djt and MAGA elites are actively engaged in major provocations for open civil war. Politico reports:
Newsom floats withholding federal taxes as Trump threatens California
SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday suggested California consider withholding tens of billions in annual federal tax dollars amid reports Donald Trump is preparing funding cuts targeting the state.
Newsom’s suggestion came after CNN reported the president was considering a “full termination” of federal grant funding for California’s universities.“Californians pay the bills for the federal government. We pay over $80 BILLION more in taxes than we get back,” the Democratic governor said in an X post Friday afternoon, referencing a recent analysis from the Rockefeller Institute that California contributed about $83 billion more in federal taxes in 2022 than it received back from Washington.
“Maybe it’s time to cut that off,” he added.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai, asked to comment on Newsom’s post, threw cold water on mass funding cuts but blasted California for what he said were “lunatic anti-energy, soft-on-crime, pro-child mutilation, and pro-sanctuary policies.”
It is getting very hard to take the constant insults and increasingly aggressive direct threats of large-scale destruction of California from bigoted, corrupt djt and MAGA thugs, liars and slackers.
On a per capita basis, CA ranked fourth among donor states in 2022 at $2,129 per capita, trailing only Massachusetts ($3,873), New Jersey ($3,123), and Washington State ($2,289). In 2022, CA's $83.1 billion negative balance far exceeded the second-largest donor state, New Jersey, by nearly three-to-one due in part to its large population compared to NJ.
Q: Is it hyperbolic, irrational or counterproductive to see civil war provocation by what djt and elite MAGA thugs want to do to California?[1]
Footnote:
1. I asked Pxy:
Q: Is it hyperbolic, irrational or counterproductive to see civil war provocation by what djt and elite MAGA thugs want to do to California?A: Central to this debate is the Trump movement’s increasing openness to deploying military force against domestic populations, particularly in contexts such as immigration enforcement, protest suppression, and political dissent.The Trump administration and its allies have repeatedly advocated for unprecedented domestic military deployments, challenging long-standing legal and normative boundaries. In May 2025, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested 20,000 National Guard troops to assist with immigration enforcement, a move that would federalize the National Guard and bypass state authority 3. This proposal followed Trump’s 2020 threat to deploy “thousands of heavily armed soldiers” against protesters near the White House, marking a pattern of leveraging military assets for domestic law enforcement4. Such actions directly contravene the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of federal troops for policing unless explicitly authorized by Congress 9.The Insurrection Act of 1807, a rarely invoked statute, has emerged as a focal point for Trump-aligned policymakers. The Act allows the president to deploy troops domestically during “rebellion or insurrection,” but its broad language creates ambiguity.Labeling MAGA’s actions as “civil war provocation” is neither entirely hyperbolic nor baseless.
Conclusion: Rational Vigilance in the Face of Escalation
Concerns about civil conflict provoked by Trump and MAGA elites are not irrational but require precise contextualization. The movement’s explicit calls for military deployments against civilians, combined with erosion of democratic norms, create tangible risks of localized violence and constitutional crises. MAGA actions so far do not amount to the inevitability of a civil war, but are nonetheless concerning.
The Trump-MAGA project represents a hybrid regime model combining electoral legitimacy with authoritarian legalism (an anocracy). While not yet a full dictatorship, the administration’s systematic dismantling of checks on executive power, militarization of civil society, and cultivation of paramilitary alliances have crossed critical democratic thresholds.
Crossed critical democratic thresholds? That’s an understatement.