Hollywood. Silicon Valley. An agricultural sector that grows more than three-quarters of fruits and nuts in America. All contributed to April’s news that California had officially overtaken Japan to become the fourth biggest economy in the world, its GDP of $4.1tn trailing only the entirety of the US, China and Germany.

But two months later this superpower is locked in a bitter power struggle with Washington DC. Days of protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles prompted Donald Trump to deploy military forces against what he called “insurrectionists” despite strenuous objections from state and local leaders.

The US president even endorsed the arrest of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, who accused Trump of manufacturing a crisis, filed a lawsuit against the administration and warned in a televised address that America was on the brink of authoritarianism unless citizens take a stand.

It is a fight that Trump has been spoiling for. California has long occupied a special place in the imagination of his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement. Its name has become a cultural signifier for coastal elitism, illegal immigration and “wokeness” in Republican eyes. It is a $4tn enemy within.