How Protesters Became Content for the Cops

"In 2025, protest policing in major US cities increasingly took on the character of a spectacle: overwhelming deployments, theatrical staging, and aggressive crowd-control tactics that emphasized signaling power over maintaining public safety. This was not a one-off episode; it followed the deployment of federal troops into multiple Democratic-led cities, prompting lawsuits and court challenges that local leaders described, with justification, as militarized intimidation."

"After protests erupted in June over an increase in aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered roughly 4,000 federalized National Guard troops into the city and activated about 700 US Marines. At the same time, he signaled-online and through traditional media-a willingness to escalate even further by invoking the Insurrection Act. Troops stood shoulder to shoulder with long guns and riot shields as smoke canisters and crowd-control munitions blanketed highways and city streets, a posture nominally framed as deescalation"

Protest policing in major US cities in 2025 assumed a spectacle-like character, marked by overwhelming deployments, theatrical staging, and aggressive crowd-control tactics that signaled power rather than prioritized public safety. Federal troops were deployed into multiple Democratic-led cities, generating lawsuits and court challenges and prompting local leaders to describe the operations as militarized intimidation. Los Angeles saw roughly 4,000 federalized National Guard troops and about 700 US Marines after ICE-related protests, with visible postures calibrated to provoke confrontation. Pentagon officials drafted domestic use-of-force guidance contemplating temporary civilian detention. Washington, DC was placed under federal control with roughly 800 National Guard troops.

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