass strikes or protests. We will need that again.
Good to know anything we can about fascist infiltration into the resistance and agent provocateurs, but the implication that protesters can do anything to stop these plans seems incorrect to me. If a proud boy or whoever dresses up as a protester and torches a cop car or whatever, there’s nothing protesters can really do to stop it. The people who will need to be vigilant are the media and lawmakers who will be pressured into condemning the protests as a whole because of the actions of these infiltrator assholes.
The media and lawmakers all serve capitalism, they won’t help us
There’s a thing going around on Facebook saying that if violence starts, you should just sit down in place. If all of the actual protesters do that, it’ll be pretty obvious the violence is coming from provacateurs.
Don’t fucking sit down. That’s terrible advice. Cops beat the shit out of compliant protesters all the time. Fight back or run away. If you’re not capable of either then you’ve already missed your chance at contributing to the movement.
Okay, first I think it needs to be said that this is a complex and difficult situation that really doesn’t leave us with any good options either way, and I think both sides of this debate have people with good intentions behind them.
Second, this
Cops beat the shit out of compliant protesters all the time.
is true and something people need to be aware of.
However, third, it needs to be said that
Fight back
will absolutely get the shit beaten out of you unless you got an army in your back pocket I somehow haven’t heard about yet.
Fourth,
Fight back or run away. If you’re not capable of either then you’ve already missed your chance at contributing to the movement.
Bullshit. Every news story picture and video that shows protesters getting attacked and arrested is an incredibly powerful piece of evidence showing the consequences of rising fascism in America that’s going to be harder and harder for the people who are trying to ignore all this stuff to tune out. Even the selfish asshole centrist dipshits who don’t care about immigrant rights and just want everything to settle down are going to see that this unrest can’t be beaten into submission and efforts to do so just make the protests bigger, and that’s when those people are going to turn on the fascists and say “Look, I was willing to give up civil liberties for law and order, but you can’t even give us that.” (we’re already seeing talk like that out of Gavin Newsom).
Personally, I say if you’re in a protest and cops start attacking, run away if you can or sit down if you can’t, because I don’t feel comfortable asking people to just turn themselves over to the mercy of law enforcement who may very well do permanent injury to them, but I have nothing but respect for the people who do make that sacrifice for this movement, and the notion that people being arrested aren’t contributing is absolute bullshit.
Dumb idea. cops won’t leave the sitters alone they’ll go after them first because cops are pussies who look for the easiest way off the clock
Be vigilant means when someone is breaking windows before the protest even starts… to remember what you just read.
What you do when it happens, or even less mundane events that happen every day, is up to you.
“Maybe you do not care much about the future of the Republican Party. You should. Conservatives will always be with us. If conservatives become convinced that they can not win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. The will reject democracy.”
I dunno. That last bit seems a bit much. I don’t see these cowards pulling a Tiananmen Sq.
However, speaking of militias, or rather speaking to militias - THIS is the intent of a Well Regulated Militia - to fight authoritarianism. Had you taken an oath, as a member of a Well Regulated Militia, Trumpism would be your target.
Unregulated militias, militias not authorized by the state, are not constitutionally protected and are outlawed in all fifty states. States should have been pressing charges against the Proud Boys, et al. Now they’ve been empowered and here we are. The groups pseudo-defined by their obligation to personal liberty are the fascists.
But the rest of this, yeah. That’s what we’ve been expecting since November. Shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. What we really should be concerned with is how people keep getting dumber and accepting the lies told by this administration and the propaganda outfits. Even the liberal news is guilty of distorting the truth.
Are you going to be surprised if an actual civil war happens? You’ve gotta be half expecting it, right?
He has used agitators in the past, he will do it again. and there is an influencer who specializes in right wing agitators.
Military plan out things. Plan for alternatives. Makes plans based on enemy response scenarios. This is all planned. They will provoke until we respond and then they will retaliate. The United States government is an active terror threat right now.
i remember the blm protests, they had specific agitators to stoke some kind of conflict, and one asian one is well known for doing it, convenient it was a vietnamese guy.
But let me be clear, folks—this is real
the — (aka “em dash”) that keep popping up in the article is a good sign it’s written by AI. I count 7 or 8 of them.
that said, it’s not crazy to think that Trump is trying to be a dictator, esp. given how he’s been pretty direct about how he wants to do that.
You can view the full report on his Substack from the link in the article. He uses them a lot in his writing. He also posts long form videos.
https://open.substack.com/pub/levremembers/p/trumps-military-move-in-la-was-just
Yeah could just be word autoformatting
Or choosing to use an em dash.
Emdashes are used in professional writing everywhere. I’m a technical writer and use it all the time. Dumb to claim it’s AI. AI use of the emdash is way easier to spot because it’s way more frequent than this.
Plenty of us real humans use em dashes.
You stay on the em dash patrol — thank you for your service!
We shall see. He was also supposed to declare martial law on April 20th.
He just wrote in an executive order that he’d have his cabinet asses the need to invoke it after 90 days. It was two part plan, had he corrupted the FBI enough to confirm that Venezuela was invading the US through violent criminal immigration. Thankfully, the FBI found no evidence to confirm his claim.
