The consolidation of the new police state has not been announced. There was no press conference declaring that local, state, and federal law enforcement — plus the military — are all marching to the same drum. No news conference featuring a bunch of police captains standing before a microphone to express their commitment to the new regime.

But it is here.

In the past six months, a quiet, mass reorganization of resources and rules and personnel has rippled across the country in order to enforce the Trump administration’s desires.

This realignment is happening swiftly, smoothly and without fanfare. That the police have been so quiet in a historically loud moment should be a dead giveaway that a shift is under way. The line between order and chaos is moving. And the police are adapting to meet the changing norms.

Politics was always in their job description — whether by origin (slave catchers) or by election or appointment. But under this new order, the police — arm in arm with immigration agents, the military, and the rest of the federal agencies — are starting to function more as political police force. That is, an instrument of a specific regime. City by city, state by state, the police have been reorganizing themselves to align with the priorities of the White House. This is what the free agents of fascism do: They make themselves useful. They figure out how to stay in the mix, how to serve the emergent status quo.

Since the summer, where there have been Trump administration escalations, police have been lurking on the margins — or lending a helping hand.

Sometimes, the assistance matches the fiery timbre of repression put forth by the White House. When thousands showed up in downtown LA to protest federal immigration raids, in June, the Los Angeles Police Department seemed to cast aside decades of sanctuary city policy forbidding cooperation with immigration enforcement authorities by working alongside federal forces to violently repress protestors. LAPD officers on horseback trampled a man and beat him with batons while their colleagues alternated with members of the Department of Homeland Security and National Guard to shoot people — including an Australian journalist — with “less than lethal” bullets and pepper spray.

Other times, the help aids and abets. During a raid, the LAPD blocked in formation as Immigration and Customs Enforcement quarterbacked an operation that resulted in the violent arrest of Service Employees International Union California and SEIU-USWW President David Huerta. Then, at an ICE staging area at Dodger Stadium, the LAPD helped federal agents exit though a different gate after one was blocked by protesters and the press. One month later, during “Operation Excalibur” — a “show of presence” by the National Guard and Customs and Border Protection — police officers worked crowd control at MacArthur Park. (Then, when they were done, they swerved at a few Angelenos protesting the federal scare tactics.)

In the nation’s capital, D.C. Metropolitan police, under the president’s orders and backed up by Mayor Muriel Bowser through an executive order, are formally cooperating with ICE, helping with immigration checkpoints and, apparently, responding to calls for backup. This month, when a resident followed a group of National Guard troops on patrol, playing the storm troopers theme music from........

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