Marching Toward Madness: Trump’s Birthday War

As Trump fantasizes about kingship and military parades, peaceful Angelenos expose the ugly truth: fear is his weapon, and we are his defiance.

Guest article by Michael Cohen

If you believed Donald Trump’s latest doomsday drivel, you’d think Los Angeles had transformed into Fallujah overnight. He’s once again trying to terrify the public into submission—waving around imaginary violence like a toddler with a sparkler, screaming that the streets of LA are “under siege” and that, without him, the city would be a smoldering pile of liberal rubble.

But here’s the inconvenient truth for Trump and his dystopian fantasy factory: Los Angeles isn’t on fire. The only thing burning is his credibility—assuming there’s any left to ignite.

Let’s look at the facts. Not “alternative facts.” Not Fox News panic porn. Real facts—straight from the source.

LA County District Attorney Nate Hochman delivered the truth with surgical precision this week: protests over the latest round of ICE deportation raids have been overwhelmingly peaceful. Out of a population of nearly 11 million, just 400 people have been involved in any form of vandalism or unrest. That’s 0.0036%. Do the math, folks—99.99% of Angelenos haven’t done a damn thing wrong.

So why is Trump foaming at the mouth and deploying federalized troops like he’s Napoleon on meth? Because he wants violence. He needs chaos. He feeds off the illusion of mayhem like a vampire with a Twitter account. If he can’t find real enemies, he’ll invent them—brown-skinned ones, preferably. And in this case, he’s targeting the same people who kept the country running when he was hiding in the White House bunker during the pandemic.

Take Jeannette Sanchez-Palacios, mayor of Ventura. She said it best:

“We condemn the separation of immigrant families. No one deserves to live in fear simply for seeking a better life... These people are also human; at the basic level.”

But that’s the thing—Trumpism doesn’t recognize humanity. It recognizes leverage. Immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, are the perfect scapegoats. They can’t vote, they rarely have a voice in mainstream media, and they’re easy to vilify to a base more loyal to fear than fact.

And then there’s Cynthia Gonzalez, vice mayor of Cudahy, who eviscerated the propaganda with one brutal truth:

“They’re using our brown bodies to avoid the conversation that this administration is a failure.”

There it is. Game, set, and deportation match. Trump’s latest ICE raids aren’t about national security; they’re about national distraction. While Medicaid is being gutted, Social Security is hanging by a thread, and corporate greed is bleeding the middle class dry, Trump wants you looking the other way. At the father being dragged from his kids. At the mother detained on her way to work. That’s not policy. That’s sadism dressed as nationalism.

And let’s not forget the performative muscle-flexing that followed. After manufacturing a crisis that didn’t exist, Trump ordered Marines and the National Guard into LA as if they were storming Omaha Beach. According to Mayor Karen Bass, the move was “drastic, chaotic, and completely unnecessary.”

She nailed it. You don’t send armored caravans down residential streets unless your goal is intimidation—not safety. This isn’t about protecting communities. It’s about provoking them. Trump wants to create a scene—just enough unrest, just enough pushback, that he can shout “anarchy” into a camera and declare himself the only man who can restore order.

But here’s the plot twist: the people aren’t playing his game.

The protests in LA are disciplined. Organized. Resilient. They're rejecting not only Trump’s militarized tactics but the dehumanization they represent. And they’re not alone.

Now, let’s talk about the storm clouds forming over Trump’s most sacred day of the year—his birthday. While he plans to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue like a dictator on loan from Pyongyang, more than 1,800 organized protests are set to erupt across the country under the banner: NO KINGS.

The irony is divine. As Trump attempts to cosplay as George Washington—minus the honesty, humility, and leadership—the people will be rising up like it’s 1776 all over again. But this time, the revolution isn’t against a monarch across the ocean. It’s against the wannabe king sitting in Washington.

And it’s poetic, isn’t it? While Trump tries to drown out the truth with tanks and flags and choreographed adoration, the streets—including those of Los Angeles—will speak louder. Not with violence, but with defiance. Not with chaos, but with clarity.

Trump wants to rewrite reality. But the people of LA—and across this country—aren’t buying the script. They see the con. They see the cruelty. And they see through the smoke.

So while the birthday boy stands in the center of his little parade, demanding loyalty and licking frosting from his fingers, the country will be marching in a different direction—toward justice, truth, and a very loud reminder that:

We don’t do kings here.

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