Political Discussion and Commentary

I have been suspicious that my city is being used as sort of a testing ground for a full scale authoritarian takeover for a while, now. I know that sounds pretty paranoid, and I don't blame anyone for thinking that. I have been trying to tell myself that's all it is, but it's getting harder to convince myself. Things are changing here so rapidly, and I know they're changing everywhere all over the U.S. There's so much going on at once, and it's impossible to keep up with it all. But, that also means there's a lot you won't notice until it's right in front of you.

If you want to write off everything else I'm about to say, I hope you will at least understand why it's so important to prepare for and be on the lookout for this kind of thing, even if you're in a liberal blue state.

Back in October, Time, actually wrote a pretty detailed article, about what is happening in cities like mine. It's actually not a new phenomenon at all, but it's never been more of a threat in recent history.

The Troubling Consequence of State Takeovers of Local Government

It's been an ongoing problem in places like Atlanta and Nashville, and while it hasn't received much press coverage, it's been especially awful in blue cities without the same level of wealth and influence, like Jackson, MS and Memphis.

My city is New Orleans. This past Monday, the Washington Post wrote about the use of a mass surveillance program in my city. Facial recognition AI is being used to constantly scan city surveillance cameras (owned by a private company) and provide real time tracking of individuals on a watchlist. While the city police have paused their use of the tracking app (at least momentarily), state and federal police, such as ICE are now using it.

It's a very complicated story, but I tried to explain what I can in a different post if anyone is interested in reading about more background details.

The reason I bring it up in this post, is that the very authoritarian governor established a permanent state police force within my city last year (Troop Nola.) He is a very staunch Trump loyalist and visits the president frequently. He has been issuing non stop executive orders since Trump was inaugurated in order to run Louisiana like his own dictatorship.

The city has no authority to regulate state police activity, (not that they even really seem to be trying) and with Trump rolling back civil rights protections and federal oversight, there is little standing in the way of him seeing how far he can go in terms of abuse of power.

He is trying to force all police officers and jails in the state to collaborate on Trump's mission via bills and EOs, and has even pulled people from the state department of wildlife and fisheries to help enforce immigration. This means that these people now are working with a private company to use this AI and tracking software all over the city.

The local news has barely covered the Washington Post story, and most people seem pretty oblivious about what is going on. People are also doing a good job spreading disinformation and pretending that the WaPo story is misleading and this is no different than surveillance in any other city.

Given the Governor's long standing hostility towards the city over our sanctuary policy, and the language used in many of Trump's own EOs, I am also worried he is not too far off from using his secret police to go after people who he will try to argue are "interfering" with his immigration mission.

The Louisiana National Guard is headquartered in New Orleans, and a member of the Governor's DOGE taskforce has proposed a bill that is worded in a way that at first glance, makes it seem similar to other bills that say foreign adversaries cannot buy land near military bases. This bill would allow the military to seize land within a 50 square mile radius of national guard bases if foreign adversaries are considered to be noncompliant with the law.

That would be pretty much all of New Orleans, if we were ruled noncompliant.

If that bill passes in Louisiana, then similar bills spread to other states, how would your blue state keep the national guard from a bordering red state from seizing territory? Especially following something like an emergency or natural disaster? Do you honestly think Trump will do anything at the federal level to stop it?

It's a fear some blue states have actually created legislation against but it's not something anyone seems to be seriously discussing and preparing for, even though we definitely should.

This National Guard training drill that happened recently in Jackson, MS makes me suspicious other red states may be preparing to do something exactly like that.

“Vigilant Guard 2025,” will take place May 12-18. It will give participants the opportunity to activate and employ their response plans to improve mission command, relationships, and interoperability among federal, state, and local agencies.

Guardsmen from Mississippi, along with those from Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming, the ability to command a statewide response to a major disaster in coordination with the Mississippi and Tennessee Emergency Management Agencies

Why those states specifically? Considering how different everything would be in terms of landscape and infrastructure, why would you bring the national guard in from Utah and Wyoming to Mississippi to take place in a drill preparing them for a natural disaster??

Keep in mind too, these people are very sneaky. They're unlikely to just try to take over the entire state or city at once. They gain ground they need slowly (usually by pushing and seeing what they can get away with.) They may try to take take control of the area around a state border following a disaster, and little by little, find excuses for why they need to encroach a little more. Maybe it's to provide aid or an excuse they need to do so to help keep Americans in neighboring states safe. Like I said, you probably won't realize what is really happening until it's too late.

If you are in a blue city or state, and you haven't noticed much of a drastic shift locally over the last few months, then you're either very lucky or you're not paying attention. Please stay vigilant and also try to take notice of how your local leaders are handling even small changes happening.

If you notice they're not pushing back, or they're keeping things quiet and under wraps because they believe compromise today will mean a safer tomorrow and that will be the end of it, I am begging you to call them out.

Do not let them give an inch, because these people will always take a mile. Things are pretty awful now, and they're only going to get worse. Possibly worse than you can imagine, but I promise you, compromise will only help them achieve their goals.

I am livid with the spineless leadership officials in my city are showing, but I also know it's because they're scared. The governor was allowed to establish too much authority here. Some people pushed back last year, but not enough, and now everyone is scared to step out of line. It's the kind of human behavior you read about over and over throughout history. Compliance will not save you. It will only delay what we all know is coming.

As of yesterday, I also learned Louisiana will be the first state to start using the DOGE voter maintenance database, to prevent "voter fraud" and make sure illegal immigrants and dead people aren't registered to vote. Let's say myself and the entire city of New Orleans "accidentally" ends up purged from the voter system on the next voting day. Who do we complain to when we're refused the right to vote? Trump's DOJ?

What am I supposed to do if the state police or ICE decide to violate my rights? The DOJ just said two days ago, they're dropping ongoing investigations into civil rights complaints against the Louisiana State Police and retracting their previous findings. As far as I can tell, if they decide to do something to me, I have nothing currently protecting my civil rights and liberties.

We may be the first state, but if this isn't stopped we definitely won't be the last.

If you have any ideas on how to stop it or how to prepare your own cities and states, I believe it's critical to discuss.

If you think that this is all just paranoia and could never happen, feel free to say why you believe that.