That there’s a riot, uprisings, or insurrection in Los Angeles is unsurprising, as the place has a history thereof, including famous examples in 1943, 1965, and 1992. In those cases, as in the most recent, they were responses to ethnic and class oppression.
Nevertheless, I'm surprised by how immediate, elaborate, and definite the response has been to the latest spate of mass round-ups, detentions, and deportations performed by the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security. The city of Los Angeles seemed to rise spontaneously to try to stop these actions. The organizing must’ve taken place beforehand, because protesters managed to interrupt raids in real time. This sort of resistance is the only possible way to disrupt America's current descent into police and military-backed racism, fascism, and a sort of delight in cruelty for its own sake: the systemic sadism of a Stephen Miller or a Kristi Noem. Meanwhile, just in case you wondered what's driving their brutality, Miller and Noem are welcoming white people to the country.
"Insurrection," remarks Miller on X, evidently thinking that’s a devastating condemnation. But sometimes an insurrection is justified, and as the forms of domestic repression of dissent mutate and intensify, the forms of resistance dedicated to preserving people's lives and well-being have to do the same. Any action short of violence directed at people's bodies is morally sustainable in this case: trying to block and vandalize facilities, lighting and tossing fireworks, destroying ICE vehicles and property. These are mild responses to the violence perpetrated by people like Miller, very far from proportional. It’s turning out that a proportional response to the administration's arbitrary brutality would have to amount to mustering a large and heavily-armed guerilla force.
The Trump administration is calling out the National Guard, over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass. It's the first time since 1965 that a president has called out the Guard over the objections of the governor of the state where it’s to be deployed. But then, it was Lyndon Johnson sending in the troops in order to protect Civil Rights demonstrators, recognizably the ancestors of the people who are protesting in Los Angeles today, from the tender ministrations of "segregation forever!" Gov. George Wallace.
Now the sadists and segregationists are running the country and the military is on their side, or at any rate under their command. Remarkably, Trump praised the Guard's response to the riots before they arrived. It would be excellent if the whole deployment was a pure Trumpian fiction, but I fear it’s really happening.
And the situation could grow much worse. Late Saturday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on X, "The Department of Defense is mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY to support federal law enforcement in Los Angeles. And, if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized—they are on high alert."
The idea that the administration is going to call out the Marines to repress largely non-violent protests represents yet another astonishing escalation. Suddenly a different sort of national future is emerging: a future in which the Constitution has been effectively suspended and the US is governed by a sort of military junta, a country descending into violence and civil war. We will pretty quickly have to find out whether American soldiers are willing to fire on American college students and grandmothers.
And I do characterize the demonstrations so far as by and large non-violent, though two deputies were slightly injured by a Molotov cocktail on Saturday night. But this is more typical: "The Los Angeles Police Department said at midnight that it detained 'multiple' people who breached an area near the city’s Metropolitan Detention Center where the agency had declared an 'unlawful assembly,'” reported the Post. “'Those detained will be arrested and booked for failing to disperse,' the force said on social media."
One thing I hope we can agree on: failing to disperse doesn’t itself constitute violence. But dispersing people with teargas, rubber bullets, clubs, and zip ties does. A typical report from the front lines Saturday night: “This Blackhawk moved in from the border patrol—they are unloading dozens of boxes of ammunition, less lethal weaponry. You see these tanks with flammable labels on the side—as if they were getting ready for a major battle."
A major battle, mind you, against Americans who are trying to protect people from violence. I'm happy to see that we’re still a country that produces people who want to do this or feel it's morally necessary, even if we’re also still a country that produces the likes of Miller and Hegseth.
—Follow Crispin Sartwell on X: @CrispinSartwell
