Los Angeles curfew. Trump: protesters 'animals'. At Guantanamo thousands of illegals, including Italians

Let us be clear: the White House officially cites the 250th anniversary of the formation of the army as the occasion. An anniversary that Trump began to acknowledge with a visit to Fort Bragg. But Trump's passion for personal celebrations and his lifelong penchant for military parades is beyond doubt and makes Saturday's event a very special moment for the President. The centre of the capital, in the eyes of the administration, will be transformed into a sort of cross between a Maga party, with two hundred thousand participants expected, and a military base: 18 miles of barricades, 175 metal detectors, at a cost of at least 45 million.

On the same day, however, another America will take to the streets, under the flags of No Kings Day, the day against real or supposed kings, an express reference to the authoritarian drift being blamed on Trump. In all, demonstrations are planned in perhaps 1,500 cities.

The coming battle of events symbolises the great American crisis at hand, between a President dedicated to strengthening his executive power at the cost of social and political trauma. Numerous historians, political scientists, and constitutional experts fear a President who would invoke national emergencies, from tariffs to immigration and unrest, to actually pursue this goal. The outcome, in the streets and in public opinion, remains to be decided, despite the White House's claims of success: early polls show that a majority of voters do not like harsh raids against migrants or sending soldiers into cities. Although an emergence of growing unrest, some warn, may generate new demand for law and order.

Trump, to be sure, is conducting the dress rehearsal of his crackdowns with a full-scale deployment of war forces on home soil in Los Angeles, where to protect buildings and federal agents engaged in draconian anti-immigrant raids from protests, he has mobilised and dispatched as of today 4,000 National Guard troops requisitioned from the state of California and a battalion of 700 marines. The Pentagon confirmed that the marines have been in position since yesterday and that the cost of the mobilisation, scheduled for 60 days, will be $134 million.

The demonstrations were in fact largely peaceful, although there were a number of clashes, vandalism and vehicles set on fire. In Los Angeles 23 businesses were damaged but Mayor Karen Bass indicated that despite the curfew to ensure calm the city is not in the grip of a crisis. The law enforcement response is itself as much in question as the vandalism: several journalists have been explicitly targeted by officers and shot with non-lethal bullets, from a New York Times reporter to a British photographer to an Australian TV correspondent, prompting a condemnatory phone call from the premier of Canberra and letters of alarm from industry associations. Hundreds were arrested in numerous cities, more than 350 in five days, sometimes using violence: in Atlanta a man was knocked to the ground and hit his head against a wall.

For the time being, the troops mobilised in Los Angeles are supportive and not directly involved in law and order operations, the use of the Anti-Insurgency Act of the 19th century having been avoided so far. The administration has claimed that they are trained in de-escalation tactics and crowd management, a fact denied by many experts who point out that they are not military police units but combat units.

There is no shortage of responses to the crackdown, with stances also taken by Democratic leaders and not just demonstrators. Starting with Governor Newsom, who even before his evening televised address had described Trump's move as an 'open abuse of power' and the military mobilisation as the result of the 'mad fantasies of a dictatorial president'. He has filed an appeal in court against the legality of the use of troops, asking for an emergency decision, and a hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday.

Republicans, however, are with Trump, espousing his harsh rhetoric: House Speaker Mike Johnson said he did not know whether Newsom should be arrested for his anti-Trump stances, as suggested in recent days by the President himself, but added that he should literally be pilloried, 'tarred and feathered'. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, testifying in the House, evaded questions about the legitimacy and cost of military action by using his answers to attack Democratic leaders and declare that the operation is part of 'immigration enforcement'.

The whole crusade, anti-immigrant and for the use of armed force, appears to be intellectually inspired and led by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the political mastermind of the ultra-right currents. He gave the order, at an inter-ministerial meeting in late May reconstructed by the Wall Street Journal, to immediately multiply the quotas for mass arrests and expulsions of migrants, to the impossible goal of at least three thousand a day, which triggered the crisis in Los Angeles. 'Go and arrest illegal immigrants,' Miller pleaded.

He also pointed to new targets such as Home Depot, a colossus of tools and building materials, frequented by immigrant workers, which in Los Angeles became the first spark of chaos. He described Los Angeles as an occupied city, the protesters as insurgents, the mission as a defence of civilisation. Miller is also among the great theorists of an almost omnipotent presidency and the suspension of habeas corpus, the protections from arbitrary arrest and detention.

In the climate of tension, the American extreme right is also flooding the Internet with false images and conspiracy theories, a New York Times investigation found, targeting immigrants and opposition. These include scenes and messages portraying the protests as a liberal-democratic conspiracy by organisations promoted by George Soros, the billionaire who has always been singled out as an enemy with racist and anti-Semitic overtones: a pile of bricks (actually a photo taken in Malaysia) has become a symbol and proof of a civil war incited by Soros in extremist chats.