As a resident of San Francisco who prefers to see urban streets free of armed soldiers, I’d rather not have the National Guard occupy our city, as it already has occupied Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. The recent military takeover of Washington by Donald Trump and his army has been abetted by the governors of West Virginia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Ohio, South Carolina, and Louisiana who voluntarily contributed some of their National Guard troops to the Washington bivouac, although 80 percent of the residents there, as well as the mayor, say they don’t need or welcome the military invasion.
The arrival of troops on the streets San Francisco may not be far away. Trump is eagerly seeking an excuse to send some of the National Guard —if not our state’s, then Ohio’s, or Tennessee’s, or Louisiana’s— into our sanctuary city, as well as Chicago and Baltimore. (He only invades cities run by Democrats.)
I expect the soldiers will surround City Hall, intimidate the mayor and the Board of Supervisors and protesters, and guard the buildings where immigrants seeking asylum or visas will be subjected to arrest and deportation by masked men who purport to work for ICE.
To avoid this debacle, I modestly propose that Governor Gavin Newsom immediately invite some California National Guard troops into San Francisco, minus their weapons, and order them to protect immigrants and unhoused residents, as well as the rest of us.
The governor is already mimicking Trump’s rhetoric in text messages, but Newsom’s messages call for democratic action instead of authoritarianism. By pre-empting a Trump placement of National Guard troops in San Francisco, and ordering them to protect residents and guests (including immigrants), Newsom would again prove himself a democrat, and undermine Trump’s threats.
If National Guard troops must be in our city, let them peacefully escort people seeking asylum or citizenship or work visas to and from their hearings. If ICE wants to arrest them, Newsom’s National Guard officers should say no: These people are guests of the governor, leave them alone. And the Guard members are likely to outnumber ICE.
It might be slightly reminiscent of National Guard troops protecting and escorting nine school children past segregationists to their Little Rock, Arkansas classes in 1957, only this time it’s mostly adults who would need the protective escort.
California’s governor has started to resist Donald Trump’s overreach—the White House promotion of gerrymandering in Texas (which would rig 2026 midterm elections in the Republican Party’s favor)—by planning to reshape California’s voting districts (if voters approve his plan this November).
Now, instead of using government lawyers to prosecute opponents, as Trump has, our governor could supply the city with additional public defenders to assist people in need of legal counsel, and add to the city’s existing staff of social workers and job counselors who might help the unhoused and the unemployed. Some San Francisco city employees already offer these services, but an increase in staffing, along with the security provided to the indigent and undocumented by National Guardsmen, would increase the public services and reduce the chances of a Trump takeover.
“You don’t want the National Guard in our city?” Newsom might ask in response to a White House order to withdraw the state’s Guard from its Bay area posts. “I don’t want them here either. Stop kidnapping immigrants and persecuting the unhoused, fund affordable housing and give work visas to immigrant workers, and we won’t need the National Guard’s protection from you.”
The governor might also send San Francisco and others in the state additional medical assistance, set up new, free travelling health clinics, to help all those who are losing Medicaid. It’s not quite the same as Cuba under Castro sending doctors abroad to nations that needed medical care, but our state could initiate a medical insurgency of its own.
I also would recommend that the governor sponsor some special Internet interventions. Get his favorite IT experts to conduct virtual inspections of DOGE’s and Palentir’s files—initiate computerized checks on government overreach, to insure that the Social Security and tax files of Californians have not been stolen or misused. The governor’s IT troops may be derided by Trump as “Gavin’s geek squad,” but if they’re proficient in their field, they also could hack into the Epstein files and let us know how often Trump is mentioned as one of the sex trafficker’s associates.
Before any California residents protest against these defensive maneuvers, or ask how the state can afford their cost, the governor should propose to pay for his special forces by raising the state’s luxury fees and taxes it assesses wealthy citizens: Charge them at least as much as they’ll save through Trump’s current tax cuts for the rich. Trump’s war against the poor, against refugees and Democrats, is costing taxpayers billions, and it’s time to end it.
Meanwhile, despite all his self-promotional claims that he’s securing world peace and American prosperity, Donald Trump isn’t going to win a Nobel Peace Prize, no matter how many times he meets with Putin, if he keeps commanding National Guard troops to occupy his own country. But if Gavin Newsom’s special unarmed army—his lawyers, doctors, and computer experts—wins public support, as they should, the governor just might find himself preventing a Trump takeover of California and other states.
Joel Schechter is the author of several books on satire.
