After LA, Trump hard launches new First Amendment: Only MAGA can protest | Opinion
Rule No. 1: No protesting unless it's something Trump wants you to protest.
President Donald Trump and his band of faux-macho nogoodniks keep poking the city of Los Angeles, hoping it will squeal and create the kind of violent theater that gives right-wing media its life force.
First they sent in the National Guard to address predominantly peaceful anti-ICE protests, but the sprawling city failed to adequately burn. Now they're sending in U.S. Marines to get the job done.
It's an intentional, dangerous and wholly unnecessary provocation. And based on how Trump and other Republicans have reacted to the ongoing protests, we should all be clear on the administration's new rules for protesting in America.
Rule No. 1: No protesting unless it's something Trump wants you to protest
For those who engage in liberal activities like reading and “seeing things with your own eyes and believing they’re real,” it might seem odd that the man who praised Jan. 6 insurrectionists as "great patriots" and then pardoned them all has the gall to call LA protesters “insurrectionists.”
Technically, there’s nothing about the California protests that would make them an insurrection, while everything about the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, an effort to overturn a free-and-fair election, made it an actual insurrection.
But that kind of fact-based thinking is now illegal, and protesters in Los Angeles and elsewhere need to understand that the First Amendment only applies to things Trump and Republicans want to hear.
As border czar Tom Homan said on June 9 about the LA protesters: “I said many times, you can protest. You get your First Amendment rights. But when you cross that line, you put hands on an ICE officer, or you destroy property or ICE says you impede law enforcement … that's a crime. And the Trump administration is not going to tolerate it.”
Correct. Unless you’re a pro-Trump protester.
In which case, breaking into a federal building, beating the snot out of police officers and destroying property is patriotic and easily pardonable.
Rule No. 2: Protesters can only use American flags
Video of California protesters waving flags from Mexico and other countries really upset a number of Republicans who have apparently never been in Boston on St. Patrick’s Day.
Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma said: “This is an American city, and to be able to have an American city where we have people literally flying Mexican flags and saying 'you cannot arrest us' cannot be allowed.”
If those protesters were waving a good old-fashioned American flag, it would be an entirely different story. But in Trump’s America, flag choice matters.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called out “left-wing radicals carrying foreign flags.”
Vice President JD Vance declared on social media: “Insurrectionists carrying foreign flags are attacking immigration enforcement officers.”
MIND THE FLAGS, PEOPLE! The rule seems pretty clear. Your First Amendment right only allows you to carry an American flag, unless you are a Trump supporter during an actual insurrection, in which case you can carry a Confederate flag, replace an American flag with a Trump flag or use an American flag on a pole to beat a police officer.
Rule No. 3: No spitting on or disrespecting law enforcement officers
In response to some LA protesters allegedly spitting on authorities, Trump declared on social media June 9: “ ‘If they spit, we will hit.’ This is a statement from the President of the United States concerning the catastrophic Gavin Newscum inspired Riots going on in Los Angeles. The Insurrectionists have a tendency to spit in the face of the National Guardsmen/women, and others. These Patriots are told to accept this, it’s just the way life runs. But not in the Trump Administration. IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”
Some might respond to this by saying, “But the Jan. 6 insurrectionists whom you pardoned en masse did a lot more than just spit. They brutally attacked police officers, physically injuring more than 140 of them.”
To which Trump would probably say: “Shut up. Your First Amendment rights are hereby revoked!”
Or he might say what he actually said when he pardoned hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters after he was inaugurated Jan. 20: “These are people who actually love our country, so we thought a pardon would be appropriate.”
To clarify, the people who Trump thinks love this country, demonstrated by them loving him, are allowed to express that love by defacing a federal building they broke into and viciously assaulting police officers.
People who Trump thinks don’t love the country, demonstrated by them exercising their First Amendment right to protest things he doesn’t want them to protest, will be beaten up for spitting.
Follow Trump's protesting rules, or he'll call in the troops
It’s clear as mud, folks.
Americans across the country should feel free to get out and protest, as long as it’s for the right reasons and done in a way that aligns completely with the beliefs of Republicans and the Trump administration.
Anything outside of that and they’ll call in the National Guard. And the Marines. And, I guess, the flag police?
Follow Paste BN columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @rexhuppke.bsky.social and on Facebook at facebook.com/RexIsAJerk