The Clash Between Trump and Newsom: Where Huntington's 'Clash of Civilizations' Found Its Continuation

By: Armin Sijamić

US President Donald Trump has begun to fulfill his campaign promise - the deportation of illegal migrants. California Governor Gavin Newsom, through his stance, shows that Democrats view this issue differently.

Donald Trump continues to be the news of the day. Almost everything he does has a significant impact, although the results of these endeavors often do not match the drama he previously created. For example, in this specific case, he has often carried out fewer deportations of illegal migrants than his predecessors, even fewer than Bill Clinton, whom Washington presented as a model politician for the 21st century. With his actions in California, Trump has, at least temporarily, removed his clash with Elon Musk from the headlines.

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The first major target of Trump's immigration policy is California, a border state with Mexico, a Democratic stronghold, the center of some of America's largest technology companies, and a place where Spanish is spoken as frequently as English due to immigration.

Trump vs. Newsom

Why Trump chose California is an interesting question. He could have tested the use of force against illegal migrants in a state where their numbers are significantly smaller or where Republicans loyal to him govern. The choice of California seems to have strong political and ideological reasons.

California has been governed by Democrats for decades, and Governor Newsom has been mentioned as one of Trump's potential opponents after Joseph Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race. Newsom is one of those whom Democrats see as candidates or as individuals who will support someone else in the upcoming elections.

Trump has moved aggressively against the California authorities. He deployed the National Guard without the governor's consent, which is the first such instance in the United States since 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered its deployment to Alabama. Thus, Trump did the opposite of what Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas did to Biden, who used the National Guard to protect the US federal border, usurping federal authority.

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Protests against the arrests of illegal migrants have been ongoing in California for days, especially in Los Angeles, and security forces have their hands full. Clashes with demonstrators continue, and with each passing day, there are more arrests, injuries, and those who, by inertia, align themselves with one of the two sides across the United States. Ultimately, Trump has ordered the US military to be on standby.

Newsom has announced a lawsuit against Trump, claiming that the National Guard could only be deployed in consultation with state authorities, and the president, on his social media platform Truth Social, suggested that the governor might also need to be arrested. "Donald Trump is irresponsible and immoral," Newsom said. "He has taken an illegal and unconstitutional step of federalizing the National Guard, thereby endangering lives." Newsom has no doubt where Trump's decision leads: "This is just a preview of what's to come. This is not about Los Angeles per se. This is about all of us," he said, adding that Trump is "out of control."

California's Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis is even more precise. "What is happening in Los Angeles is not a matter of security, but of intimidation." She believes, like many Democrats, that Trump does not intend to suppress demonstrations but wants to ignite divisions and "end the rule of law," as Democratic Senator Chris Murphy stated. Democrats believe that New York, another Democratic stronghold, is Trump's next target and that he wants to install autocracy in the United States.

The Bigger Picture

The clash between Trump and Newsom is not just political, but also personal. The president calls the governor "Newscum," inserting the word "scum" into his surname. However, more important for the overall American situation is Trump's attack on California, or rather on its politics, which he and his supporters despise.

Indeed, as with almost all right-wingers in the West, Trump's allies include people who believe Samuel Huntington was right when he spoke of the "clash of civilizations" and suggested that different civilizations cannot live together, seeking examples for his thesis around the world. California, populated by Latin Americans and other migrants, is an excellent testing ground for this thesis.

The state has about forty million inhabitants. Hispanics are the majority with 40 percent, whites are 34 percent, Asians are 16 percent, and African Americans are 6.5 percent. English is the primary language for only 44 percent of the state's residents. According to Huntington, California is the southern border of Western civilization, and south of it begins Latin American civilization.

Huntington's last book, along with the aforementioned "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," published in 2004, is titled "Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity." It is arguably his most important work and deals with the demographic (and thus national, ethnic, religious, social, political...) changes in the United States, with California being one of the prime examples. In that book, Huntington attempted to prove that the United States is not a "nation of immigrants" but that the country was founded on Anglo-Protestantism, brought by the first settlers from the British Empire and other parts of Europe.

In the current American context, where the so-called "culture wars" have been ongoing for a long time, the clash between Trump and Newsom is a new examination of the identity of the United States and the creation of a basis for future steps. The attitude of these two American political poles towards illegal immigration and immigration in general will, sooner or later, spill over to the rest of the West. Trump and Newsom are, at first glance, engaged in a short-term political confrontation with limited impact on the overall situation in the West.