As the No Kings protests blossomed across the country on Saturday, Vice President JD Vance was at Camp Pendleton for some domestic live fire exercises, just to make sure the protesters understand who has the missiles. The Marine Corps closed a major freeway between Los Angeles and San Diego.
It hadn't occurred to me that they could do that sort of traffic control, but it's probably something that they can really handle. They have the weaponry and the combat training to take on freeway traffic once and for all. On Saturday, the Marines started firing 155-millimeter M77 howitzer rounds up over the I-5, just to show that they could close that sucker down for good if they were thus inclined. Navy Seals swarmed ashore somewhere near Del Mar as F35 jets winged their way overhead.
This was a convincing reminder that if the US Marines invade California, the conquest is very likely to be successful. The Trump administration had already deployed the Marines to Los Angeles in a domestic "law-enforcement" project in June. But howitzers, Seals, and fighter jets are law enforcement indeed. Gavin Newsom complained, but what's he gonna do when the Marines open a can of whoop-ass on his pitiful state? I picture the response of the US Marines, who are above all a domestic law-enforcement agency charged with repressing political dissent. Hey Newsom! Call on Californians to demonstrate in cute costumes again, or dare to rollerskate around here and we will fuck you so hard that you stay fucked permanently.
It's true that wars such as Vietnam and Afghanistan have been difficult for the Marines. For example, they provided the disastrous insecurity in both Saigon and Kabul during the evacuations after the American defeats. They need to re-establish their pride as a fighting force comparable to Tren de Aragua; they need to demonstrate they’re still capable of subduing civilian populations. Evidently, this doesn't work that well in the third world. But JD Vance theorizes that the Marines can handle Angelenos, who may not impress him ethnically, overall.
Traditionally, the Marines sing this in unison:
Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in every clime and place
Where we could take a gun.
Vance characterized the exercise as "a testament to the corps' strength and unbeatable power." That power might be nugatory in Kabul or Somalia, but it's more than enough, as Vance implied so vociferously, to subdue Malibu. Marina Del Rey won't stand a chance. "Don't make us fuck up Oxnard," Vance said, or at least thought to himself in a sort of ecstasy. "We're not kings," he may have thought, "we're a military junta, and we're coming for Capistrano." But what he really said was that the troops swarming ashore, the fighter jets, and the artillery rounds "made my heart sing as your vice president." Vance's heart sings karaoke to the tune of the falling bombs. In SoCal.
It’s surprising to me, and no doubt pleasing to Vance, that the Marines don’t at all mind being used this way. They don't mind being conscripted to serve as the crowd at a political rally. They don't mind being redeployed to domestic law and immigration enforcement. If ordered to, they’ll attack their fellow Americans with the only sort of force they understand: the deadly variety.
The discipline of the Marine Corps is staggering and makes my own heart sing, or at any rate bellow death metal. There’s no order they’d refuse as illegal or immoral. There’s no one they wouldn’t kill if ordered to do so. There’s no idea in the tiny helmeted and masked heads perched on their armored bodies except sheer obedience. You wouldn't think there could be people like that. But you’d be wrong.
There could be a moment in which some Marines start to reflect on and take pride in what they’re being used for. Their 250-year history has taken them from the shores of Tripoli to the Santa Monica pier, from soldiers to cops, from defenders of the nation to political enforcers. It’s a proud arc, especially if that's where it ends.
—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X: @CrispinSartwell