COLUMN What Churchill Would Tell a Besieged City

This column is co-published with Zócalo Public Square.

This is the speech that I wish a California leader would give, with apologies to Winston Churchill.

From the moment Trump’s raids began, it became clear that the U.S. regime has declared war against California.

A real civil war, not a metaphorical one.

It is hard to accept this truth. Because we Californians have done nothing—not one thing—to justify the national government sending secret police and thousands of military personnel to attack us.

Trump is offering no conditions and proposing no negotiations to end this war. That’s because the war itself is Trump’s goal, a realization of his violent delusions and his desire for unchecked power. He is invading California for the same reason Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine—because the Golden State is a sovereign and democratic entity that won’t accept dictatorship. Our very existence threatens his tyranny.

Trump is following Putin’s playbook.

Both lie the same way, saying that they did not start their wars, but are merely defending their nations against the real invasion being launched by Californians on the U.S. (or by Ukrainians on Russia).

Trump, like Putin, has launched a war using deceit and security personnel in disguise. In 2014, Russia sent its soldiers into Crimea with their faces masked, wearing unmarked uniforms, and without identification; Russia denied the presence of these soldiers even as they attacked local communities, creating confusion about who they were. Trump’s Homeland Security agents are also masked, favor unmarked clothing and unmarked vehicles, and refuse to identify themselves, and lie about their attacks on local people (even when they are captured on video).

Trump, like Putin, is targeting regional and local elected leaders with violence, arrest, and removal from office. Trump also seeks to destroy our economy with multifaceted attacks—he arrests and disappears vital workers, cuts off funding for public works and disaster relief, and imposes illegal tariffs to quash trade. And, just as Putin systematically takes Ukrainian children from families and sends them to Russia, Trump separates children from parents. Whether in Ukraine or California, these actions are crimes.

Californians are underdogs in Trump’s war, just as Ukrainians are in Russia’s war. We face a powerful government and the world’s largest military, and we have no army. Trump has lawlessly seized control of our California National Guard, which is supposed to defend us in emergencies, so that he might use our own soldiers to help round us up.

The courts aren’t much help. While judges rule in California’s favor in some cases, Trump ignores some orders and delays response to others. Congress won’t save us. Trump’s secret police assaulted our senior U.S. Senator in a federal office building, on camera, and Trump-aligned colleagues falsely blamed the victim for the assault.

Our very own local police seem to side with the regime. In Los Angeles, the sheriffs and police department have fired their “less lethal” weapons not against lawless federal agents kidnapping our people, but against Californians trying to protect their neighbors.

The hard truth is that no one in power is going to fight for California as hard as everyday Californians will. 

The good news is that you and I can win this war. In some ways, we are already winning; Trump has sent his secret police and his troops, and still, we are not conquered. Indeed, I declare here and now that we will win, because we have no other option than victory.

As Albert Camus once wrote: “The moment despair is alone, pure, sure of itself, pitiless in its consequences, it has a merciless power.”

We Californians must channel our despair at being attacked into winning a war more challenging than any living Californians have ever fought.

Collectively, we will have to muster our discipline to remain non-violent. We will need to answer federal punches and shots and tear gas with songs and prayers, even when the reward for our non-violence will be relentless lies about us, and more violence from the Trump regime. We must play defense until this invading enemy loses heart and begins to retreat.

Then we must do more: We must seize ground.

We should march upon any federal facility where we expect our fellow Californians are being held in conditions that may constitute torture. We are Americans, and taxpayers, and those buildings belong to us, and those detained are our neighbors. And when federal officials, or even our own governor or mayors, tell us to not assemble in giant protests, to not insist on seeing those that the regime seizes, to compromise on due process and habeas corpus, let us ignore them. Protest more, insist more, demand more. These are our rights, and no one can take them away.

In this fight, we will need allies. Trump is alienating most of the world, so we should send emissaries abroad to ask for help. We need money and trade to blunt the effects of Trump’s economic war. We must convince other countries and states to exert their economic, diplomatic, and even military pressure to demand that the U.S. government end its violence against California and remove its secret police and troops from Los Angeles.

And since so much of Silicon Valley is afraid to fight Trump, California’s communities and rapid response networks will need outside help securing what is called “PeaceTech,” the training and technology to monitor federal forces, avert confrontations, and protect vulnerable people from being disappeared.

All this will not be enough. Californians must use seduction, too. While we loathe the regime, we must befriend individual federal agents and soldiers. When it is safe to do so, we might invite them to our block parties, barbecues, ballgames, churches, and film premieres. Trump is filling their heads with lies about Californians, so let these federal occupiers get to know us. Many will come to see that their federal masters are the real threat. Some may, covertly or not, join our side.

We will fight the U.S. regime in all these ways—with non-violence, global networks, tech, and hospitality. 

We shall not flag or fail. We shall defend our California, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the freeways and the surface streets. We shall fight in the car washes and the Home Depot parking lots. We shall fight at food trucks and on farms, and in bars, restaurants, and dispensaries. We shall fight in our homes, businesses, and churches. We shall never surrender.

This may be the most dangerous time in our state’s history. Let us brace ourselves to our duty to stop this American tyranny.

And let us bear ourselves so that, if our Golden State lasts another thousand years, future Californians will look back and say:

“That was our finest hour.”