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The Bulwark
The Bulwark
No Kings. No Surrender.
The Triad

No Kings. No Surrender.

Shows of force can work both ways.

Jonathan V. Last's avatar
Jonathan V. Last
Jun 13, 2025
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The Bulwark
The Bulwark
No Kings. No Surrender.
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On the Secret show this morning, Sarah and I went deep on the manhandling of Sen. Alex Padilla. Spoiler: I have some accelerationist questions. . . .

The show is here.


Before we start: Maybe we’ll wake up on Monday and everything will be exactly the same. But maybe it won’t. Maybe things will have changed. Either for the worse—or for the better.

Let’s set the table with something Secretary Kristi Noem said yesterday in California:

We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.

The “we” in that statement is the federal government and its military. The “burdensome leadership” is the duly elected governor of the state of California and mayor of the city of Los Angeles.

An agent of the federal government declared her intention to “liberate” the people of California from their elected leaders.


(Composite/ Shutterstock)

1. The Future

Tomorrow millions of Americans will protest while Donald Trump continues to push the military onto the streets in an attempt to make it loyal to himself rather than the Constitution.

Something very bad could happen over the next 48 hours.

Yet having a mass of popular opposition to Trump visible this weekend is vitally important. To understand why, you need to understand who the audiences for the parade—and the protests—are.

And you need to understand how shows of force work.

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