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.
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| Marines in Los Angeles Image credit: Reuters |