Political Memes

The dumbass takes pleasure in seeing people fighting and dying for what he perceives as his sake.

The National Guard IS the state guard. That's it's official title. Perhaps you're confusing them for the Reserves, which is a federal militia that's only activated as needed.

But the president can activate the National Guard as a federal entity under his control.

When they say Trump is calling in the National Guard, he's not deploying troops to the state; they're already there. He's just activating them and "deploying" them wherever he needs them in the state.

The big problem here is that activating means putting them on active duty (same status as federal military troops) and giving them active duty pay and benefits. But Trump and Pete Hegseth are not currently paying them (claiming the pay will come later) and trying to limit their deployed status so they don't need to pay them full deployment benefits.

It's like a business ensuring you only work 39 hours a week so they don't have to give you medical benefits or full-time employment status. If they don't fix it soon, the National Guard may just join the protestors.

Which may be why Trump is sending in the US Marines too; to keep the National Guard in line. Or he's throwing a bunch of conflicting groups together to start a civil war so he can jump-start his dictatorship. This is how it always starts; declare martial law, deploy troops to every major city to seize control, then start making changes to laws and citizen's rights across the books, with no one able to stop him through courts or uprisings.

Source: I'm a retired US Air Force veteran. Spent 20 years in active duty service, the last few years under Trump's first term. It was an absolute nightmare and we hoped he was gone for good. But here we are again, and he doesn't have a majority Democrat govt to keep him on a leash this time, so we're in for a rough ride.

The President's unlawful order infringes on Governor Newsom's role as Commander-in-Chief of the California National Guard and violates the state's sovereign right to control and have available its National Guard in the absence of a lawful invocation of federal power.
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/12/high-ranking-u-s-military-officials-agree-trumps-takeover-of-los-angeles-is-illegal/

The California National Guard (Cal Guard) is part of the National Guard of the United States, a dual federal–state military reserve force in the state of California.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_National_Guard

The California State Guard (CSG) is a reserve military force that supports the California National Guard (CNG) and the California Military Department (CMD) by enhancing their readiness for both state and federal responsibilities.
https://calguard.ca.gov/csg/

(Interesting, I didn't see any markup tools till I edited it (still seems to be italicizing quotes instead of showing as quotes). New to piefed (part of the new to lemm.ee diaspora), not usually directly on piefed via browser but using Pferd and Interstellar on phone.)

National guard, called in and federalized. Nothing to do with state guard

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/nx-s1-5428071/los-angeles-protests-national-guard-presidential-powers

Trump's presidential memoranda argued that the National Guard deployment was necessary and defendable as these [...] demonstrations "constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States."

A couple other people provided the info for your questions but bear in mind that although he is able to do so, the conditions set by the legal bits allowing it were not met and are being challenged. This is why Marines are being sent in addition to NG troops. If the NG deployment is negated, there's not as much that can be done for a deployment of federal troops.

The NG actually is the militia. They're normally state level but can be called up to federal level for reasons that are currently being badly misused.

They'll make him the candidate whether you see it or not. The primary process is not democratic.

I am aware that filing a lawsuit is a good idea to attempt to handle this via... our perhaps still somewhat legitimate legal system at this point?

But it very likely will not be sufficient on its own... and this entire situation is still very, very likely to end in bloodshed, lawsuit or not.