Regarding the recent protests in Los Angeles and their impact on the United States, teleSUR spoke with James Early, member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Political Studies in Washington, DC. teleSUR
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00:00Let's now go deeper with the analysis of ongoing protests in the United States. We
00:04are joined by James Early, member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Political
00:08Studies in Washington, D.C. Welcome, James, to From the South.
00:12Thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you.
00:15It's a pleasure to have you as well. James, we have seen for nine days now protests
00:19across the nation against President Trump's migration policies and anti-migrant rhetoric.
00:24Today's come amidst Flag Day celebrations and the 250th anniversary of the Army.
00:29and are foreseen to be the largest in all 50 states.
00:33How do we get here and what do this protest action represent?
00:36Well, what we are witnessing is citizens being proactive, demanding that the people that they
00:45have elected put forth governance policies, both at the national or domestic level as well
00:53as in the international level, that reflects their interests and their desires.
00:58Specifically, we are seeing a pushback, a resistance to the racialized anti-immigrant policies,
01:08not only of the Trump administration, but of the MAGA social movement, which also occupies
01:18majority governance in major states across the United States.
01:23And while No King's Day is focused on the figure of Donald Trump, the megalomaniac that he is,
01:31the larger-than-life character that he tries to position himself as being,
01:35the larger-than-life character that he is.
01:36Underneath this is a citizen's movement, liberals, progressive radicals against the domestic policies
01:46that are harming particular people of color, working-class people, transgendered people, immigrants.
01:53We are also seeing another kind of protest that is not out in the streets, but that is in the boardrooms,
02:01and that is many of the agricultural industries as well as the aqua industries where fish are grown,
02:11and in the hotel industry where migrants really are the working-class supporters of that,
02:18significantly women migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean and other places in the world,
02:25but specifically from Latin America and the Caribbean. So we are also seeing a pushback
02:31on the Trump administration. Now, the Trump administration is making an adjustment to those
02:38corporate entities who need manual labor, who need the intellectual labor of these migrants, many of whom are
02:47undocumented. But out in the streets, we have a cross-race, cross-class movement of everyday citizens
02:57who are pushing back against the dictatorship orientation of the Trump governance. He is trying to
03:07acquire all of the power in the executive branch and to turn the police forces as well as the military
03:15forces into his own governance instrument, which stands outside of the Constitution. So this is the
03:23broader context of what we're seeing going on in the United States in the celebration of the 250th
03:29anniversary of the U.S. Army and the Flag Day, which not so coincidentally is also the birthday of
03:37Donald Trump, his 79th birthday.
03:39In these contracts also, James, we are witnessing strong differences among state authorities. For
03:45example, we saw in Florida threats of the security forces that were going to use heavy force
03:50to repress the protests. But then on the other hand, we were seeing in the governor of California
03:56say that he would take Trump to court for going over his mandate, while you were referring that he was
04:01using the police and the military to militarize the state of California in this case. How do we explain
04:06these differences and how far can those legal actions go?
04:11This is a very significant analytical distinction that you bring to our attention. There is the
04:19megalomaniac, the racist, the misogynist, the rapist, the corrupted Donald Trump who occupies the
04:28executive branch. But then in state governance across the United States of America, there are the people
04:35who have been elected not only in relationship to Trump, but under the MAGA movement. The MAGA movement
04:43will last longer than Donald Trump. And so that we have to be careful that we don't just focus on
04:50Donald Trump. And the distinctions or the contradictions that you point out between the state of Florida,
04:55America, which is a very conservative, right-wing, Cuban-American, both Republican and Democrat-dominated state,
05:08anti-Cuba, anti-immigration, is a right-wing state that is moving into authoritarianism and the same kind of racialized,
05:19homophobic, misogynistic governance in the state of Florida. The state of California, on the other hand,
05:29is a very diverse state of ethnic and racial groups literally from all over the world, particularly coming
05:37out of Latin America. Recalling that the history of the western part of the United States, which includes California,
05:45was in the 19th century, into the 20th century, the land of Mexico. And so while they changed the frontier
05:55and they changed the flag, they could not change the culture. And that the economies between Canada,
06:03the United States, and Central America, particularly Mexico, is an economy that really contests the
06:13limitations of flags and the limitations of citizenship. And so that the flow of goods and services,
06:19particularly of cheap labor, is critical to the sustenance of the economy in California and much
06:29of the southwestern part of the United States. But that economy is also critical to the stability
06:38of working-class families in Mexico and other places in Central America in particular. So this is the
06:45largest socioeconomic complexity that we face. And so that we see these contradictions between the
06:53right-wing state governance and the more liberal progressive democratic policies. The mayor of Los
07:03of Los Angeles has pointed out, as well as the governor of California, that California is a state of
07:11immigrants, Filipinos, Chinese Americans, but significantly Mexican Americans and other Latin Americans.
07:20And so this is the contradiction that we're seeing. And they are putting some pressure
07:25on Donald Trump with regard to the agricultural fields of California, the aqua industry where fish are
07:34grown, as well as hotels, where many of these immigrant workers and are new citizens who are coming in,
07:44who have resident status. That is how they earn their living and they send remesses or they send money back.
07:50To Latin America and the Caribbean and other places in the world. So
07:54this is the complexity and the contradictions that we're facing.