When the Flashpoints Turn Into Firestorms
Legality is just wallpaper. The cracks are already spreading.
Filed under: Flashpoints, Civil Liberties, Authoritarian Creep
The streets are whispering what the headlines wonât.
It happened again, and barely anyone noticed.
On July 17, protesters filled the Roebling Suspension Bridge between Cincinnati and Covington with a banner that read: Build Bridges Not Walls. They were mourning Imam Ayman Soliman, an ICE detainee who also served as a chaplain at Cincinnati Childrenâs Hospital. Police swarmed the bridge, ordered dispersal, and when protesters didnât back down, thirteen people were arrestedâincluding two journalists who were simply doing their jobs. A video surfaced, after, of an officer beating a protester senseless while others screamed.
That was one bridge. One protest. One city.
But it wasnât an isolated incident.
The Pattern Weâre Not Naming
New York City saw arrests outside its immigration court. Los Angeles saw over five hundred people dragged into custody across scattered protests. San Francisco, Austin, Georgia, Santa Anaâeach with their own flare of resistance, each one handled with the same playbook: escalate, overwhelm, and silence.
These are flashpoints: sudden, burning eruptions that could die out quietly or spread like wildfire. And yet the national conversation acts like each one is a disconnected spark. âLocal disturbance.â âFailure to disperse.â âUnlawful assembly.â
Call it what it is: coordinated suppression.
The National Guard Question
The quiet dread in the background isnât about police in riot gear. Itâs about when the Guard shows up.
Traditionally, governors control their stateâs National Guard. In emergencies, the President can federalize themâan Insurrection Act loophole that has been stretched and abused before. That means red state troops could be deployed on blue state soil, or worse, against citizens in D.C.
And what if the reverse happens? What if California or New York decide to send their Guard to defend protesters in Washington? Legally, itâs unconstitutional. But âlegalityâ has become a magicianâs trick. Trumpâs administration has already proven laws are only as strong as the institutions willing to enforce them.
At that point, we arenât talking about protest management. Weâre talking about open constitutional crisis in the nationâs capital.
Legality as Wallpaper
People still cling to legality like itâs an anchor. He canât do that. Thatâs illegal. The courts will stop him.
But law is not a wall. Itâs wallpaper. Pretty until it peels. Fragile until water soaks through. And the flashpoints weâre seeingâthe bridge arrests, the courtroom crackdowns, the LA raidsâare the cracks spreading beneath the paint.
Pretending otherwise is self-delusion.
What Escalation Looks Like
Picture it: protesters march to D.C. carrying candles and banners. On one side of the street, troops flown in from Texas. On the other side, California or New York forces arriving in defiance. A standoff not between citizen and state, but between the states themselves.
The people in the middleâthe ones chanting, grieving, demanding justiceâbecome collateral in a rehearsal for civil war. And once rifles are pointed across the crowd, it only takes one nervous trigger finger to set history ablaze.
Why We Canât Look Away
The Roebling Bridge is a perfect metaphor. Protesters tried to use it to connect two communities, and the state turned it into a choke point. Every âflashpointâ protest is like that: a fragile bridge between the comfort of daily life and the uncomfortable truth that authoritarianism is here, now, wearing badges and carrying guns.
Ignore enough flashpoints, and you wake up to find the bridge gone. The only way forward will be through the smoke of force.
Legality wonât save us. Silence wonât save us. Witnessing might. Resistance might. Naming the pattern before it calcifies into permanence might.
The flashpoints are multiplying. The wallpaper is tearing. And when the cracks spread wide enough, the wall will fallâwhether anyone is ready or not.
Keeping detailed receipts,
âRebecca M. Bell
[Self Proclaimed] Editor-In-Chief of the Literary Resistance
Filed under: Flashpoints, Civil Liberties, Authoritarian Creep