Letter: Manufactured crises?

In a recent LTE, Michael Mount speculates that Trump might declare a “national emergency” and cancel the November 2026 elections. Subsequently, following protests in Los Angeles against wholesale arrests by ICE of undocumented people, the president sent thousands of National Guard members, followed by hundreds of Marines, to counter what he referred to as “radical left protests” by “instigators and often paid troublemakers.” Governor Newsom did not request federal assistance and called Trump’s actions “a manufactured crisis.” Could it be there will be another pretext that will occur leading to the suspension of next year’s elections? As always, history is instructive. In January 1933 Hitler became Chancellor of Germany as part of a coalition of Nazis and conservative parties. On February 27 the Reichstag burned down, and while historians disagree on who started the fire, there is no disagreement that Hitler used it as an excuse to proceed with mass arrests of leftists and to strip all Germans of civil liberties. There would be no more free elections.