I want to engage in a little news necromancy to briefly look at a story from a couple of weeks ago, because I think the discourse around it quickly got lost in a "just Trump being Trump" narrative across corporate media. As widespread Gestapo workplace raids continued in California, popular resistance to both the Trumpenreich's federal occupation of Los Angeles, and ICE fascist repression across the entire country, has predictably increased. After two violent July Gestapo raids on farms in California (that left one person dead), resulted in ICE having to flee bystanders throwing rocks at their vehicles, the Swine Emperor took to his personal social media site to issue legally-dubious authorization for the Gestapo to arrest, and potentially shoot protestors.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/12/trump-authorization-immigration-enforcement
Trump authorizes Ice agents to protect themselves using ‘whatever means’ necessary
“I am giving Total Authorization for Ice to protect itself, just like they protect the Public,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday, adding that he was directing the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, and “border czar”, Tom Homan, to arrest anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) protesters who impede immigration enforcement operations.
Trump said he’s told the administrators to “instruct all Ice, Homeland Security, or any other Law Enforcement Officer who is on the receiving end of thrown rocks, bricks, or any other form of assault, to stop their car, and arrest these SLIMEBALLS, using whatever means is necessary to do so”.
The president appeared to be referring to an incident on Thursday when federal agents clashed with protesters during immigration raids on two farms in California’s Ventura county, north of Los Angeles."
There's a lot going on here, so let's just start with Trump's wording and work our way backway here.
I quoted this part of the article specifically because it quoted the Swine Emperor, and I think it's really important to see the way he seizes on one response to brutal ICE workplace raids that literally killed a guy, specifically folks throwing rocks at the windows of fleeing Gestapo vehicles, to go after everyone trying to stop an ethnic cleansing operation, even though lawful protest activity. This is intentional, and Trump's grouping of these very different forms of resistance to the Gestapo fits in well with the larger argument the Trumpenreich is making, from Tom Homan, to Troy Edgar, and even Seb Gorka, that trying to stop Gestapo kidnappings and an ethnic cleansing operation in any way at all, including nonviolent protest or simply documenting the Gestapo's activities, is effectively violent sedition, a form of terrorism, or material support for terrorists. Trump treats protestors, and outraged bystanders throwing rocks as the same thing, because in the regime's eyes they are the same thing - treason against the Trumpenreich. This pattern of establishing an alternate false worldview, and then repeatedly speaking and behaving as if it were true, is a consistently-applied method of transforming fascist fantasy into enforced reality for the Trump regime, as we've documented previously on this blog.
So, is it actually legal for the President to "authorize" ICE to start arresting protestors and using "whatever means necessary" to punish people they think "attacked" them? No, probably not. Since the Gestapo, including ICE, DHS, and CBP all pretty much answer only to the President however, I wouldn't bet on that mattering a whole fuck lot the next some some Gestapo pig decides you didn't get out of the way fast enough at an anti-ethnic cleansing protest. Furthermore, the existence of this quasi-official "gloves off" command from the Swine Emperor, takes on even more ominous tones when you remember that the fascist GOP just approved funding the Gestapo like a small army, and the hiring of at least 10,000 more nazi immigration pigs. If the Gestapo is coming to a town near you, and it is indeed evolving beyond immigration enforcement and into Trump's own personal militarized secret police force, it should probably concern you that Downmarket Mussolini is telling them to start mass arresting protestors and cracking heads in reprisal for resistance.
Finally I should note the sheer petulant reaction Trump's behavior exposes here. The Guardian carries a lot of water for the Swine Emperor in this piece by dredging up other, more serious examples of armed resistance to the Gestapo to cover his tracks, but Trump's own post makes it clear what he's mad about - folks who just watched the Gestapo frighten a man off a roof to his death, throwing bricks at Gestapo vehicle windows. In Trump's worldview, damaging a "brand new" ICE pig-mobile is a crime punishable by violence and even death, while Gestapo workplace raids that violate the US constitution, racially profile nonwhite workers, and literally murdered a guy, are "law and order."