Mainly Peaceful? Mostly Peaceful? Largely Peaceful? Are Folks Rioting in the City of Angels?

 Anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles have gone on for almost a week.  As Matt Taibbi pointed out in a recent blog, the legacy media have characterized these demonstrations as "mostly peaceful." Still, commentators avoid using that exact phrase because a CNN reporter was mocked for using it while standing before a burning building during the Minneapolis riot in 2020.

President Trump thinks the ruckus in Los Angeles is a riot, and he called out the National Guard and the Marines. Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass claim they have the protests under control and that Trump is overreacting.

Nevertheless, Mayor Bass imposed a curfew on downtown LA yesterday, acknowledging incidents of vandalism and looting. Protesters have set vehicles on fire and pelted local police with rocks and broken pieces of concrete. The anti-ICI crowd has stopped traffic on the 101 freeway. And then there are those Molotov cocktails.

I'd call that a riot. 

Whether President Trump should intervene to stop the rioting is another matter. Calling out 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion is a serious business, and most folks would rather local authorities deal with the civil unrest if they are capable of doing so.

Federal Judge Charles Breyer will rule on Governor Newsom's request for an injunction against federal intervention within the next few days.

My position from Flyover Country is to support President Trump. Violence, arson, and looting got entirely out of hand during the George Floyd riots of 2020--especially in Minneapolis and Seattle. Who wants a repeat of that season of discontent?

Today, Governor Greg Abbott mobilized the Texas National Guard in anticipation of planned anti-ICE demonstrations in San Antonio. That makes sense as well.  

The last thing this nation needs is for urban rioting to spread to other cities. Governor Newsom contends that the military presence in LA foments more violence. I don't think that's true.

What's a little rioting among friends?

The Los Angeles Anti-ICE Riots: Do They Signal the Collapse of the American Project?

Protesters rioted over the weekend in Los Angeles, burning cars, blocking roadways, and attacking local police.

President Trump activated 2,000 National Guard troops to stop the rampage. Later, he dispatched an additional 2,000 soldiers along with 700 Marines assigned to guard government buildings.

Not surprisingly, the State of California sued the Trump administration, claiming the National Guard mobilization is unlawful. President Trump hinted that California Governor Gavin Newsom should be arrested, and Newsom publicly dared the Feds to do it.

How serious are these Los Angeles demonstrations? The legacy press has characterized them as “largely peaceful,” and some outlets pointedly avoid calling them riots. Governor Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass assure the public that state and local law enforcement agencies have the situation well in hand. They contend that the presence of federal troops has increased tensions in Los Angeles and added to the violence.

Other commentators see the riots from a darker perspective. David French, writing in the New York Times, decried President Trump's intervention as a sign that "America is no longer a stable country." Leighton Woodhouse, reporting for The Free Press, concluded his essay on the recent turmoil by observing that Los Angeles “felt like a bomb ready to explode.”

I’m unsure what to make of the anti-ICE protests. On the one hand, the recent demonstrations are just another episode in America’s long history of civil unrest: the Whiskey Rebellion in the late eighteenth century, the Philadelphia Bible riots of 1844, and the Bonus Army protests following World War I.

All these uprisings were quelled by the military. More recently, troops were called out to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock and to quell violence that erupted after the deaths of Martin Luther King and George Floyd.

The Nation survived all these disturbances. Indeed, we are about to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

Somehow, however, the LA riots seem different from past disturbances. The people burning cars and throwing rocks at the police are opposed to the very idea of national borders or an orderly immigration process. They don’t want anyone deported, not even foreign rapists and human traffickers.

The rioters also have allies in the legacy media and the Democratic Party. No mainstream commentator advocates violence, but many are rabidly opposed to President Trump’s efforts to secure our country’s southern border.

Perhaps the anti-ICE protests are the latest example of a national tradition of summertime urban riots that subside as the weather turns cooler in the autumn.

Or perhaps, the Los Angeles riot signals a general breakdown of allegiance to traditional American values, patriotism, and the notion that the territory within our borders deserves to be defended and cherished. In other words, the protesters shutting down the LA freeways are saying that they reject the American Project in the broadest sense.

We should know one way or the other within the coming months.

Marines in Los Angeles Image credit: Reuters