A big birthday bash with little to cheer

June 14 may well turn out to be a day of reckoning for US democracy and the supremacy of its Constitution.

The protests in California—against the crackdown on migrants by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—have only intensified and assumed larger political dimensions. They erupted on June 6 and spread to major cities.

Saturday, also President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday, saw more protests across the US amid an intense debate on what is seen as an abuse of presidential powers.

This was also a day Trump hosted a military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army in Washington DC, a 45-million dollar pageantry of military power.

The parade, with the pervasive presence and prints of Trump, is seen as another polarising spectacle of might that does not befit a democracy like the US.

ICE’s sweeping crackdown on hundreds of migrants and the militarisation of this process, combined with deployment of 4,000 National Guards troops and 700 Marines to suppress the protests in Los Angeles, seems to be a deliberate provocation to demonise democratic dissent.

Critics of the action note that protests against the raids on undocumented migrants were limited to a few locations and were largely peaceful. The countermeasure, however, has escalated the crisis.

Dismissing legitimate objections by California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, President Trump has unleashed militarised federal interference. This face-off, beyond the outcomes of sporadic protests against excesses of executive power, is also a larger conflict over the foundations of democracy.

It is not clear, yet, if Trump has plans to deploy troops in other centres of protest but what is palpable is a resistance building across political affiliations.

It is also hard to miss the irony—Trump’s mobs attacked Capitol Hill in January 2021, and the rioters were granted a presidential pardon by Trump, himself a convicted felon on 34 counts.

The occupant of the White House is now all but inciting chaos and disorder by transgression, projecting himself as the one defending America to make it great again.

It would be laughable were it not for the grim situation unfolding across the 50 states amid fears of the US National Guard and Marines being used at home against their own people.

This has given rise to the perception of the military being politicised for asserting the President’s authority. The assertion can only worsen the confrontation between the administration and the protesters. This has been a birthday show with little to cheer.