A historian of fascism is asked whether this was week was a turning point

California National Guard troops stand along the back of the Federal Building during ICE protests June 12.

By Julia WickStaff Writer

June 14, 2025 6:30 AM PT

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Do you remember that day in March 2020 — five years and several eternities ago — when Tom Hanks tested positive for COVID-19, the NBA announced they were suspending their season and profound upheaval suddenly seemed inevitable?

I’ve felt echoes of that feeling the past few days, as downtown businesses boarded up their windows and the facts on the ground grew ever more fantastical.

Are we at the edge of some irreparable rupture in American democracy? Or is this just another strange and absurd chapter in a long series of them?

On Sunday, the president sent federalized National Guard troops into a city against the will of the state’s governor for the first time in 60 years. On Thursday, California’s senior senator was tackled to the ground by federal agents and handcuffed at a news conference.

Hundreds of active duty Marines were sent into the Los Angeles area, where for days they appeared to be performing heavily armed training exercises on what looked like a high school sports field. (A looming scoreboard, palm trees and jacaranda blooms were all visible behind their riot shields, according to a social media post from the U.S. Northern Command.)

The president and the governor are having a momentous fight about constitutional rights in the courts, and flaming each other with insults and photoshopped memes on Truth Social and X.

The ICE raids have thrown some Angelenos into a state of fear and virtual hiding. But for many others, ordinary life continues apace.

Mayor Karen Bass has repeatedly cautioned that L.A. is being treated like “a grand experiment” — a testing ground for President Trump to see if he can usurp the authority of Democratic mayors or governors in other states.

Warning signs of democratic breakdown have been pointed out by scholars and Trump’s critics since he took office for his first term in 2017 — so much so that many have grown numb to them. Has this week been any different?

I called Federico Finchelstein, a historian of fascism and dictatorships who chairs the history department at the New School for Social Research in New York, to ask whether he saw this week as a turning point for the country.

Finchelstein characterized Trump’s federalizing of the California National Guard as a clear turn toward authoritarianism. He cited the move, along with attacks on the press and the judiciary and the manhandling of Sen. Alex Padilla on Thursday, as assaults on democratic norms that “create the conditions for a further erosion of democracy.”

But he hesitated about categorizing recent events as a turning point.

It’s hard while living in the middle of history to know precisely where you stand, he explained.

“It’s very difficult to know what is the exact outcome of this sort of militarization of politics,” Finchelstein said. “What we know is that democracy is at the other end, and this path is towards either disabling, denigrating or even destroying democracy. It’s hard to know where it ends.”

The outcome would also depend on more than Trump’s next move, according to the historian.

History has shown that when anti-democratic attempts are met with institutional and public resistance, they are less likely to succeed, Finchelstein said.

“In other words, this is not the end of the story,” he told me.

The week’s biggest stories

People take part in the "No Kings Day" protest on Presidents Day in Washington

The nation braces for a weekend of widespread ‘No Kings,’ immigration protests

Los Angeles and other major cities across the nation are preparing for widespread demonstrations against the Trump administration Saturday as the federal government expands its aggressive immigration enforcement crackdown beyond Southern California.
The D.C. military event will celebrate the U.S. Army’s 250th birthday, as well as President Trump’s 79th birthday with an unprecedented military parade in the nation’s capital.
In response, many around the country will be gathering for “No Kings” demonstrations to voice their opposition to the Trump administration’s policies.
Here are the ‘No Kings’ demonstration locations in Los Angeles on Saturday

The ‘Mexican Beverly Hills’ reels from Trump immigration raids

With its stately homes and bustling business districts, Downey has long been known to some as the “Mexican Beverly Hills.”
But the Southeast L.A. County city of more than 110,000 people has been roiled this week by Trump immigration raids in Southern California, sparking both fear and outrage.
Downey Councilman Mario Trujillo said the raids are “creating a culture of fear” that’s prompting people, even with documents, to stay home.

Protesters or agitators: Who is driving chaos at L.A. immigration protests?

Violence and widespread property damage at protests in downtown L.A. have diverted public attention away from the focus of the demonstrations — large-scale immigration sweeps in such predominantly Latino cities as Paramount, Huntington Park and Whittier.
Instead, the unrest has trained attention on a narrow slice of the region — the civic core of Los Angeles — where protests have devolved into clashes with police and made-for-TV scenes of chaos.

Eerie silence hangs over Central Coast farm fields in wake of ICE raids

Immigration authorities raided farms and packinghouses in Ventura County this week, marking a new phase in the Trump administration’s efforts to target undocumented immigrants for deportation.
At a fertile expanse of Ventura County, workers who would typically be shuffling up and down the strawberry rows were largely absent.
Silence was better than the chaos that had broken out Tuesday when immigration agents raided fields in Oxnard and fanned out across communities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that grow a considerable portion of the state’s strawberries, avocados and celery.

This week’s must reads

For your weekend

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Pasjoli has reopened after a two-week closure meant to reset and rebrand the lauded Santa Monica restaurant.
Inside the hip L.A. golf gathering for those ‘who were never invited — but always belonged.’