We seem to be quickly headed for a confluence of events that is going to produce a rather shocking split-screen moment next weekend. We could be simultaneously watching a parade that is ostensibly being given for the celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, while we also watch the national military being deployed on the streets of American cities. That's a jarring contrast, you have to admit.

What's going on in Los Angeles is the result of an entirely-predictable escalation in Donald Trump's push to deport as many immigrants as he possibly can. Trump promised he'd go after all the criminals first, but once he ran out of immigrants who had been convicted of crimes (and whose location was known to the authorities, making them easy to pick up), it was inevitable that he'd have to start raiding job sites and schools and other places where immigrants are known to gather. We're in that second phase now, and it's only going to get more and more pronounced in the coming weeks.

Trump entered office with the goal of overseeing the largest deportation effort in American history. Unfortunately for him, though, his numbers to date aren't all that historic. If they keep on deporting people at the rate they have since Trump took office, he won't even match the highest deportation year under Barack Obama -- which would be a psychological blow to Trump, for obvious reasons. So Stephen Miller is pushing ICE to meet a quota of 3,000 arrests every single day. It's pretty easy to see why he came up with that figure -- if you multiply 3,000 times 365, you come up with just under 1.1 million arrests in a year. Which was the goal Trump often talked about (deporting a million per year).

The problem is they're nowhere near meeting this goal. An ICE media spokesperson said they had arrested almost 1,600 illegal immigrants on May 28th -- one of the highest numbers they've chalked up under Trump (their average was 660 per day in Trump's first 100 days in office). However, even 1,600 is only roughly half of Miller's daily goal.

So Miller decided to berate some ICE officials to light a fire under them. The conservative Washington Examiner reported the story of this meeting a little over a week ago, which went about how you'd expect it to:

ICE's top 50 field officials were given roughly a week's notice of an emergency meeting in Washington.

ICE's 25 Enforcement Removal Operations, or ERO, field office directors and 25 Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, special agents in charge flew into Washington and descended on the agency's Washington headquarters last Tuesday, May 20. There, they were met by Miller, ICE confirmed to the Washington Examiner.

"Miller came in there and eviscerated everyone. 'You guys aren't doing a good job. You're horrible leaders.' He just ripped into everybody. He had nothing positive to say about anybody, shot morale down," said the first official, who spoke with those in the room that day.

"Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested. 'Why aren't you at Home Depot? Why aren't you at 7-Eleven?'" the official recited.

This is apparently on top of ICE already feeling the strain of being at the center of all of this political rhetoric:

At a time when collaboration is necessary to undertake President Donald Trump's mass deportation goals, trust has eroded as some high-ranking employees feel they are being closely monitored by the White House over how they are carrying out arrest operations of illegal immigrants.

"They've been threatened, told they're watching their emails and texts and Signals," the first official said. "That's what is horrible about things right now. It's a fearful environment. Everybody in leadership is afraid.... There's no morale. Everybody is demoralized."

This all cued up what is unfolding in Los Angeles. Two of the things that sparked all the protests were ICE showing up in the garment district (workplace raids) and in a Home Depot parking lot. Undocumented immigrants often gather at big-box hardware stores, looking for pickup work as either day laborers for contractors or to do yard maintenance and small jobs for the people shopping there. Which is why Miller brought it up, and why ICE decided to target one in California. These are not hardened criminals they're going after, these are garment workers and people willing to do some very hard work for not very much money in order to feed their families.

Protests erupted, which gave Trump the opportunity he's been waiting for. And he pounced on it. He quickly nationalized the California National Guard and ordered 2,000 soldiers into Los Angeles, over the objections of the state's governor -- something which hasn't happened since 1965. Today there is vague news that a battalion of 500 Marines (or maybe 700, reports vary) has been mobilized as well, but nobody's quite sure what that means yet. Trump has been itching to use the Insurrection Act to order American soldiers into American cities ever since his first term in office, and this may provide the pretext for him to do so (although he hasn't crossed that Rubicon yet and seems to be slightly backing off the idea as I write this). But his rhetoric is certainly setting the option up, saying things on social media such as: "A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals." He promised that the government would "take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free." This morning he reportedly posted, in all-caps: "BRING IN THE TROOPS."

For Trump, this is all somewhat of a win-win. Either the demonstrations die down (as they likely would have anyway) and Trump proclaims a great victory, or they escalate and spread to other cities, which gives Trump a pretext for declaring an insurrection and instituting martial law on any cites he feels like (all of which will coincidentally have Democratic mayors). This is very serious and very dangerous stuff, obviously. The federal Posse Comitatus Act forbids the military from doing normal police work of any kind inside the borders of the United States, but invoking the Insurrection Act would nullify that ban.

In the midst of all this, next Saturday we are going to see a spectacle on the streets of Washington DC that has not happened at least since World War II -- and one that is another worrisome development on this slide into militarization. The United States Army -- complete with tanks -- is going to parade through the streets of our Nation's Capital. You know... the type of parade that used to be an annual event in the Soviet Union. The type of parade that North Korea loves to put on. I don't believe America has seen such a display of military might marched through the streets for the entire time I have been alive. But due to a coincidence, Trump will finally get the tanks-through-the-streets extravaganza he longed for during his first term. The anniversary of the formation of the U.S. Army falls on Flag Day -- June 14th -- which also just happens to be Donald Trump's birthday. So he can conveniently explain away the fact that he's getting a big birthday parade by saying he's merely honoring the 250th anniversary of the United States Army.

Counterprotests have already been planned. One way or another, we're going to be watching a split-screen moment next weekend.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant