Tell Gov. Newsom: Reject Trump's threat to send in the U.S. military!
California Governor Gavin Newsom
Sacramento Office: (916) 445-2841
NOTE: Below is the abridged contact script, but we provide more talking points for a personalized email as well. If you are writing an email, use your own words!
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
I urge Governor Newsom to resist Trump’s military rule by doing the following:
Please do not use the National Guard to suppress protests. If anything, the National Guard should monitor local police and work to protect Californians’ rights to peaceable assembly and free speech.
Please do not ask Trump to federalize the National Guard. California can protect itself; we don’t need to put Trump in charge.
Lastly, if Trump orders the US military to attack residents of California, including those exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceable assembly, I call on you to file for an immediate emergency restraining order and injunction against that action in federal court.
Context
On Monday, June 1, Trump said from in front of the White House:
Today I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law-enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled.
If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.
This is a direct threat to use the military to suppress protest across the country.
We need Governor Newsom to stand up and reject this imposition of federal authority in an attempt to suppress protest.
Talking points
In this case, it's best to send an email in which you establish your factual basis and list off your requests. A phone call won't work well for this.
When you write an email, use your own words. The more original the letter, the less likely it is to get round-filed or counted as a form-letter duplicate of some other letter. Here are some talking points for you to weave into your message:
The protests were in response to yet another murder of an innocent Black person by cops, and have continued nationwide in response to police violence in general.
The police's aggressive, militarized response—including combat dress, armored vehicles, baton rounds (so-called “rubber bullets”), CS gas, and in Minneapolis's case, a Predator drone operated by US Customs and Border Protection—has inflamed tensions and escalated the situation. It was never a response to violent protests; it brought violence to protests.
All of this is to say: Militarized policing is the cause of violence at protests, not the solution to it. Do not send in the National Guard to shut down protests—deploying even harsher force will mean more violence at protests, not less. It will exacerbate the problem, not solve it.
Trump says he “strongly recommended to every governor” that they “establish an overwhelming law-enforcement presence”, and that if they refuse, he “will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them”.
Let's be clear: “solve the problem for them” means “order the United States military to attack US residents”.
Please do not use the National Guard to suppress protests. If anything, the National Guard should monitor local police and work to protect Californians’ rights to peaceable assembly and free speech.
Please do not ask Trump to federalize the National Guard. California can protect itself; we don’t need to put Trump in charge.
Lastly, if Trump orders the US military to attack residents of California, including those exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech and peaceable assembly, I call on you to file for an immediate emergency restraining order and injunction against that action in federal court.
We need California to resist Trump's military rule. We need you to resist Trump's military rule. Will you do that?
Background
We've seen more than 100 incidents of cops attacking reporters, in among numerous other incidents of cops starting violence at peaceful protests and escalating violence beyond any pretense of proportionality or respect for innocent people's lives or rights. So protesters don't have a choice in whether a protest remains peaceful: They can do their part to keep things peaceful, and the cops will still declare an “unlawful assembly” or cite a curfew, throw CS gas and shoot baton rounds, and turn a peaceful protest into a “riot”.
So “establish an overwhelming law-enforcement presence” is clearly not the solution to violence at protests—it's a major, if not the major, cause of violence.
The correct way to bring the nationwide protests to a swift and permanent end would be to end police violence against innocent civilians, particularly Black people. And make no mistake, they are all innocent: Up until conviction of a crime in a court of law, every person is presumed innocent under our Constitution, and law enforcement—sworn to uphold the Constitution—must treat them accordingly. (And no, a prior conviction doesn't count.)
Killing innocent people should be immediate grounds for a full and independent investigation, murder charges, and a sentence appropriate to those charges. One key step in that direction would be ending qualified immunity.
The way Trump has just demanded governors take to end the protests is to crack down on them by doubling down on militarized force: either through the National Guard, or by Trump himself imposing the US military.
He made this demand while having federal authorities gas protesters in Washington, D.C., so he could head over to a church—where clergy had been distributing medical supplies to protesters—and stand in front of that church holding a Bible.
Here is what was happening outside the White House as President Trump was giving his Rose Garden address and saying he is an “ally of all peaceful protestors.” Peaceful protestors being tear gassed outside of the WH gates. I confirmed because I was teargassed along with them.
—Yamiche Alcindor, PBS NewsHour
Making the police response to the protests even more militarized by imposing an actual military is exactly the wrong response. It will increase, not decrease, violence; encourage more radical elements (including warmongering “Boogaloo Bois”) to turn out to violently oppose the crackdown; and do less than nothing to resolve the problems of police impunity and brutality that motivated this wave of protests in the first place.
We know why Trump wants to do this: He wants to rule over us, not as residents in a free country but as subjects to his dominion. Dissent must not be tolerated; when people take to the streets to petition their government for redress of grievances, he expects local authorities to “dominate” the streets to repress them, and if they refuse, as he flatly stated on Monday, he will “solve the problem for them”.
So if that's how it's going to be, California needs to do its part to resist. We are now at a point, more than ever, where “resist” is more than a hashtag; it is a commitment to obstruct tyranny and defend us from all enemies, foreign and domestic.